3 Things Creatives Can Learn From Cowboy Carter
I am going to start this off with some choice words - I’ve never been a huge Beyoncé fan. Okay, okay, okay - don’t come for me. It’s not that I despised her music or her, it just wasn’t up there with the likes of my usual type of music. That being said, she roped me in (see what I did there) with her recent release of Cowboy Carter. While the tunes are incredible there’s so much more for us to learn as artists from this album and I want to use this blog to explore them (while sharing photos of the glorious Sabrina!)
The power of experimentation, jumping genres, and exploring connections
I think this is probably an obvious one, right? Beyoncé topping the country charts was not something I had on my list for 2024, but I sure as heck am happy to add it. Beyoncé shows us that it is possible for us to jump tracks from time to time and explore what could be possible. Asking ourselves as artists, “How can I take my work even deeper?” and “What would be completely unexpected in the realm of my art?” I think we all get to a place where technically we can show up and perform in a way that satisfies - our brains learn very quickly what resonates, what doesn’t, and we can quickly find ourselves pumping out images, canvasses, or music that fit into a “system” to sell. However, at some point we will find ourselves yearning for more and asking questions like “What would it look like/sound like/be like if I did….?” With your art, whether it be writing, music, photography, or ceramics, I want you to consider how can you add a new flavor to it? Can you try editing in a different way? Can you try a different poetry style? One really great activity I did to help shake my own shit up, was to take the stylings of 3 different artists that I admired (they weren’t all photographers!) to imagine how they would create a singular artwork. This was a really fun activity for me to do because I really had to think about what was it that I loved about those artists and what skills could I develop? It really used a different part of my brain and I could feel myself stretching!
2. The Power of a Positive Brand
One of the things that Beyoncé has going for her is the fact that she has built up a strong and sturdy crew of loyalists. As her work has evolved and changed over the years, her people are always on their toes wondering “What’s she gonna bring next?” The ability to create a brand that is not tied to a specific sound, a specific style, nor specific way of being allows her to continually grow, evolve and push boundaries and that is the sign of an absolute true personal brand. If I was to guess, I would say her “brand” is rooted in legacy, honor, and power. These things transcend trends and stylings and we can see these things in her clothing line, her music, and the way she storytells through lyrics. Without being her brand strategist, I don’t know 100% if any of this is accurate, this is just my read on what little I do know (remember, not a huge fan). So, what we can take away from this is the importance of consistency - I remember when I was first starting out in photography, afraid that I wasn’t consistent with my brand because I was playing around with edits, styles, etc. and a mentor said to me “Teri, I can tell your work is your work because of how the women are portrayed - they are confident af, unapologetic, and feeling themselves. Your brand isn’t in your colors, your textures, or presets - it’s in the message.” Are you clear on your values? Even if you do 5000 things like I do, what’s the through line? If you haven’t already done it, check out my Values exercise blog post to get a bit more clarity and see how your brand currently stacks up!!
3. The power of the collab
I’m never quite sure how I feel when people do collabs on their albums, but in this instance, with Cowboy Carter, I’m all in. I love the way that Beyoncé brought in fresh voices, re-introduced the older generation, and created epic tracks that span decades. Not only does this allow Beyoncé to travel into new circles, but she is introducing her circle to new voices. Maximum expansion with minimal work. She’s uplifting others and allowing herself to be uplifted by featuring voices like Dolly and Willy on her album. We’ve learned with social media that collabs create street cred and essentially let other communities know if you are respected in that space or not and Beyoncé did an incredible job with this - for others and for herself. So for us creatives, what does this mean? This means we want to start looking at community - who can we uplift? Who can uplift us? What kind of fun content can you create with each other to expand your circles? Now, it’s imperative that you aren’t just taking - you want to reach out to folks who would have similar notoriety in their communities as you do in yours. I used to do fun challenges with people in different genres than me to create content for my youtube channel, I’ve spoken at events to rooms full of people that have no idea what boudoir photography is, and I’ve partnered with people across the globe with similar objectives to expand my audience - and all of it has worked (and it was fun AND I made friends!) No more creating in a bubble, create with others and see what magic can be made!! I challenge you to connect with someone this week to create an art piece or a piece of content and see what you can do!!
