Beyoncé made history at the 2025 Grammy Awards, picking up Album of the Year and Best Country Album for Cowboy Carter, a project that proved her ability to master any genre she touches. She also became the first Black woman to win Best Country Album, with multiple tracks from the record earning Grammy nominations. Yet, despite its commercial success and critical acclaim, Cowboy Carter was completely absent from the 2025 Academy of Country Music (ACM) Award nominations, marking yet another snub from a country music institution.
Written by Venicia Guinot for TROPICS MAGAZINE
The ACM Awards unveiled their nominees on Thursday, and Beyoncé’s name was nowhere to be found—just as it was missing from the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards nominations in 2024. Meanwhile, artists like Post Malone, who also made a foray into country music with F-1 Trillion, secured multiple nominations, raising questions about industry gatekeeping and the acceptance of genre-fluid Black artists in country music spaces. The Album of the Year category at the ACMs included projects by Megan Moroney, Jelly Roll, Zach Top, Lainey Wilson, and Malone, but Cowboy Carter was left off the list.
ACM CEO Damon Whiteside addressed the snub in an interview with Billboard, stating, “Were we hoping she’d be nominated? Absolutely. We love that Beyoncé is in the country genre.” He added that the ACMs would welcome her to perform on their stage “anytime she ever wants to.” But the question remains: if country music organizations claim to celebrate the genre’s expansion and evolution, why is one of the year’s biggest country albums being excluded from recognition?
This isn’t just about one artist being overlooked. Beyoncé’s snub speaks to the broader issue of country music’s historical reluctance to embrace Black artists who push the boundaries of the genre. While artists like Kane Brown and Mickey Guyton have carved out spaces for themselves, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter was a cultural phenomenon that forced country music to confront its past and its future. The ACMs had the chance to make history — again — but instead, they reaffirmed that some doors in Nashville are still harder to open.
