The BeyHive is convinced Beyoncé will be making a surprise appearance at Stagecoach in Indio, California, under the moniker DJ Backwoods Barbie. Theories surrounding the superstar’s alleged appearance started to make the rounds on TikTok as the country music festival prepares to kick off on Friday. Keeping on theme with the album about reclaiming space for Black people in the country music space, Beyoncé making a surprise appearance would make more than enough sense.
Stagecoach is Coachella’s sister event, and it takes place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio just a week later. It announced its lineup back in September with Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, and Morgan Wallen as the headliners and many of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter collaborators, such as Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Willie Jones, Post Malone, and Willie Nelson are set to perform. The festival also announced that Diplo, who has worked with Beyoncé in the past, would be hosting the Honky Tonk, a set played at one of the tents on festival grounds. The set will feature a host of different DJs blending country and dance music.
Read More: Fans React to Beyoncé’s New Album ‘Cowboy Carter’
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On March 11, Diplo posted a photo of the list of DJs set to perform, and the lineup includes an artist named “Backwoods Barbie.” On the festival’s website, each artist has a photo and links to their social media accounts. However, Backwoods Barbie has a photo of a Barbie doll with a cowboy hat and an Instagram account with no photos of the artist. The page features references to Beyoncé’s album, with one post saying, “Cowboy Carter on repeat.”
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Backwoods Barbie only follows six accounts: Diplo, Stagecoach, Beyoncé, Morgan Wallen, Guy Fieri, and Dolly Parton. The name Backwoods Barbie is a reference to Parton’s 2008 album of the same name. The album was a return to mainstream country music for Parton after doing mainly folk, bluegrass, and pop-country records in the 90s and early 2000s.
The unknown artist is set to perform a two-hour set starting at 7:00 PM PST on Saturday, April 27, the day after CNN releases Call Me Country: Beyoncé and Nashville’s Renaissance, an analytical look at Beyoncé’s impact on country music and the Black musicians in the genre.
Some sleuthing from the BeyHive found that there is virtually no information about Backwoods Barbie. The BeyHive surmised that this could mean a surprise performance from Beyoncé.
During the second weekend of Coachella, a semi-truck with a promotion for Cowboy Carter emblazoned across it pulled up to the festival grounds. This led fans to believe that she would be one of the many surprise guests making appearances at the festival. It’s almost certain that nobody will know for sure before Saturday, so Backwoods Barbie will have a lot of eyes on their set.
