This Ain't Texas No More! Beyoncé and the Black Banjo Renaissance

Abstract: Beyoncé engaged with the Black Banjo Renaissance in her 2024 album, Cowboy Carter . This highly venerated social figure highlights country music's commercial operation relationship to the aesthetic boundaries and mythologies embedded in country music's lore of white authenticity. The relationship between commercial spectacle and the grassroots efforts of the Black Banjo Renaissance is the essay's central theme, demonstrating how authenticity-focused discourse about Cowboy Carter perpetuates misdirected energy on the Black Banjo Renaissance that reinforces the systems of capitalism that hinder the banjo's proliferation in African American culture. Fieldwork with the trans-local community of Black banjo players paired with archival research and popular music studies informs much of this work. Navigating these cultural landscapes is complex, requiring the need for listening to working class musicians about Black community and bodily sovereignty, liberation, and self-determination.