Texas-bred hip-hop duo UGK glared confidently into the camera atop stallions in the music video for their fan-favorite song “Wood Wheel.” The visuals reflected the expertise of the legendary Houston-area music act: blending tales of big city hustling with charming Texas cowboy culture.
“This is not Black people trying to assimilate with this country Western lifestyle. Black people across this country – East Coast to West Coast – have been prevalent in this space for years,” said Bun B, who, with partner Pimp C, became pillars of southern hip-hop, creating hits to help it become today’s current dominant rap genre.
Bun, an ambassador for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and the first and only Black male hip-hop headliner in its history, shares his experiences in “High Horse: The Black Cowboy,” a new docuseries executive produced by Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions. The project highlights Black men, who it says were the first Americans referred to as cowboys, a term initially steeped in racism as it contrasted them with white “cowhands.” The series attempts to refute the pop culture images of the men whose tall boots and Stetson hats are seared into American mythology.
One in four cowboys were Black, even though in the late 19th century they made up a much smaller segment of the U.S. population, according to research by historian Bruce Glasrud.
“Being a Black performer at this 90-plus year concert series has been amazing for me, but it’s also given me a deeper perspective of understanding the Black cowboys’ place in American history,” Bun told The Associated Press. “It’s really energized me to try to fill this void of confusion where people who are somewhat aware typically will have a distorted view.”
“Who erased the Black cowboy?”
Directed by Jason Perez and streaming on Peacock, the three-part docuseries is an extension of Peele’s 2022 blockbuster film “Nope.” Starring Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, the movie follows siblings who operate the only Black-owned horse ranch in California, training horses for Hollywood productions.
The sci-fi horror film mentions Eadweard Muybridge, a pioneer of motion photography and his groundbreaking “The Horse in Motion” moving image, noting that while the horse, Sallie Gardner, has always been recognized, the Black jockey riding her remains largely unknown.
“We just decided to go on this journey to really figure out, or to pose the question, what happened to the Black cowboy? Who erased the Black cowboy?” said Keisha Senter, the company’s senior vice president of culture and impact and an executive producer on the project. “At Monkeypaw, we really think erasure is a horror story.”
“High Horse” is filled with archival footage and photos to provide context of the lives of early Black cowboys. In addition to creating a more complete composite of the Old West, it documents how Black cowboy communities remain vibrant in various pockets across the country, while following their struggles and triumphs.
Series spotlights African American country western history
The docuseries focuses on the history and erasure of the Black cowboy, systemic racism and the current battles Black citizens face with land ownership dating back to the post-slavery Reconstruction era, and the entertainment impact African Americans have made throughout country western history. It arrives amid the nation’s current political flashpoints. Critics of the Trump administration note its policies disproportionately and negatively affect Black Americans, including eliminating DEI programs, mass layoffs at federal agencies, and cuts to SNAP benefits, Medicare and Medicaid.
Peele, Glynn Turman, Pam Grier, Tina Knowles and Rick Ross, who all make appearances, speak to their own experiences with cowboy culture. R&B legend Raphael Saadiq provides the project’s original score.
“This is an important time in history, and I can see the writing on the wall,” said Turman, a New York City-raised actor who’s lived on a California ranch for decades. “This is a survival tool that we’ve been handed with this documentary.”
Turman, the 78-year-old Emmy winner who received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in July, is no stranger to using entertainment to educate. He starred as retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the hit ’90s sitcom “A Different World,” a spinoff from “The Cosby Show” set on the campus of a historically Black college.
“I’m from the generation where we made great strides — strides at great costs. And to see us in a time where the institutions are trying to indeed negate those strides, it’s disheartening,” Turman said of the current political divisiveness in the country.
Cowboy culture and gatekeeping reaches pop culture fever pitch
The docuseries also wades briefly into the conversation surrounding the ownership of cowboy culture and the gatekeeping surrounding it.
That topic reached a pop cultural fever pitch in recent years, thanks to inflection points such Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album and her subsequent album of the year win at the Grammys in February. There’s also Lil Nas X’s record-breaking 2019 smash “Old Town Road,” the viral line dance for “Boots on the Ground” by 803Fresh, western-themed Hollywood productions like “The Harder They Fall” and “Lawmen: Bass Reeves,” and Ivan McClellan’s book, “Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture.”
Bun says the heart of “High Horse” is examining this ignored — or erased — slice of history to gain greater insight about the country overall.
“It’s not a Black story — this is an American story,” said the past distinguished lecturer at Houston’s Rice University. “This will turn everything that you know about the American cowboy on its head in the right way, and put these things into proper historical context. And that benefits all Americans.”
