by 900% since 2019, this has skyrocketed and it's mainly because of its special the metals, the precious metals. >> and in this case, it was not just theft, but also murder. >> erika camila. appreciate it. thank you. >> finally tonight. uh, grateful nation paying tribute on this memorial day to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. president biden visited arlington national cemetery where he honored the nation's fallen heroes we'll never, ever, ever stopped working for two more good, more perfect union, which they live. and voice de died four that was their promise that's our promise. are promised today to them the president also spoke of his own personal loss, the death of his son, beau and iraq war veteran saying, i know it hurts thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> stay with us. the cnn documentary, call meme country bianna and nashville's renaissance starts down

this is a person who has a very intense relationship with a very large body of fans. - you went to the concert, and you saw the concert filmed, right? three hours, yes, well-spent. - (singing) i wanna house you and make you take my name i've met so many of my goals, and i just keep making new goals because i'm never satisfied, and i always want to grow. - well, the highly anticipated second act to beyoncé's renaissance project, cowboy carter, dropped last night. - you guys, oh, my god. - i'm crying. - she's the first black woman ever to top the billboard's hot country songs chart.

- there is a public perception about country music that it is a predominantly white genre. - i mean, i've seen people say things like, i didn't know that there were black country singers. - it's kind of an industry that takes care of its own. - it has not been a genre that has been accepting of black people. - you often find partisans of country music saying, well, this is or that ain't country. - beyoncé, honey, you need to stop. - how is that supposed to be country? - that beyoncé bullshit country song? [scoffs] bitch, please. - i think, pretty clearly, what beyoncé is trying to do is shove open a door for other black artists. - when i heard "16 carriages--" - (singing) 16 carriages driving away while i watch them - --i was like, it has begun. [laughs] [music playing]

- we love beyoncé! - beyoncé doesn't do anything small. when she releases an album, she rolls it out and invites the world. - this is the greatest rollout moment of an album ever. beyoncé does a commercial on the super bowl. - the network is crazy powerful. i bet you can't break that. - [laughs] i bet i can. - wait, what? - all of america is already watching. - the whole crux of the verizon commercial is, look at all the ways that i've already broken the internet. look at all the things that i can do that people will lose their minds over-- because i'm beyoncé. - what if i run for president? what if i'm an alien? what if i'm an astronaut? we can handle anything. and then she says-- - ok, they ready. drop the new music. - f*** the game! what? what is she talking about, where is this-- what? did she just say that? did it really mean-- is there new music? - i was not even watching the super bowl.

i was at a performance for a friend and had turned my phone off. and as soon as i got in my car, you would have thought someone had died because there were like 50 messages. have you heard it? did you see it? - part of the excitement with cowboy carter was the suggestion that this would be a country album. the fans are like, yes! let's go. we want this. they love this. - (singing) family live and died in america good ole usa, good ole usa shit, whole lotta red in that white and blue - i mean, there's so much red in the white and blue? it's, you know, the violence that black and brown people have experienced being in america, but not so overt that it's a protest song. we're just saying, america, we have a problem. cowboy carter is a political album, placing herself in country, where we're not supposed to feel welcome.

- it's really finna get real because you have to acknowledge her gift and her talent, and then she's bringing that to a genre that is not used to change. [guitar playing] my love for country music began-- man, i was probably about knee-high to a grasshopper-- put it that way. i was real little. it just came out as, like, i was soaked in it. you know what i'm saying? [laughs] (singing) leading my way like sinatra and on a bad day, yeah, i got a mantra be original, be yourself don't worry about anyone else i grew up in mississippi on a farm, born the son of a preacher. my granddad was a truck driver and farmer. and the backyard was 100 acres. they had duroc hogs, blue turkey, 110 head of chickens,

whiskey stills down off in the bottom. [laughs] (singing) now, every show is sold out to me, i didn't see country as a color, but other people did. (singing) you say you want a country well, country is what i'm playing there's no doubt, i can hold out - aaron has been doing this for a very long time. he's one of those people where it's long overdue for him to see the success that he deserves. - i have a buddy. he said, aaron, i want you to meet this guy. he was an artist. he plays at the grand ole opry and everything. i ain't going to drop no names. so i asked him where he was from, and he's like, california. and i said, all right, i'm from mississippi. and he's like, so what do you do? rap? and i was like, whoa, he went for the sweet move. and i'm like, nah, bro, i do traditional country.

and it was-- and that was it. he didn't say too much, and he just walked off. yeah, so, he's a white country artist, and he has all this opportunity. and look at his attitude towards somebody he don't know, and he just seen a color. so that gave me more fire to keep doing me, keep writing what i write, keep living my life, and don't worry about artists like that. because artists like that got it made in the shade. i ain't got it made in the shade. - the country music industry has not done any work to make black people feel safe in the music. we have just been so overlooked. - you cannot be scared of what country looks like. country ain't never been a color. when i first heard the two singles drop, i was like, uh, shit, that's country. [laughs] (singing) 16 car-- man, what?

