From Shaboozey‘s runaway breakout hit “A Bar Song” to Sabrina Carpenter‘s drawl-inflected “Please Please Please” and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen‘s Billboard Hot 100-topping “I Had Some Help,” nation music is back on best. Of course, a main player in this moment, especially in the platforming of Black nation artists in this moment, is Beyoncé.

At the best of the year she unleashed her Billboard 200-topping Cowboy Carter, the second act of her nevertheless-unfurling trilogy, featuring a slew of increasing Black nation stars, which includes Reyna Roberts, who is a credited artist on “Blackbiird” and harmonizes in the background on “Tyrant.”

“From the very moment I heard my voice on [“Tyrant”], I couldn’t think it,” Roberts gushed to Billboard backstage soon after her efficiency at Blavity House Party on Saturday (June 15). “I’m still so thankful that Beyoncé brought us onto a project and made us a little part of her legacy because people here weren’t doing that, but she did.”

Despite Black artists becoming foundational to the creation of what is now recognized as nation music, the genre’s roots have been whitewashed and obfuscated by these who wanted to erase the contributions of crucial players such as Leslie Riddle, Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne, Arnold Schultz and Gus Cannon. With the release of Cowboy Carter — which, in addition to Roberts, featured collaborations with Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Shaboozey, Willie Jones and the legendary Linda Martell — a mainstream Black nation boom is unfolding in actual-time.

None of the artists featured on Cowboy Carter are new to the nation music market. Many of them have been attempting to break by means of for close to a decade, but Beyoncé’s most current LP has been the catalyst required to sidestep the Nashville machine and force market gatekeepers to definitely spend interest. After all, when Beyoncé released “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Cowboy Carter’s Hot 100-topping lead single, back in February, Billboard reported a residual streaming increase for the catalogs of other Black ladies in nation Robert’s streams jumped 250% in the week following the release of “Texas.”

“When I was [first] coming to Nashville, I was telling people my goals, my dreams, like I’m going to work with Beyoncé,” says Roberts. “People just weren’t seeing it. I met with a lot of labels [in Nashville], and everybody passed on me. It’s so interesting to see how people treat me now. I’m the same person, I’m thankful my personality hasn’t really changed, my talent hasn’t changed, I’m the same individual. But it took Beyoncé and a lot of answered prayers from God for some people to see what they weren’t able to see before.”

For Roberts, the rest of 2024 is all about creating confident this moment is not just a flash in the pan. The “Stomping Grounds” singer is presently tough at function on her new album, the adhere to-up to 2023’s Bad Girl Bible, Vol. 1, as properly as fascinating endeavors across distinctive realms of entertainment.

“With this next album, every song is going to have a story [and] have a visual,” she reveals. “I want to make sure I’m telling the best stories that I can, so it takes a little bit of time. It’s definitely coming. It’s going to be something that I’m proud of and that I want to sing for the rest of my life.”