On Saturday Beyoncé released the video for her new single "Formation," in which she boldly informs us, in an ultimate declaration of countrified blackness, "I got hot sauce in my bag." (A phrase worth unpacking from our own critical bags, as it were. For me the "hot sauce" suggests the resourcefulness and improvisatory brilliance that are hallmarks of black performance--the ability to transform the bland into something delicious.
The video is also a visual love letter to New Orleans. Importantly, it does not highlight tourist culture, nor does it celebrate the city in its recently-gentrified hipster glory, but rather pays homage its unapologetic, sonically resonant, shimmering and gritty blackness. New Orleans's historic importance to American music and culture cannot be overstated. What is the relevance of staging this performance here, in this hallowed space, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
The single also features the voice of Big Freedia, New Orleans bounce icon and Queen Diva. About a a minute in, Big Freedia can be heard saying: "I did not come to play with you hoes. I came to slay, bitch." There is so much to say here about the politics of slaying, especially when channeled through lens of a queered performance of blackness. Big Freedia (Freddie Jones) a rapper who uses feminine pronouns, announces her intention to "slay" not only the performance, but also the normative values of hip hop and pop culture itself.
Read this NYT article "New Orleans Gender-bending Rap" and watch Big Freedia's video for "Y'all Get Back Now." Much to be said here about the subversive reclaiming of space in Freedia's video.
And, we shouldn't forget to discuss how the Super Bowl performance extends this narrative even further. Things to discuss: 1. Beyoncé's afro-coiffed dancers clad in all black (Gucci) leather channeling Black Panther sartorial brilliance 2. Beyoncé's costume channeling Michael Jackson's 1993 Super Bowl garb. 3. The blatantly militaristic connotations of "formation," rendered visually and sonically 4. The dance sequences 5. The rainbow-coalition finale with Bruno Mars and Coldplay.
Michael Jackson at 1993 Super Bowl
Post Class- Reflection.
ReplyDeleteI'm still thinking a lot about our discussion around Beyoncé’s song Formation. In fact, I continued this conversation on the phone with my mother on the car ride home from class.
So there’s this question of authenticity with regards to lyrical prose and visual performance. In what ways are “blackness” communicated? Was it effective? Well, with an intuitive lyric like “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation.” I’d have to say yes.
In Griffin’s article she observers that black female vocalists sing publicly at times where there is a “clarion call following heinous displays of American racism and its ugly relatives.” (103) What’s most significant about Beyoncé’s song is that it relishes in accepting black stereotypes as a means of acknowledging our ancestry. When she sings “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana. You mix that Negro with that Creole make a Texas bama” there are echoes reaffirming that notion that Beyoncé’s proclamation to her layers of blackness which was largely underestimated by white audiences.
There’s an interesting blog post (http://bittergertrude.com/2016/02/08/white-people-shut-up-about-beyonce/) which I was reading before class yesterday that analyzes Beyoncé’s performance and the controversy surrounding it.
The author, Caucasian, makes an interesting point in stating:
“In this cultural moment where powerful, mainstream Black artists like Beyoncé are telling their stories on their own terms, the white people who controlled the narrative– including how and when Black stories have been told– for the past 400 years need to sit back, shut up, and listen, listen, listen. You don’t like how white people are being portrayed? Spend some time thinking about why Black artists are portraying white people that way instead of demanding they adjust their stories to conform to your self-image as “the good guy.” We are not the heroes in these stories. We are not the intended audience. We are irrelevant, and there’s nothing people in power hate more than to be made irrelevant, but the fact remains that these are Black stories, by, for, and about Black people.”
But this begs the question: has Beyoncé’s music always been considered as “black”?
If you look on iTunes and look over Beyoncé’s various albums she always listed within the Pop genre. However, if you search Destiny’s Child, the first two albums are listed as R&B/Soul, where the third, “Survivor” and their “Greatest Hits” album are both listed as Pop. There seems to be this apparent binary between the two genres and their idealized audiences. However, sonically, there is really no difference between the second and third albums (in fact, the third album, Survivor, there is a Gospel song at the very end which, to me, seems inherently a nod to the black tradition).
I guess my larger questions, then, are at what point does black music shift in authenticity as it becomes mainstream music? What fundamentally gets lost in the call and response? How does a performer’s image shape our interpretation of the sonic experience?