- i have always felt that beyoncé has a sort of national personality where everybody can see themselves reflected. - (singing) say my name, say my name when no one is around you - beyoncé obviously coming out of destiny's child, an r&b girl group. - (singing) uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, oh, no, no - the solo career starts, psh, explodes.

- (singing) get me bodied - she's somebody who has never really been beholden to genre in a way that was limiting to her, whether that be pop, whether that be r&b. she seems to move to the next thing. - (singing) to the left, to the left i write the songs that i need to hear, and that i feel other women need to hear. and i'm all about empowerment and the strength that we have when we unite as women. - beyoncé had come to be seen as an artist for everyone, someone that a lot of white women could gravitate towards. - i've kind of broken barriers, and i don't think people think about my race. i think they look at me as an entertainer and a musician. - she would do all of the things that a pop star has to do. but when she moves into lemonade, she moves into the space where she is reflecting a world that she wants to see. - this is a woman who shouted out the black panthers at the super bowl. - it is a notion of, "we have arrived,

and we're taking up space, and we're not going to ask you for permission to do that." i think "formation" was really one of the first times that people had to stop and be like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. the "formation" video came out at a time when there was so much commentary happening around the black lives matter movement. we have her singing about how much she loves her negro nose and her jackson 5 nostrils. - (singing) i like my negro nose with jackson 5 nostrils - these are choices that beyoncé is making that relate to her own maturation as a human being. - trayvon did not have to die. we all know the reason why. - looking at the way black people are treated and standing up for women who have been wronged by society. - there was a time when a woman's opinion did not matter. if you were black, white, mexican, asian, muslim, educated, poor or rich, if you were a woman,

it did not matter. look how far we've come from having no voice. (singing) you won't break my soul - renaissance is about black women and queer people, and it is this powerful upliftment. - i see you. i love you. i center you. and then she comes with a country album. (singing) this ain't texas, woo! ain't no hold 'em - my banjo being on a world recognized song is just kind of blowing my mind. (singing) so park your lexus - tiktoks of black people dancing to the sound of my banjo? stop. that banjo represents hundreds of years of our history, whether people know it or not. [banjo playing] the banjo is an instrument invented by people of the african diaspora in the caribbean. - enslaved people brought versions of the banjo to the united states over on the ships.

- and then it makes its way up with them to north america and becomes a central part of black life. and there are loads of white people playing music to it. - it took the scottish, the africans, native american people to come together. i'm going to borrow this, and i'm going to borrow this, and i'm going to borrow this. and like, it's like gumbo. - what happens, then, is a couple of things. you have the great migration, a lot of black people leaving the south, and then you also have the recording industry coming in. they're wanting to sell music to certain people. - what was called "hillbilly music" in the 1920s and what were called "race records" around the same time was basically code for a certain brand of white music and a certain brand of black music. eventually, race records evolved into what's known as rhythm and blues or r&b. what's known as hillbilly became country. - it was like the ultimate capitalist decision to split these things in half.

- they create the segregation, and then we have perpetuated it as the music industry has grown. this is not like, oh, black people are getting into country-- no, no, no, no, no, no, no. like, we've been in country music, right? - you can go back to, like, the first family of country music, the carter family. - (singing) oh, he taught me to love him and promised to love - carter specifically had this very distinct playing style. well, it came from a black man. it came from lesley riddle. and of course, that historically has always been attributed to ma carter, when that's actually lesley riddle. - i mean, one of the earliest stars of the grand ole opry in the 1920s was deford bailey, the so-called "harmonica wizard." [playing harmonica] - there were literally black artists there from the first night that the grand ole opry began. linda martell. - (singing) yoodle-la-di-eee-eee - she was the highest black woman to chart until beyoncé. and this was in the late '60s. - of course, charley pride.

