Erykah Badu’s Beef With Beyoncé, Explained: Badu Says ‘Cowboy Carter’ Cover Steals Her Look
Erykah Badu has again accused Beyoncé of copying her look on the cover for her upcoming album, “Cowboy Carter,” in a series of social media posts, inciting anger from Beyoncé’s fans and prompting an apparent denial from Beyoncé’s publicist on Instagram.
Soon after Beyoncé posted the exclusive vinyl cover for “Cowboy Carter” on Instagram Wednesday, Badu reposted the cover on her story with the caption: “Hmmm.”
The cover depicts Beyoncé smoking, wearing a sash that says “act ii: BEYINCÉ” while wearing long beaded braids—and fans have interpreted Badu’s accusation to be over Beyoncé’s hair, since Badu has also been known to wear braids.
Badu followed up her Instagram post with a tweet, bizarrely pleading to Beyoncé’s husband for help: “To Jay Z . Say somethin Jay . You gone let this woman and these bees do this to me ??”
In an apparent response to Badu, Beyoncé’s longtime publicist slammed “critics without credentials” on Instagram by posting a video featuring the singer wearing braids throughout her career, stating: “She slays. Now. Then. Always.”
Badu’s Instagram comments, as well as the replies to her tweet about Jay Z, were quickly flooded with anger and confusion over her disses at Beyoncé from the latter’s fans.
Badu has accused Beyoncé of copying her before: In July 2023, while Beyoncé was on her Renaissance World Tour, Badu took to Instagram Stories to post a picture of herself and Beyoncé wearing similar wide-brimmed silver hats, writing: “I guess I’m everybody stylist.” Beyoncé, who names Badu among other influential Black women in music in her song “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix),” which she performs on tour, did not respond directly to the criticism—but the day after Badu’s post, she switched up the song’s lyrics, emphasizing Badu’s name in particular. The original lyrics—“Badu, Lizzo, Kelly Rowl”—were changed to “Badu, Badu, Badu, Badu.” Fans interpreted this as a potential dig at the singer, though others noted Beyoncé may have also changed the lyrics to remove Lizzo’s name, because she had just been sued that week for sexual harassment by former dancers. Beyoncé later reinstated Lizzo’s name on subsequent shows, in one instance ad-libbing: “I love you, Lizzo.”
Beyoncé unveiled the official cover art for “Cowboy Carter,” marketed as the second act for her 2022 album “Renaissance,” on Tuesday. She accompanied the cover with a lengthy caption on Instagram explaining her sudden pivot to country music. She said the album 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,” which many interpreted as a reference to her 2016 performance at the Country Music Awards with The Chicks. At the awards show, she sang her song “Daddy Lessons” with the band, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks. The performance spurred controversy and backlash among country music fans who disagreed with her inclusion at the awards show because she is not primarily known as a country artist, as well as her liberal-leaning politics and her controversial performance at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, which paid tribute to the Black Panthers.
Beyoncé’s name is deliberately spelled “Beyincé” on the exclusive vinyl cover for “Cowboy Carter.” Her mother, Tina Knowles, has previously explained that Beyoncé is her maiden name, and it was spelled with an “o” because of a clerical error on her birth certificate. Knowles’ brother and his children spell their surnames “Beyincé.”
Design Miami 2015: traditional automotive brands “don’t need to be scared” of upstarts including Tesla and Apple – and the cars of the future may not be electric, according to Audi’s head of experiential marketing. Other power sources including fuel cells may turn out to be more effective than batteries, Bernhard Neumann told Dezeen, although he said “the end of the combustion engine will come for sure.” When asked whether brands like Audi felt threatened by the hype around battery-powered electric vehicles being developed by American companies, Neumann said: “I don’t think we need to be scared. We are very aware and we are adapting very fast.” Californian company Tesla has led the charge towards electric cars, launching the Tesla Roadster in 2008, and Apple is widely expected to follow suit.
Mainstream rivals have since raced to catch up and develop battery-powered vehicles. BMW launched its first electric car, the i3, in 2013 while Porsche unveiled its first all-electric sports car in September.
But while petrol is on its way out as a fuel source, its replacement is not yet certain, Neumann added. “That is the million-dollar question. Everybody is thinking now that it is electric, but I also see alternatives. For example the fuel cell.”
Neumann spoke to Dezeen at Design Miami in Florida last week, where the brand presented its forthcoming E-tron Quattro electric sport-utility vehicle. This will be the German car brand’s first all-electric car when it goes on sale in 2018. Yet Audi is hedging its bets, and will also next year showcase a version powered by fuel cells, which convert energy from fuels such as hydrogen into electricity via a chemical reaction rather than combustion.
Audi is also joining Tesla, Google, Apple and others by developing concepts for driverless cars, adapting its RS 7 performance cars to travel at speed around race tracks without a driver. Sven Schuwirth, vice president of brand strategy and digital business at the brand, told Dezeen last month that autonomous vehicles could “disrupt the entire business of domestic flights” as business travellers sleep in their cars rather than fly.
