While a country smash from Beyoncé came as a surprise, for Grammy Award-winning producer Hit-Boy, the success of “Texas Hold ’Em” is a testament to the singularity of Beyoncé’s ear and vision. “She would be the only person that would think to bring Hit-Boy in on some country music,” he says.
Although Beyoncé released the song during Super Bowl LVIII in February, the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit has been gestating for about two years. Hit-Boy — who has worked on every solo Beyoncé studio album since her 2013 self-titled visual release — recalls first hearing a “kind of bare” demo consisting primarily of guitar and some drums, to which he added background elements like synthesizers. “It’s a texture, it’s something that you might not even be paying attention to, but it’s adding flavor to it and bringing more emotion out,” he says. “Texas Hold ’Em” remained in the vault before serving as an introduction to Beyoncé’s forthcoming Act II — though Hit-Boy wasn’t even aware the single was on its way until two days before it dropped.
Hit-Boy received an email asking him to “sign off on this joint called ‘Texas Hold ’Em.’ They was trying to tell me it was urgent without telling me it was urgent,” he quips. Less than 48 hours later, the song was rising on the charts. And in its second tracking week (Feb. 16-22), the song more than doubled its streams to 29 million (up 51%) and earned 6.1 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 233%), according to Luminate, all resulting in a historic No. 1. Not only has “Texas Hold ’Em” made Beyoncé the first Black woman to top the Hot 100 with a country song, but it has also spurred massive streaming gains for other Black women in country music — from Linda Martell to Tanner Adell.
Hit-Boy credits the track’s “authenticity” for its instant success with global audiences. “My favorite part is the cadence. You can really feel her country roots when you listen to it,” he says. “It’s the melody and the movement … when you can get people to move, that’s a real thing.” Nonetheless, that sentiment wasn’t universal upon the song’s release, with an Oklahoma radio station initially refusing to play “Texas Hold ’Em” because it wasn’t aware that the track was a country song. (The station eventually started spinning it.)
While he’s reluctant to reveal specific details about Act II, Hit-Boy does confirm that, despite the genre pivot, Beyoncé’s album-making process remains unchanged. “[She] picks out what she likes and places it where she wants to,” he says. “She’s a real producer … [she] has that vision from start to finish.”
This story will appear in the March 9, 2024, issue of Billboard.