- (singing) we'll walk the fields together - charley pride had 29 number ones on country radio. - he succeeded in spite of the fact that he was black, not because he was black, you know what i mean? - if you take hank williams, sr., for example, he fused the blues with country music. - (singing) i tried so hard, my dear - so it has a very inherently black inspiration in our genre that happened with the godfather of country music. so this started a long, long time ago. it seemed to be that we've gotten away from that somewhere along the way. - we have to remember it is an industry. people who are in power decided this is what the nashville sound is. - nashville is the gateway to country music. it is not only the center of country the way, say, the movie and television business is centered in hollywood. it really is kind of the arbiter of what country

music is. there's no one faction that controls nashville wholly, but it's kind of an industry that takes care of its own. - the idea that it only happens in country music is a little misleading. there is definitely gatekeeping happening in hip-hop. there's a ton of gatekeeping that happens in jazz. - i think a lot of people still think that this is like a meritocracy, and that's absolutely not true. - greed is driving the train. - everyone has a boss. the bosses have bosses. the top bosses have shareholders. there's this constant chain of fear, which slows down progress. - the thing that they know for sure how to do is to market white men. - the mount rushmore of country today would be morgan wallen, luke combs, luke bryan, jason aldean, still be kenny chesney up there, keith urban. it's generally held by label heads in nashville

that it's a bad bet to give a contract to a female singer. - (singing) when they bury our dreams we push them up through concrete we're growing where-- - i will never forget this. i'm sitting in the hallway at a major label in nashville. i can hear them playing the music. and everything sounds really positive, and everyone's laughing, and they're talking. oh, this sounds so pretty. oh, it's good. blah, blah, blah. and then, everybody peeks out the window, and i'm like, hi. and then suddenly, you know, suddenly it's like, oh, well, we got to figure out how to find songs for someone like her. let's tweak some things with her accent. maybe we need to figure out how to build an audience for someone like her. - black people have a hard time in country music. queer people have a hard time in country music. but even white women have a hard time in country music. - if you ask one country radio executive, he says the key to success is leaving the women out. - tomato gate is a flare-up that

happened when a radio programmer was quoted saying that-- - to maximize radio listenership, women should be like tomatoes in a larger salad of male artists-- never played back to back and never more than about 20% of the mix. - all of a sudden i was this idiot saying, take women off radio. - the lettuce is luke bryan and blake shelton and keith urban and artists like that. - we're not thinking about gender fairness. we're just trying to make money. there are certain things that make ratings go down. every country radio station in a rated market, you won't find anybody playing over 20% females. not a single one. - the sad thing about that comment was that it does largely reflect reality as country radio programmers understand it. - however dismal that number is for white women, it's a fraction of a fraction for black women. i believe we make up 0.03%.

since its inception, there have only been eight black women to be on the billboard country charts. i am one of them. - there are 1,000 ways i can respond to the question of, how do we make radio more diverse? but fundamentally, we don't want to. - i don't think that there's any financial incentive for them right now to try to figure out how to market a black woman, because up until beyoncé, there was no reason. - in a country where we think there's racism-- and there is-- there is no racism by country radio. if you give me a great record, i don't care what your skin color is. if the beyoncé record is the best record, i'll play it more than anyone else.

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so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. - country music is supposedly three chords and the truth. but one of the open questions about country music is, who's delivering that truth? - who gets to say what country is, what the south is about? - beyoncé told you years and years ago that she will never take the country out of her because that's who she is culturally.

she grew up going to the houston rodeo. when she came back to the rodeo a couple of years later as a solo artist, she wrote into the stadium on the back of a horse. - when you look at the cover art of cowboy carter, she's representing that rodeo queen. - she's from the south. my parents are from louisiana, alabama. do i not to get to have a say in what the south should sound like? - i'm stoked that beyoncé is tapping into her texas roots. (singing) time is ticking like it always does it flies right by there's so much music culture in texas, and i think country is an important dimension of that music. (singing) you can do to quell i grew up on the outskirts of houston, and i grew up obsessed with country music. as a young black girl, listening to country music, it didn't feel strange to me.

that was all i listened to. and that really formed the foundation for what i think of as a great song. and i always carried that with me. the first time i lived in nashville was in the early 2000s, which was a starkly different experience as a black queer artist than i'm having now. i'm not sure that the music culture had been pressed enough to diversify that i could find my place. (singing) say my name i started to experiment with electronic music and r&b. in the quarantine of 2020, i found myself just reaching for something that felt like home. (singing) i've wandered off from here to houston, looking for a place that i can call my own in nashville, we are seeing some evolution, but there are ceilings that i can't even feel that i don't--

i'm not even aware of because i can only get so far. - people are placed into the box of, you're a black woman. you can only do this. you should only be doing this. these are the boundaries that we've established for you. roam free, but roam free within those boundaries. people have tried to put whatever labels or whatever boundaries or limitations on beyoncé. she's been able to stop and say, no, this is who i am. - the first song on the album, "american requiem." see, this is the critical line. - (singing) used to say, i spoke too country and then rejection came, said i wasn't country enough - they used to say i was too country. then i wasn't country enough. whatever you think of cowboy carter, this is a revenge album. i'm going to come back with the baddest country album you've ever seen, and i will show you up at your own game.

