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Did Beyoncé split country music in two?
When the camera panned to Beyoncé, the pure shock of her Grammy win for country album of the year was evident.
She froze in her seat, eyes darting from side to side, before she ascended the stage to accept the award for her disruptive album, Cowboy Carter - the trophy bestowed upon her by country-darling-turned-crossover-superstar Taylor Swift.
Visibly flabbergasted, Beyoncé's reaction became a meme seen around the world.
The shock from her win last year reverberated through the country-music establishment, with a mix of celebration and confusion as to what her historic achievement would mean for the genre.
Now one year later, the erstwhile best country music album category no longer exists.
The Recording Academy, the body that oversees and distributes the awards, has decided to split the prize into two distinct categories ahead of this Sunday's show: best traditional country album and best contemporary country album.
The modification, the academy says, honours both the genre's historic roots and its forward propulsion, with tones of pop, rap and hip-hop beats meshing with the traditional twang and honkytonk sounds of the steel guitar, fiddle and banjo.
The change has been evident for decades, but has grown further in recent years. Talents like Morgan Wallen, Diplo, Shaboozey and Post Malone have made chart-topping hits that have both expanded the fanbase of the genre, and, at times, left traditional country fans displeased with the drastically different tone.
When the 2026 Grammy Award nominees were announced in November, the contemporary country album category brimmed with both established country acts - Miranda Lambert and Eric Church - and relatively new artists - Tyler Childers, pop-country singer Kelsea Ballerini and rapper-turned-country star Jelly Roll.
Meanwhile, the new traditional category boasts nominees that include living country legend Willie Nelson, along with younger artists, such as his son Lukas Nelson, the prolific Charley Crockett - the only person of colour with a nod in the category - as well as Margo Price and Zach Top.
The organisation has said the intent behind separating it into two categories is to recognise country music's influence on pop, rock and hip hop today, while still honouring its traditional form.
But announced several months after Beyoncé's win, some have seen it as a sign of discontent over her apparent interloping on the country-music space.
It's definitely not the first time the Grammys have created new awards and changed existing honours as genres evolve.
The Grammy Awards are already split up into two ceremonies, doling out awards across a whopping 95 categories and over dozens of genre-specific fields. The flashier categories tend to be awarded during the primetime telecast, which airs Sunday from Los Angeles.
The change for country music was a long-time coming, the Recording Academy and other experts told the BBC.
Arguing the change was reactionary to Beyoncé's win is easy but conversations had been happening for years, Jason King, the dean of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, told the BBC.
He pointed, for example, to Lil Nas X blurring the lines of country and hip hop with his viral 2019 hit Old Town Road, which later featured country star Billy Ray Cyrus on a remix to give it more country credibility.
Looking back, other awards at the Grammys have been changed, such as separating rock from metal and alternative subgenres and even differentiating R&B from blues.
"Splitting the [country] category has been part of ongoing conversations for several years and was brought forward by working artists in the country music community," Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr said in a statement to the BBC.
Mason, who has tried to broaden the scope of the existing Grammy Awards categories and diversify the electorate during his tenure, has said the changes to the country album category had been submitted multiple times before voting members approved it in 2025.
Ultimately, the addition of the Traditional Country Album category creates space to celebrate even more music and the many artists who are shaping the genre's future. That's a win in my book.
What counts as country music has long been a subject of debate with industry insiders - Swift's clear crossover to pop was scorned as a defection by some, as was Dolly Parton's duets with artists like Kenny Loggins.
Beyoncé's win especially rattled insiders in Nashville's powerful country music establishment, who took issue with what they saw as a disregard for the typical Music City rise and rollout.
"Beyoncé being an artist that has never classified her music in the country category or genre, it confused several people," said Dom Flemons, a Grammy Award winning folk artist who hosts the American Songster radio programme that airs in Nashville.
When she didn't go through Nashville and its country-music milieu, "it sort of threw people for a loop", he told the BBC. It also reinforced why academy members lobbied for the category division.
Representatives for Beyoncé did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment.
But the controversy around Beyoncé's win - and the need to separate the category - has also highlighted long-simmering racial tensions within the genre.
Some say country music erased black people's contributions to the tradition in the 1920s when traditional Appalachian music was segregated into "hillbilly records" - a precursor to country and western music - marketed to white people.
Meanwhile, "race records" - that also led to blues, gospel and R&B - were geared toward black people. The two often overlapped stylistically and black performers contributed to both, but were often overlooked, especially during the Jim Crow Era and segregation.
"Country music has always been a highly diverse form - merging and mixing black, indigenous, Mexican and other traditions - and yet, country music has struggled to accept its essential diversity," King said.
Before Beyoncé, black country music acts - Darius Rucker, Mickey Guyton, Kane Brown, The War & Treaty - had transcended these assumed racial divisions, finding mainstream success in the genre. Their work and popularity has been part of a greater push for more black voices in the field.
On Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé showcased the black roots of the genre, even bringing on Grammy Award winner Rhiannon Giddens to play banjo on Texas Hold 'Em.
The Texas singer, who grew up listening to country music before rising to fame with the R&B girl-group Destiny's Child, said that the album was born from the feeling of being unwelcome in the country music space.
The same year she won the Grammy for best Country Album, Nashville's Country Music Association (CMA) Awards shut her out without a single nomination, even with her chart-topping country hit Texas Hold 'Em.
But others have found success. In 2019, Lil Nas X became the first openly gay black artist to win a CMA award for his trap-country crossover hit. In 2023, Tracy Chapman won the CMA for Song of the Year for her hit Fast Car - which was released in 1988 - after country artist Luke Combs covered it, making it a chart-topper for a second time.
King added that the change at this year's Grammy Awards could open the door for other honours to change as the genre does.
"The Recording Academy might lead the way in terms of these other organisations, you know," he said.
Making changes that are necessary to really, truly reflect and also cultivate the kind of diversity that's necessary for country music to continue.
Source: BBC
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