“The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.” (Malcom X) This quote from Malcom X’s famous speech ‘Who Taught You to Hate Yourself’, is featured in Beyoncé’s song ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ from her most recent album ‘Lemonade’. Along with the actual music, Beyoncé also created a visual album to accompany the songs. The visual album is full images that call attention to the issues of racial and gender discrimination. Beyoncé has become one of the most influential advocates for women’s right and also for black right’s. Obviously both of these are near and dear to her heart because she is an African American woman herself. Although some believe that Beyoncé only used controversial topics to make her latest album popular and her efforts to endorse black right’s movements with her album Lemonade were too radical, I think she artistically displays the discrimination of African Americans in the United States. Beyoncé is a modern black right’s activist and will be compared to other black right’s activists such as Malcom X in this essay.
Beyoncé was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She rose to fame as part of a group known as Destiny’s Child. Beyoncé began her solo career in 2003 and in 2005 Destiny’s Child split. Since the beginning of her solo career Beyoncé has produced six studio albums. Lemonade is the singer’s sixth album and is also her most political. Being a very closed person, we don’t know much about Beyoncé’s personal life. This album is a window that gives us a glimpse of the adversities that not only Beyoncé, but many African Americans have faced. We were shown racial discrimination first-hand when Lemonade was nominated for album of the year at the Grammy’s. Lemonade lost to Adele’s 25, which shocked many people including Adele. When accepting the award she said, “The artist of my life is Beyoncé, and this album to me, the ‘Lemonade’ album, was just so monumental.” According to author Kevin Powell, “Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ made a lot of people uncomfortable, because it is so political, so spiritual, so unapologetically black, and so brutally honest about love, self-love, trust, betrayal. We are still a nation that does not want to deal so directly with truth, Adele’s album is strong, but it is just songs about love. It is safe and uncontroversial; it breaks no new ground.” (Powell, CNN) Adele and Bey were nominated for song, album, and record of the year. Adele won in all three categories. [Possibly write about other award ceremonies. Black entertainers snubbed.]
On April 23, 2016 Lemonade: the visual album, was released. We are taken through eleven stages that go along with her eleven songs. The stages loosely correlate with the stages of grief: Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Hope, and Redemption. This goes hand-in-hand with the alternative meaning of the album, which is Beyoncé’s husband’s infidelity. In the visual album Beyoncé stated during one of the interludes, “The past and the future merge to meet us here; what luck, what a fucking curse.” We are shown references to the most significant historical periods that African American’s have faced, Africa, the Middle Passage, slavery, reconstruction, lynching, neo-liberalism and the disinvestment of black neighborhoods at the beginning of the 1970s, Hurricane Katrina, and the police murders of African-Americans. Beyoncé ’s visual album begins with her on a stage and in the fields of New Orleans, the main setting. This is significant because New Orleans has roots of African American culture. Also in the album is the damage and parts of the city that were never repaired after Hurricane Katrina. The majority of damage that remains is in poverty stricken communities that were populated largely by African Americans. Beyoncé may have also choose to set the album here because both of her maternal grandparents were from Louisiana and her mother was also born in Louisiana. Throughout the album we are brought back to the bayou, buildings that look like plantation homes, and small shacks that appear to be slave quarters. Many of the visuals in Lemonade have underlying meanings. Some key topics and people featured in the album are as follows:
“Don’t Hurt Yourself” (Anger):
As Beyoncé snarls the line, “Call me Malcom X” the video features a clip from Malcolm X’s “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?” speech in which he famously called the black woman the most neglected person in America. This interlude is done over clips of black women.
Also featured at the end of this video are people covered in white floor-length dresses. They have all-white hair and white painted faces. The gowns and face-paint resemble practices of the Santerica or Yourba religion. A religion that originated in Africa and spread across the world during slave trades. Beyoncé has paid tribute to the Yourba religion on multiple occasions. In her “Hold Up” video, she resembled the Yourba goddess Oshun, who represents love, beauty, and prosperity. It is also believed that she again channeled the goddess in her yellow, flowing gown.
“Forward” (resurrection):
Forward features a deeply cathartic memorial to the black male lives lost throughout history, honored by the women who raised them, both literally and symbolically. The mothers of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin are included, as are the actress Quvenzhané Wallis, the model Winnie Harlow, and civil rights activist, Leah Chase.
“Freedom” (Hope):
Freedom is the most powerful, unapologetic song on the album. The black-and-white video features Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, Winnie Harlow, Quvenzhané Wallis, Blue Ivy, Chloe x Halle, Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon Martin’s mom), Lesley McSpadden (Michael Brown’s mom), ballet dancer Michaela DePrince, and dozens more. The artist featured on the track is Kendrick Lamar. Lamar is a very controversial figure in the black community. His album To Pimp a Butterfly received massive amounts of criticism. Every single song on his album looks at the personal and political side of racism. Lamar has shared his thoughts stating that black culture is partially at fault for racial conflicts in our country. He stated, “I wish somebody would look in our neighborhood knowing that it’s already a situation, mentally, where it’s fucked up. What happened to [Michael Brown] should’ve never happened. Never. But when we don’t have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us? It starts from within. Don’t start with just a rally, don’t start from looting — it starts from within.” Obviously, he got a lot of backlash from the album, especially from the black community. For Bey to feature Lamar in her album was a bit of a risky move, but all-in-all was a good decision. The song received praise because of such a strong message it conveys. Lamar raps about his encounters with racism. Being raised in Compton, a very dangerous mostly black community with a lot of gang activity, has let him experience racism first hand. He also talks about his album saying, “Channel 9 new tell me I’m moving backwards”. In this line he is referring to FOX news reporting that he was causing more damage to African American youth than racism was. Another line that stands out is “Six headlights waving’ in my direction; Five-O asking me what’s in my possession” ‘Six headlights’ is referencing police cars. “Five-O asking me what’s in my possession”, addressing the issue of police brutality. Many police officers who have shot and killed black men claim that they were possessing a weapon.
It’s in this segment that we learn the meaning behind the album’s title. It was taken from a speech Jay Z’s grandmother, Hattie White, gave at her 90th birthday party last year: “I’ve had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”
Later, Beyoncé intones “Freedom” from a stage, the dangling lights behind her resemble nooses. This may allude to the lynching of many African Americans between 1882 and 1968.
“Formation”
In “Formation,” her bobbing head and grasping hands alongside a “doing-doing-doing” sample might suggest a shadow memory of a hanging. Other details, too, take us back to the era of slavery and later structures of oppression: Beyoncé’s and young girls’ antebellum kerchiefs and dangling iron chains; a woman with a scar; old photographs scattered among grass and metal. Beyoncé’s threat of “your worst nightmare” may be this. As she sings in “Formation,” under these circumstances, “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.”
If the women standing and seated in the tree branches, with others keeping witness on the ground, were a memory or reenactment of lynching’s?