Darius Rucker believes Beyoncé‘s new album is good for country music.
The “Ya Ya” hitmaker released Cowboy Carter in March, and Rucker — who pivoted to country music back in 2008 — has now hailed Beyoncé’s recent switch to a country-inspired sound.
“I’m happy for her. I’m happy for the genre,” he told Us Weekly.
“The eyes that she brought to country music went up, and that’s always a good thing when you have more people watching country music,” the former Hootie and the Blowfish singer added.
Rucker also hopes that other Black musicians will follow the same path as Beyoncé.
“I hope what she’s done translates even more than it already has to more people of color getting a shot at country music,” he explained.
Earlier this month, Mickey Guyton suggested that Beyoncé can inspire change for Black artists in the country music genre.
Guyton believes that Cowboy Carter could have a huge, long-lasting impact on the genre.
“I think that a lot of DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] boards are closing, and … that’s across all the entertainment industry. So, I hope her doing this continues the conversation. And there’s a lot of excitement about it — which there should be — and this amazing album that she’s written. So I hope it stays,” the star told the New York Post‘s Page Six column.
Similarly, Carlene Carter thinks country music is “lucky” to have Beyoncé.
“I loved that she came out with her name as Carter because she’s married to Jay-Z, and I thought, she’s from Texas, she wanted to make a country record, nobody should give her any poo-poo about it, you know? But they did and I was, like, ‘OK, y’all can just shut the hell up because she is Beyoncé and we are lucky to have her even want to be in the vicinity of us,'” Carter, who is White, explained to “Entertainment Tonight.”
