Beyoncé delivers a 'Cowboy Carter' Christmas performance to remember
Beyoncé gave us all a Christmas gift this year. During the NFL Christmas Day game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans on Netflix, the singer treated us to a performance of songs from her eighth studio album Cowboy Carter for the first time. The genre-bending album, which came out earlier this spring, marked the singer's formal foray into country music and unsurprisingly became one of the most talked-about releases of the year.
Since she opted not to release any sort of visual components to go alongside Cowboy Carter – and its predecessor Renaissance – the festive halftime performance was even more highly anticipated than your typical televised Beyoncé appearance. While Renaissance had an accompanying world tour filled with hundreds of costume changes and nightly TikTok recaps, Beyoncé has truly encouraged fans to sit still with Cowboy Carter – until now.
The full performance was a true ode to not just the album, but the underlying mission statement Beyoncé had behind the project as a whole, which was to highlight the true diversity and roots of country music. A number of collaborators from the project joined her during the show, including all four "Blackbird" singers – Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, and Brittney Spencer – as well as Shaboozey and Post Malone, while a sea of dancers clad in white, silver and bandana cowboy hats flooded the field. Beyoncé of course included a number of true Texan details like lowrider convertible cars and horses, plus Houston's own reigning rodeo queens made a cameo during the show. She closed her performance with Cowboy Carter's leading hit "Texas Hold 'Em", which featured a surprise appearance from her eldest daughter Blue Ivy Carter who joined her mother on the field for the closing number.
Immediately following the performance, in true Beyoncé fashion, the singer shared a cryptic Instagram post of herself atop a horse and waving an American flag followed by the flashing date of January 14, 2025. Is it a tour? The Act III album? The long lost visuals? For now we have no idea, but it's safe to say, Queen Bey fully has our attention.
The Christmas performance won't be the last we hear of the Cowboy Carter era, however. The singer has already made history, with the project becoming the most-nominated album at the upcoming 2025 Grammys. She also broke a new record as the most Grammy-nominated artist of all time with a whopping 99 lifetime nominations. Cowboy Carter's impact surpasses industry accolades as well; Beyoncé along with her recent collaborator Shaboozey helped bring a whopping 36 million new listeners to press play on country music for the first time this year, a feat that will surely impact how a new generation interacts with the genre for years to come.
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