How Martin Scorsese, Thelma and Louise, Beyoncé’s Manicure, and More Are in the DNA of Cowboy Carter

Beyoncé may have only officially announced her latest album, Cowboy Carter, last month, a scant six weeks before its release date, but it’s been a long time coming. In a press release out Friday, she revealed that some of the DNA for the country-tinged disc goes back much farther than the “over five years” that she’d been working on the album, drawing influence from movies like 1991’s Thelma and Louise and modern Westerns like Oscar nominee Killers of the Flower Moon.

According to a release from Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment detailing the album’s making, “each song is its own version of a reimagined Western film,” including Five Fingers for Marseilles, Urban Cowboy, The Hateful Eight, Space Cowboys, The Harder They Fall, and more, which Beyoncé often had playing on a screen while she recorded. “This body of work undulates from singing cowboy and Blaxploitation to Spaghetti westerns and fantasy with Beyoncé weaving between personal experiences, honoring Black history, to exaggerated character building,” the notes continue, calling the record “a celebratory authentic gumbo of sounds.” The artist even uses her own nails as percussion instruments on the album.

“Beyoncé is a student of history, and she continues the American music masterclass that started with act i Renaissance in 2022,” the release reads, calling her prior album “a deep dive into dance music and its creators, and the celebration of those who lived in joy despite being made to feel like outliers.”

In fact, Cowboy Carter was originally meant to be the first act of her planned trilogy of concept albums (we already eagerly await our third equine hero who will join Renaissance’s Reneigh and now Cowboy Carter’s Chardonneigh, whenever they may trot into our lives).

“It’s been really great to have the time and the grace to be able to take my time with it,” Bey said of the new album, for which she said she “recorded probably 100 songs.” “I was initially going to put Cowboy Carter out first, but with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world. We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s timing.”

God’s timing, of course, led to her massively successful Renaissance world tour, as well as her concert doc, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, not to mention the public debut of Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet as a couple on Bey’s birthday, flouting the requested disco ball inspired dress code at her Los Angeles concert.

And now the epic Cowboy Carter has already given us Dolly Parton calling Becky with the good hair a “hussy,” Bey demolishing a bowl of spaghetti sans fork, and more. What more is coming our way?

“I think people are going to be surprised because I don’t think this music is what everyone expects,” Beyoncé said in the notes, “but it’s the best music I’ve ever made.”