Beyonce. Beyonce. Beyonce. You did it again.
So, if you haven’t heard, Beyonce released a new song called “Formation”. In it, Beyonce flosses hard about her Beyonce-ness, her black womanhood and history. The song, produced by Mike Will Made and written by Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee, is meant to be a celebration of all these things. With this song, Beyonce shouted her glee of her blackness from her wide “Jackson 5” nose to her and her daughter’s Afro textured hair. She told us that despite all the money, all the fame, all the Givenchy dresses and helicopters, she’s still the country Beyonce with Louisiana roots that keeps hot sauce in her bag. This is so important for so many reasons.
For many years, Beyonce has represented this safe, respectable Negro that white women like because she’s light skin and in their eyes, “barely black”. With these lyrics, Beyonce tells the world that she and her blackness are intertwined. Her blackness makes her and she, it. She is not your Respectable Negro. In fact, she goes out her way to make a point: her blackness does not hinder her; it helps her slay.
The accompanying video accentuates the song perfectly. Country like hot sauce in your purse and collard greens, Bey does not shy away from her Creole roots and its attachments in the slightest in the video. From the Big Freedia and Messy Mya (R.I.P) ad libs, N.O.’s most famous bounce stars, to the attire and setting of the very noble and dignified black ensembles, Beyonce reps New Orleans hard in this video. Highlighting both the glamorous and ordinary parts of New Orleans life, she made sure to put on for her adopted hometown.
Not only did she touch on the abandonment of the black New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina when she drowned with the police car at the end, she also used this platform to highlight the extrajudicial murders of innocent black children and people. In the video, a little hooded black boy dances in front of a police line until he holds up his hands and they surrender to him. Immediately after, a wall is shown with graffiti on it that reads “Stop Shooting Us”. Knowles-Carter, who has been previously heavily criticized for her more passive role in the Black Lives Matter movement, took a definite stance here in support of it. With this video, Bey said it all. She laid it all out on the table. In short, Beyonce is pro afro, pro collard greens and cornbread, pro black girl magic and pro #blacklivesmatter.
Big Freedia said it all in the opening. Beyonce is back. And she’s here to slay. She did not come to play. So twirl on them haters, girl. We all know it’s your world.