{"id":33029,"date":"2024-03-01T09:35:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T14:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=33029"},"modified":"2024-03-01T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T14:35:12","slug":"can-beyonce-take-on-country-no-one-loves-a-diva-like-country-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/03\/can-beyonce-take-on-country-no-one-loves-a-diva-like-country-music.html","title":{"rendered":"Can Beyonc\u00e9 Take On Country? No One Loves a Diva Like Country Music"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"beyonce\"<\/a>
Access Hollywood\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beyonc\u00e9 has gone country. In anticipation of her upcoming new album, the iconic entertainer released two singles with some serious twang. \u201c16 Carriages\u201d and \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em\u201d have soared up the streaming charts, with \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em\u201d debuting at Number 1 on the Billboard <\/em>Hot Country Songs chart. When one of the most prominent artists in the world decides to shift genres, although Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s work has always touched on her Southern roots, it\u2019s bound to touch a few nerves.<\/p>\n

This is the same Beyonc\u00e9 who\u2019s been R&B royalty for years, who upset critics with her unapologetically Black Super Bowl halftime show in 2016, and whose 2023 Renaissance World Tour was a traveling showcase of pride, glamour and diversity of all kinds. She\u2019s a strange fit for the slowly evolving, white, conservative country world, or is she? After all, no one loves a diva like country music. Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, and Dolly Parton are only the beginning. Since women broke into country music in the \u201850s, they\u2019ve been taking us to heaven with their teased hair, blinding us with rhinestones and singing songs that celebrate the complexity and power of womanhood.<\/p>\n

What makes a diva different from other performers? Of course, there\u2019s a look epitomized in the authentic, confident glamor of Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, and Mariah Carey. \u201cDiva\u201d was initially an opera term for female singers whose fame and talent made them nearly divine in the eyes of their admirers. The expectation of a big, mighty voice has carried through the times, in Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Carrie Underwood. A diva is timeless and is typically used to describe women with long, illustrious careers, like Celine Dion, Cher, Gloria Estefan, and Reba McEntire. However, other definitions can complicate the terms.<\/p>\n

Being a diva suggests a particular kind of womanly arrogance. Much like the word \u2018slut,\u2019 it has no equally powerful corresponding masculine term. Speaking specifically of Black divas, they sing about triumph, love, dating, dancing, and transcendence, typically over the neck of some man in particular or men in general. That may not sound like country music, but consider this: In a genre historically monopolized by White men and conservative notions, what kind of woman dares to make it to the top? Challenging a man in some way, even surpassing him in success, that\u2019s diva behavior.<\/p>\n