Black female country singers: 'We're tolerated, not celebrated'

Last week, Beyoncé made history on the US country charts - becoming the first black woman to score a number one single, with her latest single Texas Hold 'Em.

The release is the first taste of an entire country album - a follow-up to the house music-focused Renaissance - which Beyoncé has referred to as Act II.

But while she's blazing trails in a genre where black artists have traditionally struggled to gain recognition, there are a handful of black women who've walked that path before her.

Rissi Palmer, 42, from Missouri is one of them. She broke a 20-year wait for a black woman to appear on the country charts with her 2007 single Country Girl. Before her, it was Dona Mason in 1987.

Speaking about Beyoncé's achievement, Rissi told the BBC World Service's OS Conversations documentary: "I'm glad that a black woman has finally had a number one.

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous that in the history of having this chart, there's only been eight of us. That's not a good thing, it's not a happy thing.

"She's a Houston girl. She's just as southern as anybody else that makes country music. One of the great things about this Beyoncé moment is that it has dispelled this myth that country radio has always tried to teach artists that you have to do things in a certain way for your music to be played."

It comes after a station in Oklahoma went viral for refusing to play Beyonce's song - saying it didn't consider her new material to be country. After a backlash from fans, the station later added Texas Hold 'Em to the playlist.

But it cuts to the heart of the country music experience for black artists, longing to be accepted into the genre.

Enter Holly G, from Virginia. She's the founder of Black Opry - an organisation dedicated to creating connections between black artists in country and Americana.

"For somebody who loves country music so much, to go so long and not see yourself in it, I just got to a point where I got frustrated with that," she says.

"I kind of had a decision to make, I could either stop listening to it or try to figure out a way to make it better. And I decided to stick around and see what we could do.

"I think the way that Beyoncé is being celebrated should be the rule for all of the black women that are trying to work in this space. They're being more tolerated recently than they have been in the past, but they're still not being celebrated."

"They're still not being included in meaningful ways. And Beyoncé topping the chart changes nothing structurally," Holly says.

Black Opry now tours across the US to champion the work of black artists and the change they want to see.

Holly expresses a sense of urgency about the cause, adding: "There's not going to be another black woman at the top of the country charts, if they behave the way they did before Beyoncé entered the space."

Rissi chimes in with her agreement, knowing the struggle all too well.

"I was on a radio tour for nearly a year trying to get Country Girl to go up the charts," she recalls. "I wanted to talk about being black, and was kind of told not to do that. So instead I put black girl Easter Eggs in the song.

"I think country means something different to white and black people in America. We don't necessarily long for the good old days, because what were the good old days for us, you know? It was Jim Crow, it was slavery.

"We tend to look toward God, the future and black joy," says Rissi.

After a lengthy legal battle, Rissi lost the rights to her master recordings and parted ways with her record label in 2010. She now releases music independently, deciding to move away from the hub of Nashville to North Carolina as she felt it was the "healthiest thing for her".

Beyoncé has nodded to the traditional sounds of the genre on Texas Hold 'Em - featuring Grammy Award-winning Rhiannon Giddens playing the banjo, who has been credited for highlighting that black people created and played the banjo before it was popularised by white country artists.

"It's ancestral," points out Taylor Crumpton, 28, on the influence of country music in her life. As a black woman from Texas, just like Beyoncé, she reflects on how the genre is connected to her identity.

"I come from a proud line of sharecroppers and cowboys. My grandfather was buried in his cowboy boots," she shares.

As a writer, part of her job is to be analytical about the country universe. But for the most part, she says, the connection comes naturally.

"I think it feels more like a warm embrace and a hug from an elder who has passed - or maybe when I spent summers at my grandmother's farm and I'm running from chickens and there's hogs."

"I've grown up hearing stories from my family members about how they were made fun of for their accent. I think people forget that when Beyoncé first debuted, she was made fun of for her accent in the press.

"In this moment, I've been getting messages from black woman about how they feel like they can come back into a wholeness of self."