NEW YORK — Flashback to February. It’s the 2025 Grammys, and Beyoncé has made history. Not only was she finally awarded the top prize of album of the year, but she also became the first Black woman to win best country album for “Cowboy Carter.” Recent changes by the Recording Academy have made it even more monumental: She might be the last person to ever win the award.

In June, the Academy announced that the Grammys’ country album title was splitting into two categories. A new award was created, traditional country album. The preexisting country album category has been redefined and is now contemporary country album, reflecting the genre’s ongoing sonic evolutions.

The decision was divisive: Some viewed it as backlash to Beyoncé’s win. Others welcomed the addition of a new award and the creative doors it might open. Some questioned how the categories would be defined in a genre where the word “traditional” is loaded.

Here’s everything you need to know about the change — and what it could signify in the future.

From ‘Cowboy Carter’ to now

Charles L. Hughes, Rhodes College professor and author of “Country Soul,” says Beyoncé’s victory was a welcomed surprise, despite being obviously worthy. That’s because her album inspired a larger conversation about reclamation, standing in opposition to the music industry’s rigid power structures and “indicated how significant this historical question remains of whether or not Black folks have equal access to success in a genre of music that bears such strong Black influences and has from the very beginning,” Hughes said.

He believes the decision to alter the country album categories was not in direct response to her win — “I think it is a more complicated story,” he says — but the timing might’ve been less than ideal, emboldening fans to view it as reactionary. He hopes the changes will open the category to more diversity of sounds and “whether this leads to a broader opening and opportunity for Black artists, especially Black women in country music,” he posits.

Francesca T. Royster, a DePaul University professor and author of “Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions,” views Beyoncé’s victory as positively connected to this change. She wonders if artists — particularly artists of color, who never had their music recognized in country music categories, think of artists like “Millie Jackson or Candi Staton, Bobby Womack” — would now see their work recognized.

“It makes sense that the Grammy categories for country would become a little bit more expansive,” she says, “because I think the music is more expansive and the audience is also more expansive than it’s ever been.”

Traditional vs. contemporary

According to the Recording Academy’s rule book, the traditional country category is defined by “country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation.”

Those are: acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar and live drums. This is also where subgenres like outlaw country, Western and Western swing would fit.

The contemporary country category description is a bit more conceptual. The rule book states that albums eligible in this category “utilize a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content, and/or musical presentation to create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary country style and culture.”

The hope is that those titles are “relevant to the legacy of country music’s culture, while also engaging in more contemporary music forms.”

The questions Hughes poses: “Whose tradition are we talking about?” And how is “country music’s culture” defined?

“It’s almost tautology. ‘Well, it’s traditional country if it sounds like traditional country,’” he says.

In that reading, contemporary country could simply account for everything else.

Royster says both categories seem to “speak to an aesthetic as well as political agenda, many agendas.” To her, the traditional category would appeal to artists who believe that “this is a past form that needs to ... continue to be recognized and respected.” Similarly, the contemporary category is “linked to the culture of country but is also expansive.”

“In both cases, there’s a kind of story behind the story.”

The 68th Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+.