For a genre of music that has rarely gone mainstream, country is now coming to dominate the industry…with help from Beyoncé.

During the Super Bowl on Sunday, Beyoncé dropped two new songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” and announced a country album scheduled for release on March 29. Members of the Beyhive weren’t surprised: She’s been hinting at it for years, wore a giant cowboy hat to the Grammys, and is, after all, from Houston.

Still, her announcement has sparked a new conversation around who gets to make country music. The country song on her album Lemonade, “Daddy Lessons,” was deemed ineligible for country music categories at the 2017 Grammys by the Recording Academy’s country music committee, and her performance of the song at the Country Music Association Awards with the Chicks got criticism from some country fans. Other Black artists, such as Lil Nas X, haven’t always been welcomed by the genre. But as country gains mainstream popularity, many see potential for a new era as the genre grows.

Everyone’s grabbing a banjo

Take it from indie-popstar Lana Del Rey: “The music business is going country.” That’s what the artist, who is releasing a country album in September titled Lasso, told Billboard this month. She’s not wrong: Rapper Post Malone, who debuted on the country charts last year, has also confirmed that he has a country album in the works.

What changed? Maybe music execs finally listened to Eric Church’s “Springsteen” and realized what every person in a state with a Bojangles knows: Country music is good music. But more likely, the change is thanks to…Morgan Wallen.

• Country music streaming grew 24% YoY through Q3 2023. Wallen was responsible for almost a third of the growth, according to entertainment data company Luminate.
• Last June, No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart were country songs: “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen and the “Fast Car” cover by Luke Combs.

Big picture: Gen Z and millennials are also driving the surge in country. In 2023, 36% of streams of Spotify’s Top 50 songs were country songs, compared to 2% in 2016.—CC

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The oil and gas industry gets another mega-merger. As consolidation of companies extracting energy in the Permian Basin continues, Diamondback Energy announced plans to buy Endeavor Energy Partners, the area’s biggest privately held oil and gas producer, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at around $26 billion. It’s the latest acquisition as energy companies look to grow and secure drilling sites with high oil prices remaining high: Exxon Mobil is snapping up Pioneer Natural Resources in a $60 billion deal, and Chevron is buying Hess for $53 billion.

Israel rescues two hostages amid deadly Rafah strikes. The Israeli military said it had rescued two hostages among the more than 100 still being held by Hamas from the Oct. 7 attack. The raid to free them from an apartment in the southern Gaza city of Rafah included airstrikes that killed 94 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is Hamas-run. This came as Israel is preparing for a ground offenisve in Rafah, which it considers a Hamas stronghold, where the UN estimates 1.3 million Palestinians are currently living, many because they fled from the north to escape the war. Meanwhile, a Dutch court ordered the government to stop sending fighter jet parts to Israel because of concerns they could be used to violate international law.

Bitcoin may be headed to the moon. Crypto may not be back to having celebs hawk it during the Super Bowl after a series of scams and bankruptcies rocked the industry, but yesterday, the price of bitcoin rose higher than $50,000 for the first time since December 2021. Last month’s decision by US regulators to allow spot bitcoin ETFs, which pushes the digital currency toward the mainstream by making it easier for people to access, didn’t initially significantly drive up prices, but interest in the ETFs helped spur the recent rise.

Yo youngsters, word on the street is President Biden is lowkey goated. Or at least he’s joined TikTok and posted his first video this weekend: A tongue-in-cheek Super Bowl Q&A captioned “lol hey guys” garnered more than 6 million views as of last night.

The president’s reelection campaign runs the new BidenHQ account—complete with “Grows the economy” in the bio and a profile pic referencing the Dark Brandon meme. His debut on the platform is widely seen as a way for him to woo Gen Z voters amid concerns about his age.

• While young Americans helped Biden win his first term, he alienated some of them with his stance on the Israel–Hamas war and his climate policy. Some polls have shown him trailing the likely GOP candidate, Donald Trump, among voters in their 20s.
• Embracing TikTok could help him reach younger voters: Almost a third of American adults under age 30 regularly get news on the app, per Pew Research Center.

Biden, of course, didn’t invent TikTok politicking. Indonesian presidential candidates have danced and livestreamed in the run-up to the country’s election, which is taking place tomorrow.

TikTok comes with risks…the Chinese-owned app is banned from most US federal government devices due to security concerns, and the president has already gotten flak from Republicans for using it.—SK

Matters of the wallet. Spending habits are like fingerprints—they’re unique to the person. And in relationships, these habits can be (and often are) a major source of stress. Luckily, the experts at Facet will put together a financial plan for you and your partner that takes both your habits into account. Learn more.

What’s your money love language?

Ordering takeout
Doom spending on social
Picking up the tab at a group dinner
Impulse buying plane tickets

A new app for singles isn’t focused on finding Pams for all of the Jims who know the best spot in town for margaritas—it just wants to connect singles who pay their bills on time.

Applications are now open to join Score, a limited-time dating app for people with credit scores of 675 or above, developed by the financial wellness platform Neon Money Club.

“Before you can educate people, you need to get their attention,” Neon Money Club CEO Luke Bailey told TechCrunch. Score isn’t a Tinder replacement—it’s a social experiment aimed at making people 1) feel more comfortable discussing money in their relationships and 2) better understand personal finance. That’s why applicants who don’t make the cut receive resources on how to improve their credit scores.

The dating app will only run for ~90 days. But Score isn’t purely a stunt. People really are more likely to start serious relationships if they have high credit scores, according to research by the Federal Reserve.

Financial literacy is hot…especially among Gen Zers, who care more about financial compatibility than any other generation, according to a Northwestern Mutual survey. Some young singles went viral last summer for adding their credit scores to their Hinge profiles and watching the matches pour in.—ML

Stat: Planning to buy that special someone chocolate for Valentine’s Day? We hope you’ve been saving up because the quintessential “I bought this at the drugstore on the way to our date” gift is extra pricey this year thanks to a spike in the cost of cocoa. Last week, a metric ton of cocoa was trading at a record $5,600, per Bloomberg—surpassing the previous high price set in 1977. It’s due to a poor harvest caused by climate conditions in West Africa, where 60% of cocoa is grown. A food and beverage economist told CNN that retail chocolate prices have climbed 17% over the past two years. Still, the National Confectioners Association says ~92% of Americans plan to buy chocolate or candy for the holiday.

Quote: “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain.”

For some, the ads are the most exciting part of the Super Bowl, but one group unhappy with this year’s marketing efforts was the cousins of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Several of them criticized a Super PAC spot supporting him that repurposed an ad from his uncle John F. Kennedy’s successful 1960 presidential campaign, prompting RFK Jr. to apologize and explain he’d had no hand in making the ad—while leaving it pinned to the top of his X feed. It’s not the first time RFK Jr.’s campaign has caused family drama to spill out into the open: In October, four of his siblings said, “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision, or judgment.”

Read: How Bill Ackman’s Harvard battle made him the face of an anxious billionaire class. (New York Magazine)

Fly for less: The right time to book cheap airfare for every vacation season.

Kind of blue: The scientific answer to “What color are blueberries?” is more complicated than you’d expect.

Spend the night in: Recipes for a Valentine’s Day dinner at home that won’t break the bank.

Wear them well: Why black jeans fit differently from blue ones.

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