PicoBlog

Beyoncé finally released her highly anticipated act ii: COWBOY CARTER last night. And while I loved taking a deep-dive into what makes the album so great for the Washington City Paper, I must have an entirely different conversation here.

Because I cannot believe the sheer audacity of conspiracy theorists on the internet.

The fact that people are misattributing background vocals on Beyoncé’s song “BODYGUARD” to Taylor Swift is sitting heavily on my chest right now.

Because did y’all… idk… listen to COWBOY CARTER?

I must note here that Taylor Swift is NOT on COWBOY CARTER. She is not. Parkwood Entertainment released an official press release this afternoon at about 2pm EST listing all of the producer and vocal contributors to COWBOY CARTER.

The press release lists The-Dream, Pharrell, NO I.D., Raphael Saadiq, Ryan Tedder, Ryan Beatty, Swizz Beatz, Khirye Tyler, Derek Dixie, Ink, Nova Wav, Mamii, Cam, Tyler Johnson, Dave Hamelin, and Shawn "JAY-Z" Carter as all of her contributing producers.

They list Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Linda Martell, Stevie Wonder, Chuck Berry, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Jon Batiste, Rhiannon Giddens, Nile Rodgers, Robert Randolph, Gary Clark, Jr., Willie Jones, Brittney Spencer, Shaboozey, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy as all of her vocal contributors.

All of these names belong to real, identifiable people. There is no one listed under a pseudonym.

On top of that confirmation (that comes straight from the horse’s mouth, mind you!) Jason Lipshutz, Executive Director of Music at Billboard, confirmed on Twitter that Taylor Swift is not doing the background vocals for “BODYGUARD.”

Multiple outlets, including PEOPLE, Billboard and ELLE have all confirmed that Taylor Swift is not on “BODYGUARD.”

And yet. The rumor persists. The misinformation is going viral on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram reels.

I must say, this entire situation reeks of an anti-Blackness so vile and so malicious.

COWBOY CARTER is an album that aims to reclaim the work of Black country and rock artists whose contributions have been misattributed to white artists and therefore erased. According to the Parkwood Entertainment press release, the album is all about righting these wrongs and re-centering the contributions of Black artists within these genres: “It makes no apologies, and seeks no permission in elevating, amplifying, and redefining the sounds of music, while dismantling accepted false norms about Americana culture.”

To expressly misattribute Beyoncé’s work on an album she conceptualized, crafted and recorded to a white woman artist who has literally nothing to do with this album is to repeat the wrongs Beyoncé is expressly setting out to correct. To say that Taylor Swift laid down background vocals that she did not, and to continue to propagate that grotesque, appropriative lie is to miss the entire point of the COWBOY CARTER project.

There are multiple women that could have laid down the background vocals on this track. Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Cam, one of the members of Mamii, Miley Cyrus, Tiera Kennedy… the list goes on and on. And yet, the rumors chose to name Taylor Swift, who is always brought into the conversation with regards to Beyoncé.

There is a rabid cultural obsession rooted in white supremacy that consistently attempts to align Beyoncé and Taylor Swift as musical and cultural equals. There is a demonstrated history of Beyoncé’s critics and detractors using Taylor Swift as a foil to Beyoncé’s success, as if the two women were even competing within the same game. Beyoncé is never brought up as an example of undermining Swift’s success. Yet Swift is constantly and violently weaponized, her music and value as a musician discarded in favor of propagating a campaign to diminish and belittle Beyoncé’s accomplishments. And it’s so lame at this point. Can Beyoncé not just have her hard-earned moment? It seems like she can’t. And the reason for that feels unambiguously rooted in a white supremacist ideology that is (not-so covertly) obscured through tactics like this misattribution rumor.

Bringing Taylor Swift into any conversation about the creation of COWBOY CARTER is superfluous and harmful. This is the entire reason the album exists — the erasure and appropriation of Black artistry, the incessant need to attribute Black innovation to white artists. This is what COWBOY CARTER is meant to dismantle. And yet, here we are, placing the entirety of Beyoncé’s thesis on display.

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