Beyonce is good for country music, says Darius Rucker

The 42-year-old star released ‘Cowboy Carter’ in March, and Darius – who pivoted to country music back in 2008 – has now hailed Beyonce’s recent switch to a country-inspired sound.

He told Us Weekly: “I’m happy for her. I’m happy for the genre.

“The eyes that she brought to country music went up, and that’s always a good thing when you have more people watching country music.”

Darius also hopes that other black musicians will follow the same path as Beyonce.

He explained: “I hope what she’s done translate[s] even more than it already has to more people of colour getting a shot at country music.”

Earlier this month, Mickey Guyton suggested that Beyonce can inspire change for black artists in the country music genre.

Mickey believes that ‘Cowboy Carter’ could have a huge, long-lasting impact on the genre.

The 40-year-old star told the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six column: “I think that a lot of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) boards are closing, and … that’s across all the entertainment industry. So, I hope her doing this continues the conversation. And there’s a lot of excitement about it, which there should be, and this amazing album that she’s written. So I hope it stays.”

Similarly, Carlene Carter thinks country music is “lucky” to have Beyonce.

Speaking to ‘Entertainment Tonight’, Carlene explained: “I loved that she came out with her name as Carter because she’s married to Jay-Z, and I thought, she’s from Texas, she wanted to make a country record, nobody should give her any poo poo about it, you know? But they did and I was like, ‘OK, y’all can just shut the hell up because she is Beyonce and we are lucky to have her even want to be in the vicinity of us.’”