Here's a helpful bit of context for this conversation.

There was a moment around that time when you had the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama.

This is Piers Morgan, talking to Beyonce on CNN back in 2011.

You, the biggest singing star in the world.

You know, Tiger Woods was then the number one golf in the world, which would have been unthinkable 20, 30 years before.

Exactly.

The scene change really came through personal achievement as much as anything else.

Absolutely.

She's about 29 years old here.

And he was reflecting on the moment the country was in after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Have you had to put up with racism as you grew up?

Did you experience the bad side of it?

A bit. But, you know, I feel like now, people, at least with my career I've kind of broken barriers and I don't

think people think about my race I think they they look at me as an

entertainer and a musician and I'm very happy that that's changing,

because I think that's how I look at people, and that's how I look at my friends.

It's not about color and race, and I'm just happy that that's changing.

Like I said, this was 2011, and a lot has changed. For us and for her.

Now, like Taylor Swift, Beyonce is an economy-shifting international star.

But her ability to shift the Cyclops eye of cultural attention, well, that's unmatched.

And this year, this election year, she trained that eye on country music, whose gatekeepers,

radio programmers, record executives, marketers, well, they still maintain a fair

amount of power in the streaming era, which is made for a clash of Titans, Beyonce, her

...