Azealia Banks on Beyoncé's album artwork: "I wish you would get unobsessed with being boring and pretty all the time"

At the 2024 Super Bowl, Beyoncé announced Renaissance Act II, and shared two brand new singles, "16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em". Down to the artwork, the sound, and the visuals – and even down to Dolly Parton revealing that the album may feature a cover of her 1973 hit, "Jolene" – Beyoncé's forthcoming album, Cowboy Carter, has a strong country them running through it.

She also shared a statement preceding the release, writing: “This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”

Taking to her socials, Azealia Banks has hit out at Beyoncé for "reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war art form", due to the artwork which sees Beyoncé flying the flag in a cowboy outfit and blonde wig. "Sis I live for whiteyonce Donatella Bianca Bardot DOWN, But I'm kind of ashamed at how u switch from baobab trees and black parade to this literal pick me stuff," Banks wrote. "There was so much pertinent cultural commentary to be made her. I don't get why you have to be in white woman cosplay to make – (what's really folk/bluegass/adult contemporary) facsimile "country" music".

Azealia has quite a bit to say about Cowboy Carter lol pic.twitter.com/66oAIIDQyK

— Ichigo Niggasake (@SomaKazima) March 20, 2024

Banks goes on to discuss the vocal training that Beyoncé would've had in order to get the phrasing of country music right, and continued: "There could have been a humor to it which would bestow upon you even a smidgen of personality to make you an interesting person again... but you're reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form. And subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism / segregation / slavery / violence / theft / massacres / plagues / manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like 'proud to be an american', or 'god bless the usa'."

Calling Beyoncé out for an obsession with "being boring and pretty all the time", she says that the forced mystique comes off as a lack of understanding on the topics that she is immersed in, or even an inability to explain any of it in a sensible manner. "We want you to be deep and artsy and avant garde and fuck our heads up and shift culture," Banks notes, before blaming Jay-Z for "overstrategizing everything".