<\/p>\n
NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 Texas-bred hip-hop duo UGK glared confidently into the camera atop stallions in the music video for their fan-favorite song \u201cWood Wheel.\u201d The visuals reflected the expertise of the legendary Houston-area music act: blending tales of big city hustling with charming Texas cowboy culture.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not Black people trying to assimilate with this country Western lifestyle. Black people across this country \u2013 East Coast to West Coast \u2013 have been prevalent in this space for years,\u201d said Bun B, who, with partner Pimp C, became pillars of southern hip-hop<\/a>, creating hits to help it become today’s current dominant rap genre. <\/p>\n 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 \u201cHigh Horse: The Black Cowboy,\u201d a new docuseries executive produced by Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions<\/a>. The project highlights who it says are the first American cowboys \u2013 Black men \u2013 and attempts to refute America\u2019s mythology and pop culture image of those in tall boots and Stetson hats.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a Black performer at this 90-plus year concert series has been amazing for me, but it\u2019s also given me a deeper perspective of understanding the Black cowboys\u2019 place in American history,\u201d Bun told The Associated Press. \u201cIt\u2019s really energized me to try to fill this void of confusion where people who are somewhat aware typically will have a distorted view.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Who erased the Black cowboy?’<\/p>\n Directed by Jason Perez and streaming on Peacock, the three-part docuseries is an extension of Peele\u2019s 2022 blockbuster film \u201cNope.\u201d<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n The sci-fi horror film mentions Eadweard Muybridge, a pioneer of motion photography and his groundbreaking \u201cThe Horse in Motion\u201d moving image, noting that while the horse, Sallie Gardner, has always been recognized, the Black jockey riding her remains largely unknown.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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?\u201d said Keisha Senter, the company’s senior vice president of culture and impact and an executive producer on the project. \u201cAt Monkeypaw, we really think erasure is a horror story.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHigh Horse\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Series spotlights African American country western history<\/p>\n 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<\/a> note its policies disproportionately and negatively affect Black Americans, including eliminating DEI programs<\/a>, mass layoffs at federal agencies, and cuts to SNAP benefits<\/a>, Medicare and Medicaid.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an important time in history, and I can see the writing on the wall,” said Turman, a New York City-raised<\/a> actor who\u2019s lived on a California ranch for decades. \u201cThis is a survival tool that we\u2019ve been handed with this documentary.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201990s sitcom \u201cA Different World,\u201d a spinoff from \u201cThe Cosby Show” set on the campus of a historically Black college.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m from the generation where we made great strides \u2014 strides at great costs. And to see us in a time where the institutions are trying to indeed negate those strides, it\u2019s disheartening,\u201d Turman said of the current political divisiveness in the country.<\/p>\n Cowboy culture and gatekeeping reaches pop culture fever pitch<\/p>\n The docuseries also wades briefly into the conversation surrounding the ownership of cowboy culture and the gatekeeping surrounding it. <\/p>\n That topic reached a pop cultural fever pitch in recent years, thanks to inflection points such Beyonc\u00e9’s \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d album<\/a> and her subsequent album of the year win at the Grammys in February<\/a>. There’s also Lil Nas X\u2019s record-breaking 2019 smash \u201cOld Town Road,\u201d the viral line dance for \u201cBoots on the Ground\u201d by 803Fresh<\/a>, western-themed Hollywood productions like \u201cThe Harder They Fall\u201d and \u201cLawmen: Bass Reeves,” and Ivan McClellan\u2019s book, \u201cEight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture.\u201d<\/p>\n Bun says the heart of \u201cHigh Horse\u201d is examining this ignored \u2014 or erased \u2014 slice of history to gain greater insight about the country overall.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a Black story \u2014 this is an American story,” said the past distinguished lecturer at Houston’s Rice University. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Follow Associated Press entertainment journalist Gary Gerard Hamilton at @GaryGHamilton on all his social media platforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.clickorlando.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK \u2013 Texas-bred hip-hop duo UGK glared confidently into the camera atop stallions in the music video for their fan-favorite song \u201cWood Wheel.\u201d The visuals reflected the expertise of the legendary Houston-area music act: blending tales of big city hustling with charming Texas cowboy culture. \u201cThis is not Black people trying to assimilate with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2170577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[83367,313612,22389,21741,352977,343300,417029,417027,417030,315770,417028,26685,351627,411453,399161,395004,309687,417026,347049,30188],"class_list":["post-2170576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-beyonce-knowles","tag-daniel-kaluuya","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-ethnicity","tag-gary-gerard-hamilton","tag-glynn-turman","tag-ivan-mcclellan","tag-jason-perez","tag-jordan-peele","tag-keisha-senter","tag-keke-palmer","tag-lil-nas-x","tag-pam-grier","tag-race","tag-raphael-saadiq","tag-rick-ross","tag-sallie-gardner","tag-tina-knowles","tag-u-s-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/The-Black-Cowboy-doc-sheds-light-on-an-erased-part.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170578,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170576\/revisions\/2170578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2170577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}