The nominations for this year’s upcoming Country Music Awards have been announced, and after Beyoncé received a total of zero nominations, the CMAs are once again receiving understandable backlash.
“WHERE’S BEYONCÉ?!” a fan asked on a CMA Instagram post announcing the Best New Artist nominees.
“Y’all forgetting the one female country single that went number 1 and stayed in the top 10 for weeks is shocking tbh,” another commented under a post about the Best Single nominees in reference to Beyoncé’s history-making “Texas Hold ‘Em” — which debuted at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 before climbing to number one and remaining there for ten straight weeks. She was the first Black woman to have a number-one country song in Billboard history.
“Y’all aren’t even hiding the racism at this point,” another commented.
In a post on Threads, a user wrote, “Beyoncé[‘s] Cowboy Carter is truly a musical masterpiece. Beyoncé is undeniably one of the BEST artists in the entertainment industry. The fact that the CMA’s made sure to not even give her a nomination is just proof that you can be great and you can be THE BEST, but if you’re black, you’re not good enough. The racism is blatant and REAL.”
Some fans theorized that the songstress declined to perform, so the awarding body declined to nominate her.
In addition to Beyoncé’s snub, fans are in an uproar over the lack of nominated female artists beyond specifically female categories and the fact that only one Black artist, Beyoncé collaborator Shaboozy, is nominated.
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Among all CMA nominees, there is, on average, only one female nominee per category. Shaboozy, who had his own chart-topping breakout hit this year with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” secured Best New Artist and Single of the Year nominations. Another “Cowboy Carter” collaborator who managed to earn their first-ever CMA nomination includes Post Malone, who has earned four.
Meanwhile, given the CMAs’ history of being white and male-dominated, there are plenty who are unsurprised by the perceived snubs.
“I’m not shocked AT ALL by the CMA’s leaving Beyoncé out of their nominations this year. While I feel that it’s complete BS on their part, I think we need to have a conversation about how Beyoncé dropped that album and then went on about her business,” a user wrote on Threads, issuing a reminder of the genesis of “Cowboy Carter.”
“Her plan was to kick the door open for others while also educating and making a statement with her music, which she did,” another noted on Threads.
The impetus behind “Cowboy Carter” was to assert not just the 32-time Grammy winner’s place in country music but also Black Americans’ right to reclaim a genre in which we have a founding legacy. As she said when initially announcing the album, Beyoncé’s inspiration behind the second act of her “Renaissance” project stemmed from a 2016 performance of “Daddy Lessons” at the CMAs with the Dixie Chicks, in which she did not feel welcomed.
Whether awarding bodies agree or not, “Cowboy Carter” was a sensation. Beyoncé’s eighth studio album broke streaming records across platforms and dominated the music charts. Its collaborative elements also spotlighted several other Black country artists, including Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Shaboozy, and Willie Jones.
Following the nomination announcement, Shaboozy wrote in a post on X, “That goes without saying. Thank you [Beyoncé] for opening a door for us, starting a conversation, and giving us one of the most innovative country albums of all time.”
