Social media lie about Beyoncé and Jay-Z smacks of racism

Social media knows who you are and will funnel you stories based on your scrolling history and on the analytics of whatever app you are using. This is not breaking news. Have you ever wondered why you might have heard of a product for the first time one day and then the next day you are seeing ads? There are no secrets.

The above is brought up because what one sees on social media needs to be weighed with logic and, sometimes, researching the facts. Specifically, a recent social media post about Beyoncé and Jay-Z is clearly false but that does not mean people won't share it. One will believe what they want to believe.

The post in question, from a false news site called POP Princess, states that Jay-Z "paid country radio stations" around $20 million so that Beyoncé's new songs would reach the top of the Billboard country music charts. One might ask themselves, "Does that make sense?" The answer should be an easy "no."

Beyoncé's country album is worthy of success whether some people believe it or not

The post plays on the fact that people will not do their own research and have an ignorance of how Billboard accounts for tracking songs. How often a radio station plays a song is only a small part of how well a single is ranked along with physical and digital sales, online streaming, and radio airplay in the United States. In other words, Jay-Z giving radio stations $20 million (which honestly does not seem like that much) to play his wife's songs would seem silly and Jay-Z is not financially silly.

Moreover, a person would have to spread that money over a vast number of radio stations so the targeted audience is limited. This is also Beyoncé we are discussing and she needs no help in selling records. One might also ask what the difference between Beyoncé, a pop artist who decided to release a country album, and a performer such as Kid Rock, a rock singer whose eighth album was country-oriented, is other than the color of their skin.

Why do so many people seem annoyed that Beyoncé released a country album, Cowboy Carter, when she grew up around country music in Houston, Texas? Can a musical artist not produce any kind of music they wish to produce? Or is the issue mainly that Beyoncé is an African-American artist involved in a musical genre that is still mostly white?

POP Princess also has a post that states the Academy of Country Music announced a "lifetime ban" on the singer after she released her country album. (The whole claim is quite ridiculous.) Reuters news site looked into the issue and found the post to be patently false.

According to Billboard, Beyoncé's single, "Texas Hold ‘Em,” "drew 19.2 million official streams and 4.8 million in all-format airplay audience and sold 39,000 in the U.S. through Feb. 15, according to Luminate."

This means that people chose to search for Beyoncé's songs instead of waiting for them to be played on the radio. It is doubtful Jay-Z sent each of the persons who streamed a song by his wife any money, obviously. Beyoncé is a success because of her talent and while some people are going to willingly be duped into believing she and her husband schemed her way to the top of the country charts, the fact remains even more people liked her songs, did not care what the color of her skin was, and wanted to hear the tracks.

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