Redefining the Status Quo
Article By: Krubel Berhe / Art By: Jillian Hartshorne
Ever since pop culture was invented back in the 1920’s, there have been many set stereotypes associated with certain genres and pieces of culture. Most of these stereotypes have white people at the forefront of these different genres and cultures like rock music, or electronic music, but most of all country music and westerns. Country music and westerns are at the root of American culture since its primary goal is to reflect life in America, however what has been hidden from the public view of country music is that black people played a vital role in making it what it is today. Luckily, there have been two major projects released in the last 2 years dedicated to bringing black people back into the mainstream conversation regarding country music and westerns.
The first of these projects being Beyonce’s 2024 award winning album Cowboy Carter. The second installment in Beyoncé’s Acts trilogy dedicated to shining a light on genres that black people have been shunned out of. This time around Beyoncé focuses on country since she was born and raised in Houston and that genre of music played a big part in her upbringing. The album celebrates different styles of country music ranging from folk to opera and reframes it to show how black people got a lot of this started. There’s a line from the opening song American Requiem that says “Used to say I spoke too country and then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough, said I wouldn’t saddle up, but if that ain’t country, tell me what is”. The entire album is a personal journey for Beyonce reclaiming an integral part of her culture back and uplifting the influential voices that came before her and giving new voices a platform to show their talents. She’s breaking out of the chains that were placed on her and her ancestors to pave the way for future generations and doing so on the biggest stages.
The second project is Ryan Coogler’s smash hit Sinners from 2025. A southern fable about community, gentrification, and vampires. This movie follows a boy named Sammy struggling to choose between following in his father’s footsteps or pursue his love for the blues and music when his twin cousins come back to town to start up their very own juke joint but as the night goes on dark forces start to emerge. In one of the most inventive scenes of this century, Sammy plays music and breaks the threshold between cultures of the past, present, and future. During this scene we see visions of electronic music, rock music, and trap music from the future and what do all these things have in common? The people playing all these different genres of music are black. We started all this, but we’ve been kicked out of these spaces for decades. Coogler places this as the most integral scene of the film placing us in the spotlight that we’ve desired for all these years. The antagonist of the film, Remmick is also a product of white supremacists taking whatever they want from others without remorse and for profit and he turns into that when he tries to take Sammy’s talent away in order to preserve his own culture and identity that was stolen from him. In the end, Sammy defeats him and decides to pursue his passion for music because he knows every time he gets on that stage he’s celebrating those who came before him and his friends who died on that fateful night. So, how does the vampire tale correspond with Beyonce’s country epic?
Sinners and Cowboy Carter are two sides of the same coin. Black artists at the top of their game making something that celebrates spaces that black people were never welcomed in yet have always been apart of and places them in the mainstream. Both Sinners and Cowboy Carter recognize how music is the string that connects all cultures together so much so that Sinners could be considered a musical of some sort. One of the closing lines from Cowboy Carter is “This house was built with blood and bone and it crumbled, yes, it crumbled, the statues they made were beautiful but they were lies of stone, they were lies of stone.” and to correspond a line from Sinners is “Blues wasn’t forced on us like that religion. Nah, son, we brought this with us from home.”. Both lines critique how the black community has been battered down by oppressive systems and forced ways of life, but how we continue to push through and create something beautiful and authentic. On a less introspective note, both Sinners and Cowboy Carter received mass attention and acclaim with Cowboy Carter winning several Grammys including Album of the Year and Sinners just passed $350M at the box office and is speculated to receive attention during award session which is huge because horror movies are famously shunned from award season.
If there’s one thing these pieces of art are saying is that no matter how much we are taken out of conversation or shunned from the general public, black people are at the root of nearly everything in pop culture. We started country, we started rock, we started house, and we go bigger and bolder every time. There’s no stopping in sight no matter what’s thrown at us. We are breaking the shackles that have been placed on us and reinventing the things we started and have been kicked out of.
