‘It’s cool’: why Beyoncé is kicking down the doors of country music

The cover of the new album Cowboy Carter. It’s a Beyoncé album not a country record, the singer says. Photograph: AP

Where Beyoncé leads, we must follow – even if that’s nights on the western range, rattlesnakes, whisky and all manner of heartbreak and loss. The Houston-raised pop superstar has expanded her formidable range with the release on Friday of Cowboy Carter.

Where her last album, Renaissance, took us to Chicago for 90s house music, the latest release moves in on Nashville, incorporating blues, soul, rock, R&B and folk, and has reignited a debate over how the country genre treats artists of colour.