What Beyoncé brought together can never be separated — at least that's the case for the four vocalists featured on Cowboy Carter's "Blackbiird," who just revealed they got matching tattoos together.
A little over a week after the release of Cowboy Carter, rising country stars Tiera Kennedy, Brittney Spencer, Tanner Adell, and Reyna Roberts reunited on stage at the Country Music Television (CMT) Music Awards on April 7, where they presented an award together and also took the chance to announce they had decided to immortalize their special collab with Beyoncé forever on their skin.
Ahead of the ceremony, Roberts was the first of the quartet to reveal the group had gotten matching tattoos in honor of "Blackbiird" during a red carpet interview with Billboard. "I don't know if you've talked to the other girls yet, but we actually got matching tattoos," Roberts revealed. "We all got a symbolism of our blackbird. I have black wings on mine, and it says, 'Thou shall rain heavenly fire,' like I want to blaze a trail wherever I go."
Billboard then tapped Adell who further elaborated on the tattoos during her own red carpet interview. "We all did it in our own style and kind of how we wanted," Adell added. “We just felt like this was a really big moment and [we needed something] something to commemorate the experience of being able to work together with someone that we all look up to really much and this felt right.”
Adell actually posted a picture of her tattoo, a cute bird on her right arm, to her Instagram in a small dump from the CMT Music Awards, while Spencer showed hers, also on her arm, during her own Billboard interview. "It's very minimalistic," Spencer said of her ink. "It's just a little outline of a bird in the dark night, with the stars and the moon." For now, Kennedy is the only one left to speak on her design.
On the carpet, Spencer expressed her gratitude to Bey for her inclusion in such a monumental project. "Beyoncé, you are the artist of your generation," Spencer told Entertainment Tonight. “I love you, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of his incredible masterpiece.”
“Blackbiird,” which is the second track on Cowboy Carter and features performances and backing vocals from Kennedy, Spencer, Adell, and Roberts, is a new version of the Beatles's 1968 song, originally written and performed by Paul McCartney.
The original "Blackbird" was inspired by and responding to the tensions of the American civil rights movement — specifically the Little Rock Nine and the Black girls fighting for equality and integration. In a post to Instagram on Thursday, April 4, McCartney praised Beyoncé's reimagined version of his song.
“I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place,” the music legend wrote in his caption. “…I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it. I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song. When I saw the footage on the television in the early 60s of the black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now. Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”
As the Cowboy Carter collaborators prove with their matching tattoos and their cute snaps from the night, the yeehaw agenda is alive and thriving.
