Beyonce's Country Smash Gets Zero CMA Nominations

She was snubbed despite having one of the year's hottest country albums
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 9, 2024 12:34 PM CDT
Beyonce Snubbed in CMA Awards Nominations
Beyonce appears at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021.   (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

Beyonce is one of this year's hottest country music artists but you'd never guess that from the Country Music Association Awards nominations released Monday. She was completely snubbed, without a single nomination despite having one of the year's biggest country albums with Cowboy Carter, per the Hollywood Reporter. It was the first album by a Black woman to top Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and it held the spot for four weeks. Lead single "Texas Hold 'Em" topped the Hot Country Songs chart—also a first for a Black woman—and stayed there for 10 weeks. It was one of eight songs from the album that cracked the top 10.

Fans had expected Beyonce, who qualified in multiple categories, to be recognized with at least one nomination. She has 17 nominations in this year's People's Choice Country Awards. The Country Music Association said the nominations were "determined by eligible voting CMA members comprised of professionals within the Country Music industry."

  • Morgan Wallen led the nominations, with seven, including one for entertainer of the year, the AP reports.
  • Post Malone, who collaborated with Beyonce on "Cowboy Carter," received four nominations, reports NBC News.
  • Shaboozey, who was on two tracks on the Beyonce Album, received two. His "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" took the top spot from "Texas Hold 'Em," the BBC reports. It was the first time two Black artists had held the top spot in the country chart consecutively.

In 2016, there was a backlash from some country fans after Beyonce performed with the Dixie Chicks at the CMAs. She alluded to the backlash in an Instagram post before Cowboy Carter was released, the Tennessean reports. "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," she wrote. "But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive."
(Earlier this year, a country station in Oklahoma did a U-turn and started playing Beyonce songs after hundreds of complaints.)

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