Beyoncé and Mathew Knowles. Getty Images (2)
Beyoncé’s dad, Mathew Knowles, is not crazy in love with the 2024 CMA Awards voting community.
After Beyoncé’s country album, Cowboy Carter, received zero nominations for this year’s awards show, Mathew, 72, spoke out and shared his theory as to why the body of work didn’t receive love from voters.
Despite Cowboy Carter debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Mathew told TMZ voters are “showing it still comes down to white and Black.”
“There’s more white people in America and unfortunately they don’t vote based on ability and achievements,” he explained in an interview published Monday, September 9. “It’s still sometimes a white and Black thing.”
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While Mathew didn’t call CMA voters racist, he said his daughter’s snub “speaks for itself.”
“In America, there’s no accountability for people not being accepting of other cultures,” he explained.
Us Weekly has reached out to the CMAs for comment.
Beyoncé Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio
Back in 2016, Beyoncé, 43, performed her song “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks during the 50th Annual CMA Awards in Nashville.
A preshow announcement teasing her performance sparked calls for a CMAs boycott on social media. According to Billboard, there was also no mention of her appearance on the CMAs website after the performance. (According to Mathew, the CMAs never apologized to Beyoncé after the fact.)
Ahead of the Cowboy Carter album release in March, Beyoncé was vocal about her entrance into the country music genre.
Beyoncé Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
At the time, she expressed gratitude for all the support on the album’s first singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.”
“I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart,” she wrote via Instagram. “That would not have happened without the outpouring of support from each and every one of you. My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.”
It’s Beyoncé’s rodeo, and everyone’s invited! Beyoncé, 42, dropped Cowboy Carter on Friday, March 29, the second installment in the trilogy that began with Renaissance in 2022. The country-flavored album lassoed in stars from all across the music world to help make it one of the year’s biggest pop culture events. From Dolly Parton to […]
Beyoncé shared with fans that her album had been “over five years in the making” and referenced a past experience where she “did not feel welcomed” on the country music scene. While she didn’t name the 2016 CMA Awards specifically, fans were quick to speculate that her message referred to the event.
Although Beyoncé didn’t receive any nominations this time around, Shaboozey — who is featured on Cowboy Carter — is nominated for Best New Artist and Single of the Year for “A Bar Song.”
Morgan Wallen dominated the list with seven total nominations.