- before act two, beyoncé came out with a statement on social media and shared that this album was born out of an experience that i had years ago where i did not feel welcomed. - you can only assume she's referring to the 2016 cma awards when she performed "daddy lessons" with the chicks. - (singing) with his head held high, he told me not to cry oh, my daddy said shoot oh, my daddy said shoot - it definitely made me think of that moment, while i was at the cmas myself, to see beyoncé in my hometown of nashville with the chicks, this is probably the best moment of my life. then, an audience member in front of me proceeds to say, get that black bitch off the stage right now. i remember instantly kind of being taken back to reality in that moment to realize that there's like a threat of black people being in this genre for some reason. for beyoncé to not be welcomed feels like a gut punch.

- the crowd in the arena seemed to enjoy the performance, but the social media universe was another story. - some country music fans were not happy about beyoncé's presence. - after the awards, the cmas published her performance on social media that some people were using to denounce beyoncé being there or for outright racism. - that's right, folks. beyoncé performed at the cmas last night and is on a mission to take country music away from us hardworking white people. - beyoncé did not belong there, even looked out of place. keep country, country. - i don't know why they feel country is so precious that it cannot be entered by beyoncé from houston. but here we are. - it wasn't out of the norm to have someone like beyoncé there. the cma awards, every single year, they book a pop star because they want to get as many eyeballs on the presentation as possible. - i was skep--

i am on record of being skeptical when she came out with "daddy lessons." what angered me about it was that it overshadowed, you know, two other performers of color who were kind of naturally there, charley pride, and then myself as a guest of eric church, having me sing on his song that's all about like turning hate into love and getting rid of these words of anger. and that upset me that that was overshadowed. - i'm not gonna lie. my feelings were hurt a little bit because there is a black woman standing on a stage that i wanted to be on and had never been invited to be a part of, even though i was very much a part of the community and had worked very hard to be a part of the community. - just because of the race of an artist doesn't necessarily mean that's the reason they're not being embraced by country fans.

there are dozens of pop stars or stars from other genres coming to country music and getting a cold shoulder. - there have been attempts at crossover in country music by everyone from jewel to jon bon jovi that have not really taken. - beyoncé far and away is not the only one. - lil nas x is a black southern man who stumbled across a beat that sounded to him like country music. and instantly, lil nas x said, i can do something with this. - (singing) cowboy hat from gucci, wrangler on my booty - he recorded a song that he called "old town road." he talked about having wrangler on his booty. can't nobody tell me nothing. and he just thought a cowboy song with this banjo sample would be an instant success. and he was right.

- i want to say thank you to every single person who has made this moment possible for me. - it was only when billboard was told by factions within nashville, we don't consider this a country record, that billboard decided to pull "old town road" off of the hot country songs chart, and then all hell broke loose. - a hit song is sparking controversy over what country music should sound like. - billboard pulled it, decided it wasn't country enough. - "old town road," a song that billboard actually removed from the country charts because it wasn't country enough. - is it because this is somebody who's new to nashville, didn't record in nashville? is it because he's black? does his race matter? these were the kinds of questions folks were asking. - billboard responded to the backlash by saying their decision to take the song off the country chart had absolutely nothing to do with the race of the artist. - that was billboard, as an institution,

unilaterally deciding that is where that song resides. that was not country music's decision, but unfortunately, country music got lumped with all of that. i think it's also important to note that lil nas x was invited to the cma awards. it's also important to note that he won a cma award for his collaboration with billy ray cyrus. - billy ray cyrus was approached and asked, would you participate in a remix of "old town road"? and he said, yeah, because he wanted to help lil nas x point a finger and pose a question to nashville. if i add a white country singer and a cowboy hat to the song, does it instantly become an actual country song? - "old town road" was all of me. it was everything that i'd been raised on my whole life by banjo and bluegrass and solid country hook.

if country music fans dig it, then it's country. - even though billboard magazine never let it back on its hot country songs chart, it established that "old town road" had kind of been a country song all along. - it did not stop there. it just blew him up to the biggest possible proportion. so when we think about an album like cowboy carter that gets people asking questions to the institutions, so i think that is the major thing that is going to assist artists of color and queer artists and being able to move forward.

