ReportWire

Tag: Beyoncé Knowles

  • Songwriter-producer The-Dream seeks dismissal of sexual assault lawsuit

    Songwriter-producer The-Dream seeks dismissal of sexual assault lawsuit

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lawyers for The-Dream, a Grammy-winning songwriter and producer, are seeking the dismissal of a woman’s lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault and other abuse.

    The producer, whose legal name is Terius Gesteelde-Diamant, was a writer and producer on huge hits including Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” He has denied allegations of sexual assault, rape and other abuse made in a June lawsuit by singer Chanaaz Mangroe.

    Gesteelde-Diamant’s lawyers want the suit to be thrown out entirely, writing in their motion filed Friday in a Los Angeles federal court that Mangroe’s lawyers are “using the judicial system to propagate a false and defamatory narrative about Diamant, a highly respected Black musician in the arts industry, for their own financial gain and to his extreme detriment.”

    Mangroe, who performed under the stage name Channii Monroe, alleged in the June lawsuit that Gesteelde-Diamant lured her into “an abusive, violent, and manipulative relationship filled with physical assaults, violent sexual encounters, and horrific psychological manipulation” after she left her native Netherlands for the U.S. with hopes of making it big as a singer.

    The motion also aims to dismiss or, alternatively, strike the lawsuit’s rape claim, on technical grounds.

    In a statement Friday, Desirée F. Moore, who is representing Gesteelde-Diamant and his company, argued the lawsuit is a “shotgun pleading,” which she says is grounds for dismissal because it doesn’t specify specific factual allegations against each defendant.

    Meredith Firetog, one of the lawyers representing Mangroe, said in an email to The Associated Press Friday that the arguments made in the motion to dismiss are “wholly unpersuasive.”

    “We look forward to opposing the motions” and proceeding with the case, Firetog said.

    If the case isn’t dismissed, Gesteelde-Diamant’s lawyers want a judge to strike portions of the complaint they deemed “impermissibly immaterial, impertinent, and scandalous material.” They also want the company he co-owns, Contra Paris, LLC, dismissed because it primarily does business in Atlanta and is registered in Delaware.

    The Associated Press doesn’t typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Mangroe has.

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  • Beyoncé’s Most Political Year Yet

    Beyoncé’s Most Political Year Yet

    Beyoncé has been on her “Yeehaw, America!” tip from the very start of the year. With a country music album (Cowboy Carter) and a cover that features her in full-blown “Americana gear/regalia,” Beyoncé seemed determined to hold fast to her “ideals” of the U.S. even as it became increasingly apparent that Donald “Cheeto” Trump still had a strong chance of winning the election—even after everything that went down (insurrections, indictments, hush money, you name it). Especially because of the doubts cast on Joe Biden’s “mental competency” (even if Trump’s is hardly a “notch above”).

    And then, for a while, people seemed to forget about Beyoncé and her country foray. There were so many albums afterward, from Taylor’s The Tortured Poets Department to Dua’s Radical Optimism to Billie’s Hit Me Hard and Soft to Charli’s Brat. Even Megan Thee Stallion and Ice Spice have released new records in the time since Cowboy Carter vaguely dominated the chart. So maybe something activated within Beyoncé to remind her that she needed to reclaim her place in the spotlight—indeed, use her star power to invoke political change. It started with granting Kamala Harris permission to use Lemonade’s “Freedom” for her ad campaign. And then, as if that weren’t enough, Beyoncé jumped in for a Team USA Olympics ad that was aired the same week.

    As most people are aware by now, the Olympics remains one of the most politically fraught milieus…in spite of its cries of being a “source of unity.” Indeed, it can often become a political hotbed (e.g., Americans boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and, four years later, Russians boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles—these two cities also appropriately representing polar opposite ideals). 2024 is no different, especially with the ongoing invasion of Palestine by Israel, as well as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. But obviously, Beyoncé has much less interest in that than she does in what’s going on “in her own backyard.” And what’s going on, of course, is the 2024 presidential race.

