In the heart of Houston, the Sweet Tooth Rodeo promises a few things: cowboys, culture, and creativity. Black rodeo culture has long existed for many years, but it’s slowly moving to the forefront. Despite it being a Thursday evening, a crowd of locals, and rodeo enthusiasts alike, packed the bleachers of Monumental Plaza Garibaldi. In true Texan style, ongoers, including VIPs like Julez Smith, Ben Da Donn, Maxo Kream, and Young Thug, were decked out in bedazzled boots, cowboy hats, leather looks, and daisy dukes that fringed at the hems. But the spectacle went not without intention, and behind it was Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo (BPIR), the nation’s longest-running African American touring competition.
It wasn’t your typical rodeo — SP5DER, the Los Angeles-based fashion and lifestyle brand partnered with the nonprofit organization and transformed the circuit into a runway; before the show, models kicked off the night by sporting vibrant sweatsuits and logo-adorned tees, an unexpected collaboration that still channeled true Southern spirit. The night transitioned into a series of seven competitions with more than 50 cowboys and cowgirls participating in barrel racing, bull riding, calf roping, and more. Competitors as young as 10 years old wrangled cattles, while award-winning cowboys roughed it out on bulls for as long as they could. As for their uniform? Custom button-down competition shirts, courtesy of SP5DER, of course.
Beyond the street style and non-stop thrill, the Sweet Tooth Rodeo continued its legacy to honor decades of Black history that refuses to go ignored. For Valeria Howard-Cunningham, the president and producer of BPIR, the mission is simple: bring visibility to Black rodeo culture, which often goes under-represented in the mainstream.
“My now-deceased husband [Lu Vason] founded BPIR when he went to a rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and he didn’t see anybody that looked like him participating in the rodeo,” Howard-Cunningham tells Teen Vogue. “Afterwards, he researched and found out that there were thousands of Black cowboys and cowgirls across the country, but they were not given the opportunity to perform.” At first, his idea to create a rodeo rooted in African American contributions received a fair share of backlash. “Everybody told him he was crazy and that it wouldn’t be successful. But it didn’t deter him. He did it anyway.”
Thus, BPIR was born in 1984, and named after William “Bill” Pickett, a prominent Black cowboy credited for being the creator of steer wrestling, also known as bulldogging. Now, the cultural organization travels all across the U.S., educating and entertaining the community while preserving and promoting Black Western history.
“We’re preparing the next generation to keep the legacy going,” Howard-Cunningham adds.
When it came to this past Sweet Tooth Rodeo, she admits to being hesitant about the merge of fashion with rodeo, but realized the importance of this unlikely partnership, especially with celebrities like Beyoncé embracing Western culture in Cowboy Carter. Her nephew, Julez Smith, was in attendance, showing off his Southern roots.
“While we’re having fun, we're also educating people so that they know about their own history and know how relevant Black people were in the development of the West…[and this collaboration with SP5DER] is a marriage made in heaven,” she says.
SP5DER co-founder Maria Rubin echoes similar sentiments on the growing interest in Western trends. “Some of it feels a bit posery, and no offense to other brands, but as most of our team hail from the South, we felt we could do it in a way that was honest because we all grew up around it.” But by honoring the past and future of rodeo, Howard-Cunningham reminds us of the importance of bringing Black excellence to the forefront: “Everything that happens in life started with [Black Americans],” she says. “Our history has been clouded and sometimes, attempted to be erased, but you cannot erase the truth.”
