*Beyoncé unveiled the artwork for her upcoming Cowboy Carter album, which depicts her wearing a sash that reads, “Act ii BEYINCÉ.”
Fans quickly questioned if the spelling of her name was a mistake, but journalist Brooklyn White-Grier pointed out on X (formerly Twitter) that “Beyincé” is the surname of the singer’s maternal family, Complex reports.
“A lot of people don’t know that Beyoncé is my last name. It’s my maiden name,” said Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, on a 2020 episode of the In My Head with Heather Thomson podcast, per People. “My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at that time was not a cool thing to have that weird name. I wanted my name to be Linda Smith because those were the cool names.”
Due to a clerical error, certain family members bear the surname spelled as “Beyincé.” As Complex reports, historical discrimination against Black people prevented the correction of their last names on legal documents.
“It’s interesting — and it shows you the times — because we asked my mother when I was grown. I was like, ‘Why is my brother’s name spelled B-E-Y-I-N-C-E? You know, it’s all these different spellings,'” Knowles added.
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“And my mom’s reply to me was like, ‘That’s what they put on your birth certificate.’ So I said, ‘Well, why didn’t you argue and make them correct it?’ And she said, ‘I did one time. The first time, and I was told ‘Be happy that you’re getting a birth certificate’ because, at one time, Black people didn’t get birth certificates,” Ms. Tina said.
We reported earlier that when Beyoncé unveiled a new image for “Cowboy Carter” on her website, she noted in the caption that her latest project “was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t.”
“But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” Beyoncé continued.
As CNN reports, Queen Bey “previously infused country sounds into her work, including her 2016 track “Daddy Lessons.” Beyoncé performed that song with the Chicks at the CMA Awards that year, and later received racist backlash,” the outlet writes.
“The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” the Grammy-winner wrote in her post on Tuesday. “act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”
READ MORE: Beyoncé was Inspired to Make Her Country Album ‘Cowboy Carter’ After An Unwelcoming Experience
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