RAYE co-wrote the song Riiverdance on Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’.
The US superstar dropped her hotly-anticipated country-influenced project on Friday (March 29), with the release galloping to the top of the charts worldwide.
It proved an instant hit with fans and amid the frenzy, British star RAYE took to social media to reveal her involvement in the record.
“happy COWBOY CARTER day,” she penned. “What an honour it is to being able to contribute my small piece to this beautiful album, and to THE @beyonce who continues to inspire all of us.
“RIIVERDANCE co – written by me,” she added. “found my cowboy hat i bought on my 21st birthday for this special occasion.”
Check out RAYE’s post below.
‘Cowboy Carter’ features a number of collaborations over the course of its 27 tracks, with appearances from Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus and others.
According to a press release, the album “is a cornucopia of sounds that Beyoncé loves, and grew up listening to, between visits and eventually performances at the Houston Rodeo – Country, original Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Zydeco, and Black Folk”.
Beyoncé says: “The joy of creating music is that there are no rules. The more I see the world evolving the more I felt a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence and digital filters and programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments, and I used very old ones. I didn’t want some layers of instruments like strings, especially guitars, and organs perfectly in tune.
“I kept some songs raw and leaned into folk. All the sounds were so organic and human, everyday things like the wind, snaps and even the sound of birds and chickens, the sounds of nature.”
Other collaborators on ‘Cowboy Carter’ include The-Dream, Pharrell, NO I.D., Raphael Saadiq, Ryan Tedder, Ryan Beatty, Swizz Beatz, Khirye Tyler, Derek Dixie, Ink, Nova Wav, Mamii, Cam, Tyler Johnson, Dave Hamelin and JAY-Z.
“This album took over five years,” adds Beyoncé. “It’s been really great to have the time and the grace to be able to take my time with it. I was initially going to put ‘Cowboy Carter’ out first, but with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world.
“We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s timing.”
