Azealia Banks slams Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ as “white women cosplay”

21 March, 2024

Beyoncé and Azealia Banks

Azealia Banks has criticised Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ as being “white women cosplay”.

Beyoncé announced that she would be turning her sights to a country direction last year, and recently shared the cover and title of her upcoming album, ‘Cowboy Carter’.

However, rapper Azealia Banks isn’t too happy about the finished product, and has taken to social media to slam the ‘Love On Top’ singer as being in “white woman cosplay”. It also comes after she claimed the singer is “setting herself up to be ridiculed” by venturing into the country genre.

Writing on Instagram stories, Banks first took aim at Beyoncé for the album’s title, writing: “Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title?”

She then shared her issues with the cover and overall aesthetic of the LP, saying that she was “ashamed” at how the singer “switch[ed] from baobab trees and black parade to this literal pick me stuff.” The comments refer to the Grammy Award-winning single from The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack, which Beyoncé executive produced back in 2019.

Later, she went on to accuse Bey of “reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form” and “subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism, segregation, slavery, violence, theft, massacres, plagues, manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like ‘proud to be an American,’ or ‘god bless the usa.’”

To wrap it up, she also brought up Beyoncé’s appearance at the 2016 CMA Awards when she performed alongside The Chicks (then called The Dixie Chicks).

“[You] do lame stuff like bring out some black listed white women (Dixie Chicks) at the country music awards and they would never ever do the same for you,” she wrote, also adding “I just wish you would get unobsessed with being boring and pretty all the time.”

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At time of writing, Beyoncé hasn’t yet responded to the comments made by Banks.

Earlier this month, however, it was revealed by Dolly Parton that the R&B star may have put her own spin on the classic country track ‘Jolene’ for the album. The full tracklist is set to be released at a later date.

In other Beyoncé news, the singer recently became the first Black woman to reach Number One on the US country chart with her new single ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’.

The singer released the song earlier this month when announcing her eighth studio album ‘Renaissance Act II’, which is due to arrive on March 29. She also shared the track ’16 Carriages’ from the upcoming record.

It is not the first time that Banks has been involved in controversy lately. Just last week, she waded in on the alleged feud between Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj, arguing that it was “about Jay-Z“. In a 20-minute rant on Instagram, she said: “Jay-Z has this way of presenting himself in the culture as a Daddy Warbucks type of figure.”

“When you really dig down deep into it, Nicki be sweating Jay in a different type of way,” the Harlem native continued. “Low-key, she be on his dick. I’m really good at reading body language and I could see in the ‘Feeling Myself’ video [that] Beyoncé’s kinda like laughing at her.”

In another relatively recent incident, Banks apologised for previously-made comments about Lizzo’s body and persona, saying she “realised that I owe Lizzo a huge apology for popping so much shit”. However, she did also describe Troye Sivan an “expired twink” in the same message.

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