    While some might feel that, with Kamala Harris as the frontrunner for taking on Donald Trump in lieu of Joe Biden, there’s no competition now, such thinking would be a severe overestimation of what America is “really about.” And that, of course, is what makes Trump still have a good chance of winning. With this in mind, the commercial Beyoncé participated in is rife with political undertones. Reworking “Ya Ya” from Cowboy Carter (a song that actually would have worked more effectively in Harris’ campaign ad), Beyoncé appears in yet another “Yeehaw, America!” getup (Western excess at its “finest”)—her very expensive-looking boots bedecked with glittery Olympic rings in addition to red, white and blue flourishes. She’s also wearing a sparkly American flag cowboy hat and a leotard with the word “USA” emblazoned across the chest (and yes, the crotch/waist part of it also has an American flag pattern). Never mind that people who love draping the American flag on themselves usually tend to be conservative rednecks (sort of like Lana Del Rey, who cosplays that persona). Beyoncé wants to prove otherwise. That even “liberals” can be garishly over the top when it comes to their patriotism.

    The singer quickly gets to the point vis-à-vis the subtext of what’s at stake for this election. She wants to remind the viewers at home that America isn’t as white as it would often like to believe. Or rather, as white as conservatives would like to “keep” it. So it is that Beyoncé touts to a montage of multicolored faces, “Get a look at America, y’all. These hopes and dreams, these superstars that represent us. The people of this big, bold, beautiful, complicated nation. All rooting together for them.” Of course, the word “complicated” feels like the biggest euphemism of all time. What she surely meant was “unapologetically racist, sexist, capitalist and jingoist.” Both Beyoncé and Jay-Z are prime examples of the unapologetic capitalist category, proving the theory that everyone becomes white once they get filthy rich. Even so, Beyoncé wants to make this commercial as “aspirational” as possible. Hence, her little characterization of it that totally glosses over why the U.S. will always be what amounts to a “failed British colony.”

    After she calls it “big, bold, beautiful and complicated,” the lyric, “You lookin’ for a new America” strategically plays in the background as the athletes are paraded. She then continues to boast, “We’ve got superstars and we’ve got legends. We’ve got big dreamers who fought their whole lives to get here. Who gave up everything, for one shot [here, she sounds like Eminem on “Lose Yourself”]. And made it. That pride and that joy, that’s what gets me about this team.” Of course, this is the sort of rhetoric that Bible Belt America actually loves to hear, even though it’s filled with white supremacists who probably considered boycotting watching the games because they’re in Gay Paris—and remember, the U.S. is the country that tried to rename French fries “freedom fries” in 2003 because of France’s (rightful) opposition to the invasion of Iraq. So yeah, let’s just say “average Americans” (the ones who are rotund and don’t have a passport) don’t really jive with France. Don’t quite “get” it. In contrast, a country like France gets everything about America. As James Baldwin put it (in relation to Black vs. white), “You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me.” Because America is overexposed, to say the least, there is little about its “character” that isn’t known to “foreign entities.”

    Meanwhile, Beyoncé keeps prattling on with subtext, wielding her talk of “Team USA” as a timely symbol of what America itself ought to represent in this forthcoming election. Thus, she adds, “That’s what makes me believe in this team… America, give it up for Team USA. The very best of who we are. What a vision to behold. What a team to believe in.” Especially when they’re all getting paid so well while the broke asses at home continue to be fed with the lie that everyone, no matter who they are, can achieve their dreams if they just work hard.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Kamala Harris Takes Us Back To 2016 With Her Campaign Song Choice For A Pointed Reason

    Kamala Harris Takes Us Back To 2016 With Her Campaign Song Choice For A Pointed Reason