- if i were to point to a period where country music started wrestling with its identity, i would say the killing of george floyd in 2020. - there are demonstrations going on right now all across the country. people on the streets in the middle of a pandemic protesting the killing of george floyd in minneapolis. - that prompted a reckoning across the country that led to country music asking, are we contributing to this environment, and can we be more welcoming? - george floyd and sandra bland and ahmaud arbery got us as a country to start

thinking about these things. and country music finally had to sit with itself. - and a lot of people put out statements and posted black squares and talked about the action that they were going to take. - it was very much, how can we put a band-aid on this? instead of wanting to do the inner work and inner healing that is required to create meaningful change when something like that happens. - it took mickey guyton 10 years to get her debut album to be released. george floyd had to die for this woman to put out a song that got recognized by the industry. - (singing) and if you think we live - she's recorded records like "black like me--" - (singing) you should try to be, oh, black like me - --where the subtext of her being a black female country artist is now the text. and, you know, if country music is three chords and the truth,

that's mickey guyton's truth and she's singing about it. - country music is always evolving, but when it does that, there's this, like, push and pull between what it used to be, where it wants to go, and where other people are pushing it. - in 2021, tj osborne, one of the two brothers osborne, came out as gay. this is remarkable in the country music industry for a mainstream country act. - before i came out, it was like these-- i felt very, like, stiff anywhere i went. well, you know, i was micromanaging every move. (singing) don't give me that look, that "let me down easy" smile i would sit still and hold a guitar and sing into a microphone. i didn't want to do anything or say anything that might bring questions that

would make me uncomfortable. (singing) i'm right back where i'm really home - when tj came out to me, i felt relieved for him that he was able to tell me something like that. i knew that he wasn't having to carry that weight. secrets are heavy, and that one must have been a metric ton. and i cried genuine, happy tears. i was proud of him. i was happy to know that he, like the rest of us, has been able to experience the complexities of life and love, unfortunately, in secret. but i felt like that was the first day of the rest of our lives as brothers. - i know that i wanted to come out publicly, but how we were going to get there was years in the making.

in the video, "stay a little longer," we put a gay couple and an interracial couple. and there was a lot of people that had a huge problem with all of those things. and it was like kind of odd because it was like we were seen as allies, which was amazing. but the whole time, it was like kind of seemed phony to me because i'm gay. and so as it went on, it was like, ok, we're gonna do this. it came out in time magazine. i didn't even get to read the article, or i had no idea what was about to happen. it was also challenging because i didn't want it to be perceived as attention seeking. i just wanted it to kind of happen and move on with my life. but things really changed in an instant for me. - i hope you feel the tsunami of love that is headed-- that has been heading your way ever since you spoke out. - and i did feel a sense of purpose i'd never felt before.

being able to truly, completely be myself and be happy, i had fallen back in love with what we did again, more than i'd ever had before. i felt, like, a closeness with our fans that i never felt before. i didn't know what to expect. i mean, i did not expect this. this is incredible. thank you. - yeah! - if i could go back now from here and tell myself where i would be, like, oh, my god, i would never believe that i would have ended up here. younger me came out of that. the very last line of the song, "you got me where i am today, got a few things right along the way, you'll see. just wait, younger me." - i'm almost getting teary eyed saying it now. it's all part of living. life is scary, and it's kind of messy and ugly sometimes. but if you push through, then beautiful things will happen.

and i think our lives are proof of that. at the end of the day, the people that will make the biggest impact are the artists. - you know i love it when you sing along. this is one of my favorite songs of all time. it's called "fast car." - luke combs recorded that song just to be an album cut, just almost as like a fun thing, maybe a tribute to tracy chapman. it was a song that he sung all the time when he was growing up. - (singing) you got a fast car i want a ticket to anywhere - so the reason that "fast car" became this big hit was completely organically, which is the new market that we're seeing opening up in country music and changing the paradigm that puts radio first. - so much of country music is built on singing other people's songs, being able to appreciate the people who create it and where it comes from. "fast car" is a song created by a black woman. - (singing) maybe we'll make something me, myself, i got nothing to prove

