Reyna Roberts believes Beyoncé has helped to raise the profile of black country artists.
Beyoncé released her country-influenced album, Cowboy Carter, in March, and Roberts has praised Beyoncé for changing attitudes in the country music sphere.
“I’m so grateful that she’s in this space and that she’s also allowed other country artists like me to be on the album because a lot of people don’t know about Black people in country music. And just the fact that it took her bringing us up to the top to even be actually acknowledged by most people,” Roberts — who’s featured on Cowboy Carter — told Us Weekly.
Roberts believes Beyoncé has already helped to transform the country music scene.
“We’ve been making our own achievements and doing our own things. We’ve been doing great, but, like, it really took Beyoncé to lift us up to get the world outside of country music to see that we’re here, which has been imperative and essential,” Roberts said.
Similarly, Normani recently claimed that Beyoncé has been a “revolutionary” force in country music.
“Having Beyoncé, a Black woman in music, taking over the country space is revolutionary. Those are the types of things that I set out to do,” the singer — who shot to stardom as part of Fifth Harmony — told ELLE.com.
“Now you have country artists who look like us coming out and just being like, ‘We’ve always been here.’ I think that it’s educational not only for music lovers, but also for the Black community. We’ve pioneered a lot that we don’t get recognition for,” Normani said.
“I think that it’s just really cool being able to witness Beyoncé be fearless and do something that is much bigger than herself. That’s honestly what I want to see more of in every single space of the music industry because we deserve that. I also want to see Black women not have to fight so hard. It gets exhausting. We’re just as brilliant. We have amazing ideas and our resilience,” she added.
