Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album becomes the last album in history to win the Grammy’s “Best Country Album” category. Starting 2026 The Grammys will split the category into two parts.
Back in February, Beyoncé made Grammys history when she became the first Black woman to win the Best Country Album award with Cowboy Carter. Beyoncé admitted she was “in shock” after beating the other nominees: Post Malone, Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, and Lainey Wilson.
Kevin Winter / Getty Images for The Recording Academy
In her acceptance speech, the star reflected on her genre switch as she thanked “all the incredible country artists that accepted this album,” and added: “I think sometimes genre is a cold word to keep us in our place as artists and I just want to encourage people to do what they’re passionate about and stay persistent.”
The win was especially notable as Beyoncé had been completely snubbed by the Country Music Awards, despite Cowboy Carter undoubtedly being one of the most successful country albums of the year. For reference, nominations are decided by the Country Music Association, which is made up of a range of industry professionals.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for The Recording Academy
And this wasn’t Beyoncé’s first sour experience when it comes to the CMAs. In 2016, the star was subjected to anti-Black backlash following her performance of “Daddy Lessons” alongside The Chicks at the ceremony.
Bey even appeared to allude to this moment when she announced Cowboy Carter on Instagram last year, writing: “This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.”
Advertisement
In short, Beyoncé’s venture into the country genre certainly wasn’t welcomed by everybody, and it seems as though her Grammy win may have rubbed some people up the wrong way, as some pretty interesting changes have just been announced ahead of 2026’s show.
Alex Slitz / Getty Images
Advertisement
On Thursday, it was revealed that the Grammys are splitting the country genre into two categories: Best Traditional Country Album, and Best Contemporary Country Album. This is the only change to the music categories being made for the upcoming 68th annual Grammy Awards.
Michael Buckner / Billboard via Getty Images
Per Billboard, new categories are added to the Grammys from proposals made to the Recording Academy’s Awards & Nominations Committee, with each proposal being voted on by the Academy’s board of trustees.
Explaining the change, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told the publication: “The community of people that are making country music in all different subgenres came to us with a proposal and said we would like to have more variety in how our music is honored. They said: ‘We think we need more space for our music to be celebrated and honored.’”
He also claimed that this particular proposal had been submitted multiple times in the past, but was only approved by the board this year.
The definition for the Traditional Country category reads: “This category recognizes excellence in albums of traditional country music, both vocal and instrumental. Traditional country includes country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar, and live drums. It also includes sub-genres such as Western, Western Swing, and Outlaw country.”
“People from that community are making more music, it’s more varied, there’s different styles of writing and performing,” Mason added. “I’m hopeful that that community understands that the academy is doing what it always does, which is stay in tune with what’s happening in their genre
However, the timing of this change felt a little loaded to some music lovers, with it not lost on them that it was being implemented immediately after a Black woman won this category for the first time.
Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for The Recording Academy
“Best Traditional Country Album. How subtle.” one viral tweet reacting to the news simply reads. Somebody else wrote: “Best Traditional Country Album… they couldn’t wait a couple more years so it wasn’t so obvious what they’re responding too?”
“They really don’t want black people winning country awards so they found a loophole to separate white country artists from black country artists,” another claimed.
“‘Traditional’ lol. No one said shiiii when country went pop for a few years but Beyoncé dominates and all of a sudden we need a separate award to make certain people feel better,” one more added.
“A black woman won best country album, NOW we need two categories? Interesting,” somebody else observed.
While another tweeted: “Rules always change when black people start breaking in. It really is disgusting and annoying to go through.”
