As Beyoncé continues to receive praise and break records with her Country Music-inspired album ‘Cowboy Carter,’ a CMAs audience member is recalling the singer’s 2016 Country Music Awards performance and how she faced racist comments, like people booing and someone allegedly yelling, “Get that Black b*tch off the stage right now.”
While it may not be anything new to learn that Beyoncé’s 2016 Country Music Awards performance brought on an onslaught of racist comments and hate spewed online, it’s now being reported that one CMAs audience member, Tanner Davenport, saw the now 42-year-old singer face the vitriol inside the same arena where she debuted her twangy “Daddy Lessons” remix with the Dixie Chicks, now simply known as The Chicks.
In a new CNN documentary called ‘Call Me Country: Beyoncé & Nashville’s Renaissance,’ the CMAs audience member said he saw Beyoncé get slammed with racist comments by his fellow attendees of the 2016 Country Music Awards. In the doc, which is set to air on Friday (April 26) on Max, Davenport said, “An audience member in front of me proceeds to say, ‘Get that Black b*tch off the stage right now.”
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Davenport — who is the co-director of the Black Opry, a website that raises awareness for Black country artists — added, “I remember instantly kind of being taken back to reality in that moment… To realize that there’s, like, a threat of Black people being in this genre for some reason.” Combatting the racist comments spewed at Bey at the 2016 Country Music Awards, the CMAs audience member stated, “For Beyoncé to not be welcomed feels like a gut punch.”
As many know, tons of viewers who saw the show, which took place at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, stormed social media slamming Bey with racism and bigotry. After getting slammed themselves, a spokesperson for the Country Music Awards eventually responded to the backlash and called Beyoncé’s 2016 CMAs performance “a highlight of the evening.” It’s further noted, however, that official videos of Bey’s performance never made it online, only videos and photos shared by fans.
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According to Us Weekly, soon after their response to the racist comments, the CMAs deleted any mention of Beyoncé’s 2016 Country Music Awards performance. They reportedly claimed that it was because the footage of the performance was not approved. The CMAs actions simply permitted further criticism with critics calling them out for “bowing to the pressures of a vocal, racist minority.”
As mentioned, since facing racist comments during and following her 2016 Country Music Awards (CMAs) performance, Beyoncé has released her Country Music-inspired album ‘Cowboy Carter,’ which led to her becoming the first Black artist to top the Top Country Albums chart and led to her earning another No. 1 Billboard 200 album. Upon the release she shared a lengthy post on Instagram, implying that an incident she experienced in the Country Music space was a key inspiration behind her new project.
In part, she wrote, “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. The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. [‘Cowboy Carter’] is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”
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