    In sharp contrast to, say, Ronald Reagan using Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” during his 1984 campaign against the singer’s will and with a flagrant disregard for the intent behind the song, Kamala Harris actually got permission from Beyoncé to use her 2016 track from Lemonade, “Freedom,” in her first official campaign video (and throughout the campaign in general). The unveiling of the ad came swiftly after Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not be continuing in this year’s presidential race. Its message (which threw plenty of shade at Trump without ever mentioning his name), paired with the use of the song, saw Harris hit the ground running with strong momentum in her bid for the White House. Well, that and a rapid endorsement from Charli XCX declaring, “Kamala IS brat.” While that might automatically get the gays gagging (no pun intended) even more for Harris, it is always Beyoncé that makes all the difference—especially when it comes to Black women supporting Black women (even if the naysayers claim that Harris isn’t “really” Black). Because the only thing lower in currency than white men these days is white women.

    That said, Harris is pointedly taking us back to 2016 with use of this song, which was released as the fourth single from Lemonade in September, just two months before the election that came down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The white woman with the apparently lower currency in this scenario (maybe because Trump reads as “orange” rather than white). Harris, whether intentionally or not, is, thus, harkening back to a key pop culture moment from ’16 (Lemonade was the album of that year—especially since Taylor Swift was “on break”), as though to remind voters, once again, what’s really at stake here. And that is: forking the nation over to a megalomaniacal dictator or the real-life version of Selina Meyer (skin color aside).

    Harris was already gaining traction as a viable replacement candidate for Biden, particularly as the meme furor around her “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” soundbite continued to take on a life of its own this summer (which doesn’t say a lot for what it “requires” to be popular among the “next generation”). The Veep parallel only seemed to help her cause all the more. Indeed, Harris is turning out to be the most “pop culture-centric” candidate to date (she even hangs with drag queens and lets them know she’s in on “Padam Padam”). Beyoncé is the crowning jewel of her ability to lay that claim.

    And, even though Harris could have chosen one of Beyoncé’s more recent songs from Cowboy Carter (including “Ya Ya,” which features the lyric, “My family live and died in America, hm/Good ol’ USA/Whole lotta red in that white and blue, huh/History can’t be erased, ooh/You lookin’ for a new America?/Are you tired, workin’ time and a half for half the pay?/Ya-ya/I just pray that we don’t crash, keep my Bible on the dash/We gotta keep the faith”), she opted for the more well-known, more musically accessible “Freedom.” Not just because it’s become the 2010s version of a 1960s-era civil rights anthem, but because it is part of the 2016 time capsule.

    Almost ten years on, it seems unfathomable that the U.S. should still be in exactly the same place: pitting a female candidate against Donald Trump. Harris, in this subtle (or overt) way, appears to be driving home that point, reminding the American people that it is still possible to make the same mistake twice. That the few short months leading up to this year’s November election are critical in determining the trajectory of the country. A “last best chance” for real, if you will. As her ad phrases it, “In this election, we each face a question: what kind of country do we want to live in? There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos, of fear, of hate. But us? We choose something different. We choose freedom.” And at that moment, the booming sound of Beyoncé’s voice arrives, declaring, “Freedom, freedom/I can’t move/Freedom, cut me loose/Freedom, freedom/ Where are you?/‘Cause I need freedom too

    Throughout the montage, Harris covers all the “Democrat gold” bases, from an Indian family sitting at a table together laughing to people waving rainbow flags. She then provides the lofty voiceover, “The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead [though we all know that’s not possible with capitalism]. The freedom to be safe from gun violence [right]. The freedom to make decisions about your own body [maybe]. We choose a future where no child lives in poverty [ha!]. Where we can all afford health care [an even bigger laugh]. Where no one is above the law [cue the image of Trump]. We believe in the promise of America and we’re ready to fight for it. Because when we fight, we win.” This sentiment about Americans having a fierce “can-do” attitude that extends to never backing down when it comes to achieving their goals is an old myth, but still, apparently, an effective one.

