Beyoncé's stunning Cowboy Carter tour reclaims country and proves history can't be erased

Twenty minutes into Beyoncé’s seismic Cowboy Carter show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, she launches into “The Star-Spangled Banner”. The singer is surrounded by the paraphernalia of Americana: Rodeo kitsch, sequinned red, white and blue, innumerable cowboy hats.

But this isn’t your typical patriotism.

“NEVER ASK FOR SOMETHING THAT ALREADY BELONGS TO YOU” the jumbotron behind her flashes. “HISTORY CAN’T BE ERASED.”

Then comes “Freedom” – her 2016 hit that became a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. It sets the tone.

This was the opening night of six in London, a run that will see Beyoncé perform to around 250,000 people.

A spectacle of flying neon horseshoes, flaming pianos and mechanical bulls, it’s a visual and sonic extravaganza befitting of pop royalty. But beneath the rhinestones lies a sharp political message.

While Black artists helped forge the foundations of country music, their contributions have long been erased or ignored. Beyoncé – the first Black woman to top the US country charts and win a Grammy for Best Country Album – is here to set the record straight.

Nods to Black musical pioneers punctuate the three-hour show: Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Chuck Berry appear on the stadium screens; and Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” reverberates through the speakers.

Even the tour name – Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour – is pointed. The “Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit” was the performance network that gave Black artists space to perform in the segregated Jim Crow south.

It’s a powerful message from an artist who herself received torrents of racial abuse after performing at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016.

The 40-song, seven-act setlist features most of Cowboy Carter, as well as much of Renaissance and abbreviated versions of hits like “Single Ladies” and “If I Were a Boy”. The persistent drizzle does not deter an increasingly enthusiastic crowd

The production was staggering – and with some of the most-expensive tickets in music (topping out at £950), you’d certainly hope so.

Beyoncé flies over the crowd in a classic American car, rides a gold-plated mechanical bull and wheels out a full Motown big band on raised scaffolding. She dons a light-up LCD dress, leads parades of dancers and commands the space like few performers can.

There are quieter moments, too: during “Protector”, Beyoncé’s seven-year-old daughter Rumi sits on her lap, mouthing along while looking a bit overwhelmed. Her older sister Blue Ivy, now 13, also joins her mother onstage for two impressive dance cameos.

There are hits from all of Beyoncé’s eras. In “America Has a Problem”, she stands at a mock press podium, flanked by dancers in skin-tight newsprint. The crowd goes crazy during the Renaissance act, singing along to “Thique”, “Cuff It”, “Alien Superstar” and “I’m That Girl”.

But country music was the focus, dominating the set-list. Make no mistake: Beyoncé isn’t asking to be let into the canon – she wants to remake it.

“[Cowboy Carter] was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed,” she posted to Instagram earlier this year, “and it was very clear that I wasn’t.

“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me.”

On Thursday night, there seemed to be very few limitations at all to what this multi-genre superstar could do.

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