“American culture is obsessed with blackness, but primarily in a com-modified form that
can then be possessed, owned, controlled, and shaped.”
—bell hooks, Cultural Criticism and Transformation

“The Great Gatekeep of Country Music” is my crown jewel that came to fruition during a semester of being able to follow, study, and interpret the reactions of one of my favorite artists of all time, Beyoncé, and her country album, Cowboy Carter. This project allowed me to complete a deep dive into the hidden origins of the country music genre and shed light on how African Americas are responsible for the genre’s creation, even though they are now notoriously blocked from performing in the genre.

When you take the idea of Intersectionality and apply it to the IMC practitioner mindset, it aims to aid us in understanding that individuals house multiple social identities, such as race, gender, and sexuality, that overlap. Being able to understand that no two people are alike and that the age-old ‘one size fits all’ mentality moves to hinder an IMC practitioner’s efforts. From Cortese, we are introduced to the Cultural Attitudes Model, which showcases how the attitudes of whites toward black people influence the way that they are portrayed in advertising (Cortese, 2016, p. 138). In shorter terms, the Cultural Attitudes Model allows for one to see how stereotypes are created for certain groups of people, and how they are reinforced in different forms of media. Focusing on ‘Cowboy Carter’, allowed me to further dive into the beliefs that white people held in regard to the type of music genres they thought black people were ‘fit’ for.