    The ad then concludes with Bey’s lyrics, “I’ma keep runnin’ ‘cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” It’s precisely that type of saying that gets believers in the American dream real wet, of course. This idea that everyone can get “a piece” if they work harder, sweat harder. Even though we live in a time when the notion of becoming rich is all about how “easy” it is (a.k.a. through virality), and that you don’t actually need any skills or talent at all.

    Branded by Rolling Stone as “one of the most striking political statements of [Beyoncé’s] career,” “Freedom” was also used as an anthem during the George Floyd protests of 2020 (another election year). But it’s a song straight outta 2016, which, if all goes accordingly, should spark enough people’s memories to go in the opposite direction of how that election turned out. Not that anything about the electoral college setup has changed since then…

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • A Chinese flavor of rap music is flourishing as emerging musicians find their voices

    A Chinese flavor of rap music is flourishing as emerging musicians find their voices

    CHENGDU – In 2018, the censors who oversee Chinese media issued a directive to the nation’s entertainment industry: Don’t feature artists with tattoos and those who represent hip-hop or any other subculture.

    Right after that well-known rapper GAI missed a gig on a popular singing competition despite a successful first appearance. Speculation went wild: Fans worried that this was the end for hip-hop in China. Some media labeled it a ban.

    The genre had just experienced a banner year, with a hit competition-format TV show minting new stars and introducing them to a country of 1.4 billion people. Rappers accustomed to operating on little money and performing in small bars became household names. The announcement from censors came at the peak of that frenzy. A silence descended, and for months no rappers appeared on the dozens of variety shows and singing competitions on Chinese TV.

    But by the end of that year, everything was back in full swing. “Hip-hop was too popular,” says Nathanel Amar, a researcher of Chinese pop culture at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China. “They couldn’t censor the whole genre.”

    What had looked like the end for Chinese hip-hop was just the beginning.

    ROOTS IN THE WESTERN CITY OF CHENGDU

    Since then, hip-hop’s explosive growth in China has only continued. It has done so by carving out a space for itself while staying clear of the government’s red lines, balancing genuine creative expression with something palatable in a country with powerful censors.

    Today, musicians say they’re looking forward to an arriving golden age.

    Much of the energy can be found in Chengdu, a city in China’s southwestern Sichuan region. Some of the biggest acts in China today hail from Sichuan; Wang Yitai, Higher Brothers and Vava are just a few of the names that have made Chinese rap mainstream, performing in a mix of Mandarin and Sichuan dialects. While hip-hop in Chengdu started out with the very heavy sounds of trap, its mainstreaming has meant artists have broadened out to lighter sounds, from R&B to the trending afrobeat rhythms popularized by Beyonce.

    Although Chinese rap has been operating underground for decades in cities like Beijing, it is the Sichuan region — known internationally for its spicy cuisine, its panda reserve and its status as the birthplace of the late leader Deng Xiaoping — that has come to dominate.

    “There’s a lot of rhymes in rap. And from a young age, we were exposed to language with a lot of rhymes. And I feel like we’re its origin,” says Mumu Xiang, who is from Sichuan and attended a rap concert recently held in the city.

    The dialect lends itself to rap because it’s softer than Mandarin Chinese and there are a lot more rhymes, says 25-year-old rapper Kidway, from a town just outside Chengdu. “Take the word ‘gang’ in English. In Sichuanese, there’s a lot of rhymes for that word ‘fang, sang, zhuang,’ the rhymes are already there,” he says.

    Chengdu is also welcoming to outsiders, says Haysen Cheng, a 24-year-old rapper who moved to the city from Hong Kong in 2021 to work on his music at the invitation of Harikiri, a British producer who has helped shape the scene and worked with Chengdu’s biggest acts.

    Part of the city’s hip-hop lore centers around a collective called Chengdu Rap House or CDC, founded by a rapper called Boss X, whose fans affectionately call him “Xie laober” in the Sichuan dialect. The city has embraced rap, as its originators like Boss X went from making music in a run-down apartment in an old residential community to performing in a stadium for thousands. At Boss X’s performance in March, fans sang along and cheered in Sichuanese. Even with a ban on the audience standing up, standard at all stadium performances in China, the energy was infectious.