- to see tracy chapman on the grammy award stage with him in 2024 was an incredible moment because it was him stepping back and allowing her to have that moment. - the success of combs's rendition makes chapman the first black female songwriter to top the country airplay chart. - we can't overlook that this was the first solo black woman to get these accolades. and so when i hear just sort of the knee-jerk reaction of like, well, anyone who doesn't like beyoncé making country songs must be racist, i think about all these moments here. - to see her being recognized for the powerhouse songwriter that she is was incredible. i wish that it had been for her version. luke combs took a lot of flack, some deserved, some not deserved. but i really loved the performance that he did on the grammys. it had been the first time that she'd performed in years,

and it was the most poignant moment of that whole evening, and rightfully so. and so i liked him centering her in that moment. and i wish more people would do that.

this current moment that we're having right now, you have this influx of black artists coming in.

and it seems like there's this renaissance. you've got madeleine edwards, shaboozey, camille parker, kane brown. you've got darius being a modern-day charley pride. - we've built upon so much of a legacy. you had rissi palmer in the 2000s. and then we have holly g kind of coming in and taking the torch again and creating black opry for all of us artists to come together and to thrive collectively and individually. - when i'm at the black opry, i'm thinking i'm the only person around that's black doing traditional country. - (singing) spring take me right on into summer - i met so many black artists, and it was like a homecoming. and then when we started passing the guitar around playing, i was like, wow! - (singing) it was six days and seven nights in myrtle beach - (singing) and tennessee blues

- we wanna share our stories, just like luke bryan and just like morgan wallen. - woo! woo, woo! [applause] - and the thing that we have working in our favor that our predecessors did not is the internet and streaming. you still need country radio, but the music is getting out directly to the fans. and for that, i think we all can be extremely grateful, because i know for me, i wouldn't have a career anymore if it weren't for that. - i know beyoncé has an incredible, glittering resume, but the deep relationship with the fans is the true accolade. we revere her like a queen, and we will follow her to wherever she wants to go and whatever she wants to make. ok, "jolene" is next, one of the monsters of this album.

i love that she takes "jolene" and makes it her own. - dolly parton, she's been saying forever that she would love to hear beyoncé sing "jolene." - (singing) jolene, jolene, jolene, jolene - and, like, i think it honors the original song-- - (singing) please don't take him just because you can - --while putting beyoncéness into it. - (singing) i'm still a creole banjee bitch from louisianne don't try me - oh, my god. like-- - we love you. - we love you. - we love you, beyoncé. thank you so much for everything you did for music industry. - i think whenever beyoncé enters into a conversation, through no fault of her own, i think it automatically takes all the air out of the room. like you automatically are going to look at the unicorn.

like, you know what i mean? and so, i've seen people say some really hurtful things, like that she is the reason black people are in country music. and it's like we've been working at this for a very long time. and i don't think it's her intention. but yeah, i do think that some of it does take the attention away. - i do have a fear that this moment could take attention away from women of color in country music. now, that said, there has been some data that that's actually not the case. - beyoncé's new album, cowboy carter, has boosted streams for black country artists on spotify. - i've often said in a lot of interviews that it would take beyoncé putting the banjo on her song to, like, blow this up, right? turns out that that was kind of right because that has really blown everything kind of wide open

and given a spotlight from more mainstream sources. but my question is, what happens going forward, right? we can't just go, oh, it's done. yay! because like, you know, when the dust is settled and the next record comes out, then what happens? - to all the record labels, every radio station, every award show, my hope is that we're more open to the joy and liberation that comes from enjoying art with no preconceived notions. [cheering] - this is a gigantic moment for black people who live in the country space. beyoncé is just here, and she's out. but tanner adell lives here. willie jones, rhiannon giddens live here. so she's absolutely changing the lives of some of the people who already lived in this world. [guitar playing]

- when i look at my career now, i'm more than blessed because i'm in my skin. it's going to get better. a whole lot better. it's gonna take love and appreciation of all kinds and all colors of country. (singing) yeah, and i've been used to changing you can feel it in the song i'm singing between the laughter and tears all my life, i've been shifting gears all my life-- - i've just got invited to make my debut at the grand ole opry this summer. (singing) when i close my eyes at night then i awaken to light the money i made the grand ole opry is a rite of passage for a country artist.

(singing) i want to live i want to live it is also an opportunity to get in front of one of the largest country audiences in the world. (singing) i'm gonna drive in my car i'm gonna go to the store i'm gonna go for a run then i'm gonna come right back home

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