The CMA Awards Still Want Nothing to Do With Beyoncé

This ain’t Texas. Photo: Billboard

Eight years after her surprise performance with the Chicks at the CMAs ruffled feathers in Nashville, Beyoncé has been snubbed at this year’s County Music Association Awards for Cowboy Carter. While she previously said the project “ain’t a country album,” but rather “a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” it still hit No. 1 on Billboard’s “Top Country Albums” chart, and its single, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” hit No. 1 on “Hot Country Songs,” both breaking records for Black women in the genre. Even other outsiders and newcomers managed to crack the nominations: Beyoncé’s “Levii’s Jeans” collaborator Post Malone earned four for his hit single “I Had Some Help,” while Shaboozey, who shows up on two Cowboy Carter songs, earned two nominations for his hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” Shaboozey is just one of three Black performers nominated, along with duo the War and Treaty. Morgan Wallen leads the nominations with seven.

Beyoncé distanced herself from Nashville’s institutions before Cowboy Carter came out. In March, she wrote the album “was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” presumably referring to that 2016 performance. Afterward, audience members booed Beyoncé and some musicians said she didn’t belong at the show. “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” she added. In other words, she’s not doing it for the CMAs anyway.