When Beyoncé announced “Cowboy Carter” in 2024, she said the album was inspired by a time when she “did not feel welcomed” by the entrenched Nashville establishment.
“Because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” Beyoncé explained on Instagram. “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me.”
Many fans speculate the pivotal event was the 2016 CMA Awards, where The Chicks joined Beyoncé for a duet of “Daddy Lessons,” a standout country song from her then-new album, “Lemonade.”
During their performance, cutaways to the audience seemed to betray a sense of discomfort. Some people reportedly walked out.
The Chicks later confirmed they felt a frosty reception from the room: “They treated us very weird backstage,” Natalie Maines told The New York Times in 2020. “For them to disrespect her that way was disgusting.”
Reactions on social media were similarly harsh, often turning outright racist. As Vox reported at the time, the CMA Awards fanned the flames by removing a promotional video that featured Beyoncé from its social media accounts.
Later that year, AP News reported that Beyoncé’s team had submitted “Daddy Lessons” to country categories at the Grammys, but the Recording Academy’s country committee had rejected it.
In public, however, country musicians defended the song, including Blake Shelton, Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town, and Dierks Bentley, who told AP News, “There is just something intangible about it that it feels like a country song.”
More recently, Beyoncé kicked off her Cowboy Carter Tour, which features “Daddy Lessons” on the set list — much to the delight of the Beyhive. “DADDY LESSONS!! THE REASON WE ARE ALL HERE,” one fan wrote on X.
