I thought her first album reminded me of Prince in that it wandered.
She has always performed very southern, black music since Destiny's Child. Beyoncé, even though she's incredibly popular, probably the most popular artist we've had since Michael Jackson, is performing very straightforward R&B and always has, since Destiny's Child. She was looking at Beyoncé and Destiny's Child and that whole syncopated, southern marching band tradition and stepping contests. And then you add Beyoncé.Īnn Powers wrote a great piece when Beyoncé did the 2013 Super Bowl. Kahlil is absolutely a director who is influenced by Terrence Malick, and he really looks at film as a philosophical medium. He also did a conjuring video for Flying Lotus, which cast Lotus as an Elegba/Eshu in a Cadillac who kind of comes to collect the beautiful Brooklyn dancer Storyboard Pete. He did Shabazz Palace's first video, "Belhaven Meridian," a nod to the great filmmaker Charles Burnett. He did a beautiful short film on Oklahoma rodeos. She's a Somali Muslim raised in London and her writing is beautiful and these are her musings on romantic love.Īnd then you have Kahlil Joseph, who is interested in all kinds of black magic. Pair the blueswoman tradition with the traditional memory of the south as traumatic and backwards and you get a ripe space for unpacking the multiple layers of black women's healing and existence that Beyoncé tackles in this project.ĭream hampton: When I think of the mashup that's happening here in terms of artists - and there are two collaborators that stand out, obviously, in this project, even though there were many - one of them is Warsan Shire, the poet who I have loved since I found her on Myspace in 2009. I say Beyoncé made people uncomfortable because her performance in Lemonade wasn't just a curation of the blueswoman aesthetic but an active reckoning with it as it manifested in southern spaces. Blueswomen in the south traveled and wandered and did not censor their existence. Shug Avery, Bessie Smith, Rosetta Tharpe and other blueswomen performers used their voices to sonically and lyrically expound upon their personal trauma and strife as a collective call-to-arms for black women. Regina Bradley: I think what made folks uncomfortable was the fact that she was pulling from not only a blues tradition, but a southern black woman blues tradition. She's a white woman and she felt rejected looking at this video. But I loved what she was doing and I didn't begin my read on that work with this feeling of rejection. That's who's gonna watch my show." But in this moment, confronted with this many black girls on camera - and thank you Kahlil Joseph for honoring us in this way, to create this kind of visual altar to black girls, and black girl femmes - you know, in that moment, you can't locate yourself? I wasn't looking for myself in Hannibal, a story about FBI agents or cannibals, because I have no desire to be either. And I thought, I bet when she was creating her scripts and her art she wasn't telling NBC, "This is going to be a show for cannibals.
All night beyoncé tv#
I saw someone who was a writer for Hannibal, the very dark TV show about cannibalism, and I saw her tweet out that she didn't think this album was for her, but she still was intrigued. The Two-Way Beyoncé Surprises The World Again With New Visual Album 'Lemonade' The video version of this album reflects the private lives of a certain group of women who share a set of memories and experiences the arc of its narrative will be harrowingly close to home for all of us. But what Beyoncé's got us talking about now is what we women are really always talking about, under our breath, late night on the phone, after the kids are down, over coffee, at the bar, in tears, irrespective of anybody's album drop: our worth. No doubt our opinions are in some places monetized and our vocalization of them surely buoys the price of Lemonade on up to $17.99. Who among us (and if you're here reading this, you're one of us) made it through this weekend without a conversation, typed or yelled, about her intent, her intonation, her read, her past, her bat, Serena, Tina, Etta, Warsan, Pipilotti, Zendaya? Whether you love her, hate her, or stay strong in your neutrality, our exchanges are kind of the point.
Beyoncé released her sixth album, Lemonade, on Saturday night via HBO and Tidal.Ī Beyoncé album release is now a communal experience.