Beyoncé‘s Cowboy Carter has been excluded from yet another award show celebrating country music. On March 27, the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards announced its nominees for the upcoming ceremony, but Cowboy Carter didn’t land in any category.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Damon Whiteside, CEO of the Academy of Country Music Awards, discussed Beyoncé’s snub.
“Were we hoping she’d be nominated? Absolutely,” he said. “We love that Beyoncé is in the country genre.”
Whiteside added that Beyoncé has “an open invitation to be on the ACM stage anytime she ever wants to.”
Fans aren’t too happy about Cowboy Carter being overlooked yet again.
“Country music belongs to Black people! White people took possession of something that is not theirs and did not come from them. Enslaved Africans brought rhythms, scales, and instruments that directly influenced the development of country music,” one person commented under a post from the Academy of Country Music Award’s Instagram account. “One of the greatest examples is the banjo, an instrument of African origin that became essential in country and bluegrass music. Additionally, the blues, created by Black musicians, had a significant impact on the way country music is played and sung.”
“When’s the last time you celebrated someone in country that wasn’t white?,” another person wrote under the same post.
Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ earned Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammys
In February 2025, Cowboy Carter earned Beyoncé Album of the Year for the first time. According to Billboard, Cowboy Carter debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. It even became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day in 2024. On top of that, “Texas Hold ‘Em” made history when it topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart — marking the first time a Black woman achieve such a feat.
‘Cowboy Carter’ was partly inspired by the backlash Beyoncé faced at the 2016 CMAs
When Beyoncé announced Cowboy Carter on Instagram on March 19, 2024, she shared that it was born out of feeling unwelcome in the genre following her “Daddy Lessons” performance with The Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Awards. Many country music fans boycotted the show in response to Beyoncé’s presence that night.
“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,” she wrote at the time. “It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”