    “When I came to mainland China, they showed me more love in like three or four months than I ever received in Hong Kong,” Cheng says. He got to collaborate with the Higher Brothers, one of the few Chinese rap groups who also have global recognition. “The people here actually want each other to succeed.”

    The price of going mainstream, though, means the underground scene has evaporated. Chengdu was once known for its underground rap battles. Those no longer happen, as freestyling usually involves profanity and other content the authorities deem unacceptable. The last time there was a rap battle in the city, rappers say, authorities quickly showed up and shut it down. These days it’s all digital, with people uploading short clips of their music to Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese version, to get noticed.

    Kidway says he learned to rap from going to these battles and competing against other rappers his age. He once worked at a renovation company but ditched it to pursue rap full time.

    But even though the rap battles are gone, the field has more rappers than ever. That’s a good thing. “The more players there are,” he says, “the more interesting it is.”

    A TV SHOW THAT GAVE BIRTH TO A GENRE

    Rarely can a single cultural product be said to have originated a whole genre of music. But the talent competition/reality TV show “The Rap of China” has played an outsized role in building China’s rap industry.

    The first season, broadcast on IQiyi, a web streaming platform, brought rap and hip-hop culture to households across the country. The first season’s 12 episodes drew 2.5 billion views online, according to Chinese media reports.

    In the first season, the show relied on its judges’ star power to draw in an audience — namely Kris Wu, a Chinese Canadian singer and former member of the hit K-pop group EXO. At that point in time, Wu was at the height of his fame, and his comments as a judge that season even became internet memes. “Do you have freestyle?” he asked a contestant, dead serious, on Episode One — a moment that went on to live in internet infamy because people doubted Wu’s rap credentials.

    Two winners emerged from the first season: GAI and PG One. Shortly after their win, the internet was awash with rumors about the less-than-perfect doings of PG One’s personal life. The Communist Youth League also criticized one of his old songs for content that appeared to be about using cocaine, very much violating one of the censor’s red lines.

    Then came the 2018 meeting where censors reminded TV channels of who could not appear on their programs, namely anyone who represented hip-hop. PG One was finding that any attempts to release new music were quickly taken down by platforms. The platform, IQiyi, even took down the entire first season for a while.

    But by late summer 2018, fans were excited to hear that they could expect a second season of “The Rap of China,” though there was a rebrand. The name in English stayed the same, but in Chinese it signaled a new direction. The show’s name changed from “China Has Hip-Hop” to “China Has ‘Shuochang,’” a term that also refers to traditional forms of storytelling.

    Regulators had given the go-ahead for hip-hop to continue its growth, but they had to follow the lines set by the government censors. Hip-hop was now shuochang and a symbol of youth culture; it had to stay away from mentions of drugs and sex. Otherwise, though, it could proceed.

    “It was a success for the Chinese regulators. … They really succeeded in coopting the hip-hop artists,” Amar says. “It’s like a contract: If you want to be popular, if you want to be on TV shows, you have to respect the red line.”

    FINDING A CHINESE VOICE

    With tight censorship on the entertainment industry and a ban on mentions of drugs and sex in lyrics, artists have reacted in two ways. Either they wholeheartedly embrace the displays of patriotism and nationalism, or they avoid the topics.

    Some, like GAI, have fully taken on the government’s mantle in the mainstreaming of hip-hop. He won “The Rap of China” with a song called “Not Friendly” in which, in classic hip-hop fashion, he dissed other rappers that he didn’t name. “I’m not friendly. I can break your pen at any moment. Tear down your flashy words. … My enemies you better pray for you to have a good end.”

    Just a few years later, Gai is singing about China’s glorious history on the CCTV’s Spring Festival New Year’s Gala broadcast, a tightly scripted entertainment show with comedy sketches, songs and dance performances that is watched by families while celebrating Chinese New Year.

