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A new Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> release isn\u2019t just an album \u2014 it\u2019s a sprawling collective effort where the supporting cast and behind the scenes crew can reveal a lot about the scope of the star\u2019s vision. For \u201cCowboy Carter,\u201d in addition to household names like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone (and a brief cameo from her daughter Rumi), she\u2019s looped in a slew of collaborators new and old. Here\u2019s a guide to some of the most significant figures you\u2019ll see in the credits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rihannon Giddens plays on the \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d single \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em,\u201d but beyond the banjo and viola she contributed to the track, she lends the whole project a special kind of historical weight. During the past two decades, Giddens has led a new wave of folk artists helping to shed light on the foundational role that Black musicians played in the creation of American roots music. A scholar of the banjo as much as a practitioner, she\u2019s made it her mission to educate audiences about its history as an African-descended instrument that was once, as she put it in 2017 when she won a MacArthur Genius Grant<\/a>, \u201can absolute emblem of the African American in the South.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Trained as an opera singer, Giddens rose to prominence in the early 2000s as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops \u2014 with Dom Flemons, Justin Robinson and Sule Greg Wilson \u2014 a Grammy-winning group that celebrated and updated the legacy of Black string bands with help from an older mentor, the fiddler Joe Thompson. In 2023, she released \u201cYou\u2019re the One,\u201d her first album of all original material. Last year, Giddens also won a Pulitzer Prize for \u201cOmar,\u201d an opera she co-wrote with the composer Michael Abels based on the life of a West African Muslim scholar who was captured and sold as a slave in America.<\/p>\n Raphael Saadiq\u2019s name has been a mark of quality in R&B for more than 30 years. Saadiq, who wrote, produced and played various instruments on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s latest, first found fame in the late \u201980s with the trio Tony! Toni! Ton\u00e9! and went on to score a Top 20 solo hit with \u201cAsk of You\u201d in 1995. He became an in-demand producer and worked with a wide array of artists including D\u2019Angelo \u2014 whose two biggest hits, \u201cLady\u201d and \u201cUntitled (How Does It Feel)\u201d are Saadiq co-writes \u2014 as well as Whitney Houston, Erykah Badu and Bilal. He\u2019s been in Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s orbit for years, having produced her team-up with Stevie Wonder on a 2005 Luther Vandross tribute album, helped produce her sister Solange\u2019s acclaimed 2016 effort \u201cA Seat at the Table,\u201d and appeared on \u201cRenaissance\u201d as a producer, writer and performer.<\/p>\n More than 50 years ago, Linda Martell broke barriers in country music, becoming the first Black woman to find commercial success in the genre, and the first to perform on the Grand Ole Opry as a solo act. Her lone album, \u201cColor Me Country\u201d from 1970, found her rebranding as a country artist after earlier work in a girl-group pop vein, and yielded two Top 40 country singles. But Martell faced racism on the road \u2014 \u201cYou\u2019d be singing and they\u2019d shout out names and you know<\/em> the names they would call you,\u201d she told Rolling Stone<\/a> in 2020 \u2014 and, after a dispute with her producer, her career faltered. She never made another album, but reissues of \u201cColor Me Country\u201d have brought overdue attention to the artist, now 82, over the past decade. \u201cI am proud that Beyonc\u00e9 is exploring her country music roots,\u201d she said in a statement on Friday. \u201cWhat she is doing is beautiful, and I\u2019m honored to be a part of it. It\u2019s Beyonc\u00e9, after all!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Robert Randolph\u2019s pedal-steel guitar is a background texture on \u201cCowboy Carter,\u201d turning up on the single \u201c16 Carriages,\u201d but typically, it\u2019s the star attraction. Since the early 2000s, Randolph has been touring and recording with his Family Band, honing a rousing fusion of R&B, rock, funk, blues and the gospel music he grew up on. Before he became a bandleader and an in-demand collaborator with the Allman Brothers, Buddy Guy, Norah Jones and other marquee names, he was a musical phenom in the Black Pentecostal church, working in the tradition of so-called sacred steel. As Randolph recently told Rolling Stone<\/a>, Beyonc\u00e9 recruited him to help add \u201ccountry fire\u201d to her new project: \u201cShe said she liked the way I make my instrument sound like a singer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Dave Hamelin spent the early 2000s drumming \u2014 and, later, playing guitar and singing \u2014 in the Stills, a Montreal outfit that was part of an explosion of indie-rock from Canada dovetailing with the fertile New York scene. After the band\u2019s 2011 breakup, Hamelin found a niche as a producer to various Canadian rock luminaries, including Broken Social Scene\u2019s Kevin Drew, the Tragically Hip\u2019s Gord Downie and, later, American acts in the GOOD Music orbit, like the singer-rapper 070 Shake. His \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d work, which includes songwriting, production and keyboards on \u201c16 Carriages,\u201d marks his first Beyonc\u00e9 credit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cLookin\u2019 like Beyonc\u00e9 with a lasso,\u201d Tanner Adell described herself on \u201cBuckle Bunny,\u201d the title track from her 2023 debut. The singer-songwriter, who has cited Dolly Parton and Destiny\u2019s Child as key early influences, has racked up tens of millions of streams and amassed an impressive TikTok following with her twangy-voiced, attitude-heavy fusion of country, pop and hip-hop. Her recent acoustic ballad \u201cLuke Combs,\u201d<\/a> where she professes that her \u201ccountry heart still wants to be the girl in a Luke Combs song,\u201d shows off her range. \u201cMy dream is to be the first genuinely country pop star,\u201d she said last year<\/a>, in an interview where she named Beyonc\u00e9 as her dream collaborator. Now, she\u2019s one of four guests on a cover of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cBlackbird.