The Black Lyric Tradition

Apr 8

On Good Friday, Beyoncé blessed us with her country album: COWBOY CARTER and already, Grammy talks are circling with the album reaching the same levels of success as Lemonade in 2016. This, of course, is not surprising (considering that this is Beyoncé we’re talking about); but what is surprising is that after a more than twenty year career primarily based in Pop and R&B, Beyoncé would choose to dip her toes into country, a genre very few people would associate with black musicians, let alone women. More surprising are the songs and the notably non-country genres she chose to reference throughout the album.

Songs like “BLACKBIIRD” originally from the Beatles (who I imagine need no introduction) are sung alongside artists like Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts, drawing attention to the fact that not only are there contemporary black women making country music, but also that the song was originally written in honor of black women during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. She both covers Dolly Parton in “JOLENE” and collaborates with her in “DOLLY P” and “TYRANT” while also pulling from Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys in “YA YA.”

Most notable (for my purposes, at least) is the sixth song in the album: “SMOKE HOUR * WILLIE NELSON '' which samples five different genres ranging from Blues to Ragtime to Rock and Roll to Soul over the course of 26 seconds. Now I could probably spend pages analyzing the deeper meaning behind these (many people have, they are referenced below), but as the title of this blog would suggest, I am more interested in the discussion this brings up about the black lyric tradition.

Beyoncé is not the first person to reference or collaborate with black artists and black history in her work, even if she is one of, if not the first to do it in this specific way. In her creative choices in COWBOY CARTER, Beyonce is referencing the very foundations of not just black music but black lyrics in general.

Consider how modern-day rappers will sample from original Hip Hop artists of the 80s who sampled from Soul in the 60s who referenced from Jazz in the 20s who developed their style from Ragtime which came from Blues which had its origins in slave hymns. Labi Saffire is widely recognized as “the sample king” because he appears in countless rap albums spanning from his primetime in the early 70s and late 80s to modern day, while Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles are perhaps the most iconic collaboration of all time.

In the 2018 song that infiltrated our entire culture “Nice For What,” Drake is queued in by Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” arguably one of the most popular Hip Hop songs of the 90s. Of course he’s not the only one. ”Ex-Factor” is also sampled by Kehlani, Cardi B, Lil B, and Omarion while Lauryn Hill in general is referenced and sampled by quite literally countless modern day rappers and R&B artists.

Lauryn Hill herself, between her solo album and with the Fugees, notably samples from the likes of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (1996/ 1972) Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” (1996/ 1973) and Stevie Wonder’s “Village Ghetto Land” (1976) in her song “Every Ghetto, Every City” (1998). And truly you would be shocked to realize the resemblance Coolio and L.V.’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” bears to Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”.

Now, I’m not listing out all of these songs simply because I find it interesting (though I really do), but because I’m trying to demonstrate how intertwined black lyrics are by nature. Of course there are plenty of white artists who do this as well (i.e. boygenuis, Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton in that one song, etc.) but truly not to the extent that black artists take it. This isn’t out of a lack of creativity but out of respect for and a participation in a largely untold history which is a result of illiteracy practices among slaveholders in Antebellum America.

Nearly a century ago, in his 1925 poem “Heritage” Countee Cullen struggled with the fact that African Americans have become largely disconnected from the ‘African’ part of their ancestry, asking “What is Africa to me:/ Copper sun or scarlet sea,” meaning is Africa home, or just the place we were stolen from? Later, in his short story “The Outing,” James Baldwin returns to the idea of the “copper sun” and the question of heritage, disconnection and our place as Americans. Shayla Lawson dedicates an entire poetry collection (“I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean”) to Frank Ocean's lyrics which often discuss police brutality and racial profiling.

Meanwhile, Alice Walker brought attention to Nella Larson (who’s work Passing inspired The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett) and Zora Neale Hurston who referenced Fredick Douglass’s autobiography in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. Meanwhile Fredrick Douglass talks about the crucial role slave hymns played in his freedom in that same exact work which, as previously mentioned, is what has ultimately led to the various genres of music we have today.

By building off one another through a diverse array of forms and genres black artists have in many ways flipped the script and taken hold of their own narrative in a truly empowering way. We as contemporary consumers would not have access to this history without black creators working together to transcribe and communicate that narrative. In doing so, these creators have also connected to the deeper ancestral tradition of oral history which Beyoncé taps into in COWBOY CARTER.

Just because country music has been widely dominated by white men doesn’t mean a black woman can’t participate in it, especially when black people invented the genre in the first place. Similarly, just because music talks about the black experience doesn’t mean black people are the only ones who can or should experience it. So, perhaps you are not a Beyoncé fan (it’s okay, you are safe here) or maybe country music isn’t exactly your thing or maybe you just don’t like music in general— regardless, surely this reclamation and opportunity for us all to move outside our comfort zones and diversify our taste is something to celebrate in and of itself. Remember, we are all in this world together and the variety of ways we experience music and language only serves to remind us of that.

Strike Out.

Writer: Knia Robinson

Blog Editor: Sarah Singleton

The Black Lyric Tradition

The Jane Birkin Effect—Covering the Woman-Owned Brand: DÔEN

Rags to Riches