GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Beyoncé shocked the world, as she often does, when she dropped two new country tracks after her Verizon Super Bowl commercial.
The two tracks, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” preview her new album dropping in late March , following up 2022’s Rennaissance.
With country-inspired tracks, you need country-inspired instruments, so Beyoncé tapped Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens, a Greensboro native, to play the banjo on “Texas Hold ‘Em.”
Giddens took to social media to celebrate the release of the songs, which she had done the recordings for around two years ago.
“I used to say many times, as soon as Beyoncé puts the banjo on a track, my job is done. Well, I didn’t expect the banjo to be mine, and I know darn well my job isn’t done,” she wrote.
Giddens is an advocate for the culture of the banjo, teaching people about its roots in the Black community, having written an essay about the instrument’s importance in Oxford American .
She is a native of Greensboro who first gained fame with her group the Carolina Chocolate Drops and has gone on to have a successful and critically acclaimed solo career. In addition to Grammys, she’s a Pulitzer Prize winner for her opera “Omar.”