Former American Idol mentor Bobby Bones schools Beyoncé’s critics on country music history, crossovers

“You’re hypocritical if you’re like ‘I like Post Malone coming but not Beyoncé;,” says the radio host and personality.

Beyoncé’s new songs have caused divisions among country fans — but Bobby Bones has no doubts about her claims to the genre.

The radio host and former American Idol mentor responded to online criticism of Bey’s new songs “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” which have caused some diehard country fans to question whether the tracks fall under the country genre. Bones noted that numerous other non-country artists have crossed into the genre in the past, and argued that their genre-shifting didn’t cause the same stir as Beyoncé’s has.

Bones began by explaining that Kenny Rogers had a full-fledged career before he became a country mainstay. “Whenever this guy crossed over and did country music, it wasn’t that controversial,” he said, and also enumerated other examples of the same career trajectory. “When you go back through time, even Conway Twitty had a little pop rock career before he went over to country music. Obviously Darius [Rucker].”

Bobby Bones and Beyoncé.RICK KERN/GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES

Bones went on to compare Beyoncé’s country pivot to another contemporary artist: “You have, like, Post Malone, where everybody’s going ‘We can’t wait!’ Cause I can’t, it’s gonna be awesome. I think Post Malone’s country album is gonna be awesome,” he said. “You’re hypocritical if you’re like ‘I like Post Malone coming but not Beyoncé.’ Beyoncé’s been on the CMAs, Beyoncé did Sugarland…it’s crazy to me how people get upset about it.” He also noted another recent artist who made the country switch: “Remember Morgan Wallen wasn’t a country artist when he started. He went on The Voice as like a soul singer, pop singer. But you can also be multiple things at once.”

The host posited a hypothesis about why country fans might reject musicians from other genres. “What ‘country music’ doesn’t like is artists who settle to do country. Meaning they’ve been successful in another place, and they can’t find that success anymore, so they’re like ‘I’m just gonna go try some country stuff,’” he explained. “That’s not what Beyoncé’s doing!”

In a separate thread on X, Bones also said that he plans to plug Bey’s new music on “a couple hundred [radio] stations” through his national radio show, and explained some key historical context about the genre. “Let’s get historical,” he wrote. “Country music is based on the music from Africa brought over on the slave ships. And from Europe. With the fiddle and banjo. So all these dudes yelling ‘that ain’t country’… unless you’re European or African, you ain’t really ‘country.’”