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Khirye Tyler made his studio debut with Beyonc\u00e9 on \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em,\u201d his name turned up in the credits for another No. 1 hit: Roddy Ricch\u2019s \u201cThe Box.\u201d Establishing himself as part of the gospel-soul outfit Red Hands, Tyler has made inroads into the pop world, working as a musical director for Khalid and Alicia Keys, appearing on albums by Keys and Jay Electronica, and wearing numerous hats on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Renaissance World Tour. Tyler played keyboards, contributed arrangements and helped musically direct the run; he also worked on the score for the tour\u2019s companion documentary.<\/p>\n In fall 2020, Brittany Spencer posted a video of herself covering the Highwomen\u2019s \u201cCrowded Table.\u201d Less than a year later, she was onstage with the supergroup at BottleRock Napa, filling in for Amanda Shires, who was recovering from surgery. Hooked early on the Chicks and Shania Twain, the Baltimore native \u2014 who grew up performing in church choir and began singing classical music in high school \u2014 moved to Nashville in 2013 and honed her songwriting while working odd jobs. Her social-media breakthrough earned her high-profile opening slots with Jason Isbell and Reba McEntire, and paved the way for her Grand Ole Opry debut in 2021. Her new LP \u201cMy Stupid Life\u201d showcases country-steeped songs that would sound perfectly at home on pop radio. She also appears on \u201cBlackbiird.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The rising singer-songwriter Shaboozey \u2014 whose alias riffs on his last name, Chibueze, an Igbo word meaning \u201cGod is king\u201d \u2014 draws equally on the hip-hop he grew up watching on BET\u2019s \u201c106 & Park,\u201d the country music he heard in his native Virginia and classic-rock staples like Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. After leaning toward trap on his earliest singles, he has carved out a unique space on more recent efforts like \u201cAnnabelle\u201d and \u201cLet It Burn,\u201d layering his deep, drawling voice over acoustic guitar and folk-pop grooves while adding dashes of rap. \u201cSometimes I don\u2019t feel I should rightfully be labeled as a country artist,\u201d he said recently<\/a>, ahead of his appearance on the \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d tracks \u201cSpaghettii\u201d and \u201cSweet Honey Buckiin\u2019.\u201d \u201cI have peers who make country in its truest form.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Willie Jones, credited on the gospelly \u201cJust for Fun,\u201d has racked up tens of millions of streams with a savvy blend of radio-ready country and the swagger of Southern rap. \u201cWelcome to the ratchet Black zydeco rodeo,\u201d the Louisiana artist sang on his 2021 single \u201cDown by the Riverside\u201d over a crunchy bar-band-like groove. On last year\u2019s \u201cDive Bar,\u201d he and fellow singer-songwriter Ben Burgess vowed, \u201cWe gonna turn this club into a dive bar tonight.\u201d Jones, who grew up singing gospel music and pursued musical theater in high school, signed with Sony Music Nashville in 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The singer-songwriter Reyna Roberts, who appears on \u201cBlackbiird,\u201d started out early in country music, performing covers of the Chicks and LaBelle before the age of 5. The daughter of Army parents, she moved from Alaska to Alabama to California growing up and soaked up a variety of music<\/a>, like Gretchen Wilson and the \u201cawesome guitar riffs\u201d of Steve Vai. She received a key career boost in 2020 when Mickey Guyton posted a video<\/a> of her at the piano, belting out a cover of Carrie Underwood\u2019s \u201cDrinking Alone,\u201d which Underwood reposted<\/a> days later. As heard on \u201cStompin\u2019 Grounds,\u201d one of a few of her songs to earn more than a million streams, and \u201cLouisiana,\u201d a down-home anthem from her 2023 debut full-length \u201cBad Girl Bible,\u201d her sound leans toward a raucous country-rock hybrid.<\/p>\n Tiera Kennedy has called her sound \u201cR&B country,\u201d a smooth blend that yielded more than 20 million streams for \u201cFound It in You,\u201d<\/a> a 2021 track \u2014 written with her husband, the songwriter-producer Cameron Bedell \u2014 released when she was still unsigned. Kennedy grew up in Birmingham, Ala., where her parents played R&B around the house and local bluegrass musicians introduced her to classic country. Her family moved to Nashville, and she found a valuable mentor in Shania Twain, who invited Kennedy to perform on the music-competition show \u201cReal Country.\u201d Since then, Kennedy has honored Twain at the Ryman, debuted at the Grand Ole Opry, inked a record deal with Scott Borchetta (who once signed Taylor Swift), begun hosting an Apple Music country show, joined Beyonc\u00e9 for \u201cBlackbiird,\u201d and released the twangy, hooky country-rock single \u201cJesus, My Mama, My Therapist\u201d<\/a> ahead of her upcoming debut album.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRhiannon Giddens<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Raphael Saadiq<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Linda Martell<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Robert Randolph<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Dave Hamelin<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Tanner Adell<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Khirye Tyler<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Brittany Spencer<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Shaboozey<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Willie Jones<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Reyna Roberts<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Tiera Kennedy<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n