This is why Beyoncé’s name is spelled ‘Beyincé’ on Cowboy Carter album cover
Here’s why Beyoncé’s name is spelled Beyincé on her Cowboy Carter album cover. (@beyonce/ Instagram)
The limited edition vinyl cover of Beyoncé’s upcoming Cowboy Carter album features the icon wearing a sash emblazoned with the word ‘Beyincé’ – this is why.
While Reneigh’s cousin Chardonneigh gallops happily across the front of the regular edition Cowboy Carter, the country album’s exclusive edition features Beyoncé as a c*nty Statue of Liberty, exemplifying the singer’s efforts to reclaim American culture for the Black artists that helped create it.
Fans have noticed, however, that after ‘act ii’ on the sash, Beyoncé’s name is misspelled with an ‘i’, making it ‘Beyincé’.
It would be remiss of anyone to assume that Beyoncé – you know, the Beyoncé, Virgo-in-chief, planner extraordinaire, borderline deity – had made such a brazen mistake on the cover of her latest album; and that’s because she hasn’t.
So why has Beyoncé spelled her name wrong?
What does ‘Beyincé’ mean?
The ‘Beyincé’ spelling is a tribute to Beyoncé’s heritage; more specifically, her maternal grandmother, Agnéz Beyincé (née Deréon).
Speaking on a 2020 episode of In My Head with Heather Thomson, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, explained that her maiden name is actually ‘Beyoncé’ – but that the ‘Beyincé’ moniker was brought in due to various clerical errors and medical negligence on her family’s birth certificates.
“I think me and my brother Skip were the only two that had B-E-Y-O-N-C-E,” she explained to Thomson on the episode, before adding how the various spellings came to be.
“It’s interesting — and it shows you the times — because we asked my mother when I was grown. I was like, ‘Why is my brother’s name spelled B-E-Y-I-N-C-E? You know, it’s all these different spellings,’ ” Knowles-Lawson said.
“And my mom’s reply to me was like, ‘That’s what they put on your birth certificate.'”
Knowles-Lawson continued: “So I said, ‘Well, why didn’t you argue and make them correct it?'” before explaining how poorly medical institutions at the time treated women of colour.
“And she said, ‘I did one time. The first time, and I was told be happy that you’re getting a birth certificate because, at one time, Black people didn’t get birth certificates.”
Knowles-Lawson added that it “must’ve been horrible” for her mother to “not to even be able to have her children’s names spelled correctly.”
“So we all have different spellings,” she said. “People don’t even put the two together and know that’s the same name.”
Cowboy Carter, which Beyoncé has described as “[not] a country album“, but a “Beyoncé album”, is due to be released on 29 March.
