Queen Beyoncé has racked up hit after hit after hit. She released her first album with her first hit “Crazy in Love” featuring rapper Jay Z, on her debut solo album Dangerously in Love. This appeared a bit shady to Mr. Z at the 2024 Grammy Awards after Beyoncé failed to win “Album of the Year”. Beyoncé’s hit, “Break My Soul” (2022) won her Grammy #32 in 2023.
Beyoncé has collected the most Grammys ever, with 32 Grammy Awards. Texas Hold ‘Em, which includes the chorus line, “This ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ’em”, may get Grammy attention in 2025. She released this song on her eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, February 11, 2024, which she debuted at Super Bowl 2024.
About Beyoncé
Queen Bey’s given name is often reported to be Beyoncé Knowles, and it is now Beyoncé Knowles-Carter after wedding Jay Z, whose given name is Shawn Corey Carter. Given that Beyoncé grew up living in two houses in Houston until she was 21, that is indeed Texas. In 1981, the Knowles family bought a home in Houston’s historic Riverside Terrace neighborhood. That is Texas.
The Knowles bought Beyoncé’s second childhood home in Houston’s historic Third Ward in 1986. Unfortunately, the Riverside Terrace home burned early in the morning of December 25, 2023. Beyoncé does not own the Riverside Terrace home now. However, her history makes that house worth an estimated $581,800 today, according to Zillow. That is Texas.
Beyoncé bought her mother, Tina Knowles, an opulent mansion worth $6 million in an affluent Houston neighborhood in 2004. That is Hollywood and Billboard behavior that is always alive in Texas. Tina Knowles no longer owns that mansion. We cannot find a record of Beyoncé owning property in Texas as of this writing. That ain’t Texas.
A Lot of North America Ain’t Texas
But a lot of it does serve up Texas. The provinces of Calgary and Saskatchewan, Canada, share a bonded wild west history with the Western U.S. The Wood Mountain Rodeo has continuously been held every July since 1890 in Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, making it Canada’s oldest rodeo.
In the beginning, the North-West Mounted Police would challenge ranchers to horse races and athletic competitions. They performed on the open prairie with no corrals and chutes, with the Mounties winning athletics and the cowboys winning races.
The Calgary Stampede is an annual rodeo, exhibition, and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Wyoming cowboy Guy Weadick established the world renowned Calgary Stampede rodeo in 1912. Billed as the “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth,” the first Stampede took place every July since 1912.
If you cannot get to Texas’ Piney Woods, you can take in Tennessee’s piney woods. Tennessee’s woods come with a much higher elevation. There are 12 mountain ranges in Tennessee. The most well-known ranges are the Appalachian Mountains, Great Smoky Mountains, and Blue Ridge Mountains. The most historic is the Cumberland Plateau.
The Gulf Coast spans Texas to Florida. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported in February 2023, “For 2020, U.S. commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated $253 billion in sales impacts.
“Saltwater fishing contributed $117 billion to gross domestic product and supported 1.7 million jobs in the U.S. marine fishing sector and across the broader economy.” Florida is known as the “Fishing Capital of the World” because of its many fishing waters, game species, and year-round fishing weather.
Is This or Is This Ain’t Texas?
We are not sure, really; we are surely not sure! Beyoncé is all over the musical genre map. So, we are not even sure what her genre is, but it combines many genres. We might think of Beyonce’s music as experimental genres. We can only be sure that Beyoncé has used several names over her lifetime. In January 2023, Beyoncé told People,
“A lot of people don’t know that Beyoncé is my last name. It’s my maiden name. My name was Celestine Beyoncé, which at that time was not a cool thing to have that weird name. I wanted my name to be Linda Smith because those were the cool names.” This ain’t Texas. People worldwide use aliases, nicknames, and stage names to identify themselves.
What About Texas Hold ‘Em Ain’t Texan?
Texas Hold ‘Em lyrics include a bunch of Texan buzzwords, so is the title of the song an oxymoron? Irony? Paradoxical? Grammarly claims, “Oxymorons may seem illogical at first, but in context, they usually make sense.” A paradox is something with two meanings that does not make sense together.
Maybe looking into Texas Hold ‘Em’s lyrics can give us a clue. As in, what words in Texas Hold ‘Em constitute what ain’t or ain’t not Texas? Contextually, the phrase “This ain’t Texas” implies that whatever is being described does not portray Texas or the stereotypical Texan experience.
What Texas Hold Em Words Ain’t or Ain’t Not Texas?
We are not certain whether or not Beyonce researched the etymology of the words she wrote into the lyrics of Texas Hold “Em. Queen Bey is fabulously wealthy. Obviously, she creates her art for commercial purposes. She and her family live a life of supreme luxury. Who could blame any gifted artist for writing lyrics with aspirations to hit Billboard’s Top 100?
If you take the statement “This Ain’t Texas” and its Other lyrics literally…
Does “Lexus” portray Texas? Or “Hit the basement”, because of the Texas twisters? Basements are super rare anywhere in Texas, and especially on the Gulf Coast. Tornado speaks Texas along with the rest of the Western prairie states! So does Cowboy, which does not appear in the lyrics, only the album title.
Does “red cup kisses” refer to solo cups, which are made in Taiwan, but popular all over the earth? Jazz History Tree reports that, “The broad consensus is that boogie-woogie piano was first played in Texas in the late 1870s.” The term “boogie” was first used commercially in 1929 with the release of Pinetop Smith’s recording of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”.
Pinetop composed the first known boogie-woogie hit, and it consists solely of instructions to dancers. We certainly share hoedown with the South East U.S., but hoedown is able to speak Texas, and carries an interesting history.
As early as 1807, Washington Irving described one particular dancing motion as “hoe corn and dig potatoes.” Music historians believe that hoedown originates from the resemblance of dance moves to digging the ground with a hoe. By 1841, the term came to imply “noisy dance”, and it is associated with Appalachian culture.
“There’s a heatwave” indisputably speaks Texas. Dive-bar—The Oxford English Dictionary records that the first documented use of the phrase appeared in the New York Herald in July 1871. Rugged whiskey does not have a cultural or historical reference that we could find.
There y’all have it…Y’all decide if Texas Hold ‘Em ain’t or ain’t not Texas.
Author: Kendall Davis
Author: Kendall Davis Company: Lumini Services Kendall currently lives on the shores of Lake Texoma in Texas. She traveled across two-thirds of the U.S. for many years camping at lakes, rivers, and three oceans before motels and hotels if at all possible, and she continuously saw God's presence in nature. Writing for Lakehub allows Kendall to share her experience with God's creations. https://kdavis1836.wixsite.com/luminiwrites