    “Five thousand years of history flows past like quicksand. I’m proud to be born in Cathay,” he sings, wearing a Qing Dynasty-inspired Tang jacket.

    The red lines have also pushed artists to be more creative. For Chinese rap to thrive, artists have to find original voices, they say. 32-year-old rapper Fulai describes his own music as chill rap or “bedroom music” — not in the euphemistic sense, but the type of music you listen to as you lay in bed. His upcoming album, he says, is about ordinary things like fights with his wife and washing dishes.

    Still, Fulai says he talks about sex a lot in his lyrics. Chinese is a language with countless sayings and a strong poetic tradition: “There’s nothing you can’t touch,” he says. “You just have to be clever about it.”

    Developing a genuine Chinese brand of rap remains a work in progress. Hip-hop got its start from New York’s boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where rappers made music out of their tough circumstances, from shootouts to crime to illegal drug dealing. In China, the challenge is about finding what fits its context. Shootouts are rare in a country where guns are banned, and the penalties for drug use are high.

    The rap crews in Chongqing, another mega-city in the Sichuan region, had a taste of gang culture reflected in their music as artists wrote about fights and vows of brotherhood. But most of today’s biggest acts don’t rap about topics like knifing someone or drug use anymore.

    Wang Yitai, who was a member of Chengdu’s rap collective CDC, is now one of the most popular rappers in China. His style has infused mainstream pop sounds.

    “We’re all trying hard to create songs that not only sound good, but also topics that fit for China,” Wang says. “I think hip-hop’s spirit will always be about original creation and will always be about your own story.”

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

    Huizhong Wu, Associated Press

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  • (Re)Branded: There’s Not Much Country Gold in Them Thar Notes, But Beyoncé Has Made It Impossible Not to Be Called A White Supremacist If You Don’t Bow to Cowboy Carter

    (Re)Branded: There’s Not Much Country Gold in Them Thar Notes, But Beyoncé Has Made It Impossible Not to Be Called A White Supremacist If You Don’t Bow to Cowboy Carter

    For a long time, there was nothing “too political” in Beyoncé’s oeuvre. She went about the business of singing her songs that usually pertained to being cheated on and/or being hopelessly devoted and in love. Then 2016 rolled around and something within fully activated. Something that began in 2013, with a track like “Flawless.” Even if most of the political elements were delivered by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. But then, that’s Beyoncé’s gift: pulling from other people. It is many great artists’ gift, as a matter of fact, from Picasso to Madonna. Thus, with 2016’s Lemonade, Beyoncé achieved a new apex for borrowing from other musical styles and making what would be esoteric references…at least to the average person (In the visual album that accompanied it, that included reciting poetic texts from Warsan Shire.)

    Among the eclectic tracks was one in particular that stood out the most to people for its “which one of these is not like the other?” quality: “Daddy Lessons.” The song, ultimately, that compelled Beyoncé to “do” country in the first place. Not because she particularly liked or took an automatic shine to the genre, but because, as she clearly alluded to in her announcement of Cowboy Carter’s arrival, she “did not feel welcomed” enough in the country music space while performing a rendition of “Daddy Lessons” with the Dixie Chicks at the Country Music Awards. So, in a way, the level of petty (and that word does get used a lot on Cowboy Carter) one would have to be to sit on that grudge for several years before serving her revenge cold is something to remark upon. And really, why does Beyoncé (or any Black person) care so much about being accepted by a pack of conservative rednecks? For it’s obvious that few (if any) Black people accept them. It’s one of those “too diametrically opposed” conundrums. Too diametrically opposed to what, you might ask? Well, to agree on much of anything. 

    In this regard, everything about Cowboy Carter feels set up to be a trap. An overt way to expose prejudices and out the white supremacists who wouldn’t be attacking this music if it were anyone other than Beyoncé. For decades, music has been categorized largely according to race. Hell, it was only about forty years ago that the American Music Awards had Jim Crow-style awards to dole out for things like Best Black Album (which Prince won in 1985). In recent years, Billie Eilish has been particularly vocal about the absurdity of how music is categorized for the convenient purposes of the suits who want to decide on airplay and award-giving. 

