RECLAIMING COUNTRY MUSIC'S IMAGINARY BLACK ROOTS

Released last Friday, Beyoncé’s new album Cowboy Carter—whose cover features the singer posed as a rodeo queen riding sidesaddle on a horse—is being feted as a long-overdue acknowledgment of black Americans’ seminal contributions to country music that have long been buried by a toxically racist culture that seeks to ignore black accomplishments at every turn rather than, oh, exaggerate them to spare black feelings and amplify white guilt.