    After the 2020 Grammys, Eilish went on to assert, “​​Don’t judge an artist off the way someone looks or the way someone dresses. Wasn’t Lizzo in the Best R&B category that night? [though it seems unlikely she ever will be again]. I mean, she’s more pop than I am. Look, if I wasn’t white I would probably be in ‘rap.’ Why? They just judge from what you look like and what they know. I think that is weird. The world wants to put you into a box; I’ve had it my whole career. Just because I am a white teenage female I am pop. Where am I pop? What part of my music sounds like pop?” (Side note: a lot of it does—including “Bad Guy.”)

    As for Beyoncé, she’s already frequently toed the genre lines, appealing to pop, R&B, rap and hip hop simultaneously from the beginning of her career, including during her time with Destiny’s Child. “Genre-bending” is nothing new for her. But her insecurity about “being accepted” in the country category, as she stated before Cowboy Carter’s release, stemmed from “an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t.” It didn’t take internet sleuths long to comprehend that Beyoncé was very clearly alluding to her 2016 performance with the Dixie Chicks (before they felt obliged to change their name to The Chicks) at the CMAs. The Dixie Chicks’ collaboration with Beyoncé on the reworked version was released as a single the same day as the November 2nd ceremony (eerily enough, it would be just six days later that Donald Trump “won” the election, making it an especially politically fraught year for someone like Beyoncé to show up in this milieu). 

    Perhaps not fully aware of the outsized nature of her own ego, Beyoncé assumed the audience and the country music world at large would eagerly “bow down,” as she once told all her listeners to do on her 2013 self-titled album. But as mentioned, it was only with her sixth album, Lemonade, that she would hint at her first outright shift toward country. It wasn’t just “Daddy Lessons” though—there were also traces of the genre on “Pray You Catch Me” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself” featuring Jack White (who seemed tapped for the collab to lend more so-called credence to the “blues-rock” feel on it). It is on the latter track that she announces, “Fuck you, hater.” A sentiment that has been a large basis for her career. The same as it is for many driven women who are told they can’t do something, or that they should “stay in their lane.” 

    Unbeknownst to Beyoncé, she was veering out of her so-called lane from the moment she started working on “Daddy Lessons.” Co-writer Kevin Cossom would state of his collaboration with the singer on that particular track, “Once a formula works, people want to use that formula again until it doesn’t work anymore but what’s awesome about Beyoncé is she doesn’t have to play by the rules: she creates them.” Seeing as how it didn’t exactly “work” based on not being fully accepted by the Establishment (complete with the country music committee of the Recording Academy rebuffing the song for consideration in that category), it makes sense that Beyoncé would still try to tackle the genre again. After all, it’s as Groucho Marx said, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” Since the “Country Club” didn’t seem to want her, naturally, it made Beyoncé become all the more adamant about joining. Granted, the first time around, her optics weren’t so great. After all, showing up in an elaborate evening gown more suited for going to the opera or being guillotined in isn’t going to hearten country music fanatics. Especially the ones who insist that it’s music for “simple, working-class people.” But who knows better about working—and especially working the land—than Black people, who were forced to do so against their will for hundreds of years in large part thanks to lazy whites who accused Black people of being just that later on as a stereotype. 

    To that end, as was the case on Lemonade, Beyoncé is interested in revisiting the most painful parts of Black history to unearth buried truths and reclaim something for her race. In this case, country. Thus, her pointed decision to have Rihannon Giddens play banjo on “Texas Hold ‘Em,” for it is she who reminded, “Enslaved people of the African diaspora created the banjo in the Caribbean in the 1600s.” Here, one feels obliged to point out the Carrie Bradshaw quote that negates the idea of ownership over something just because you “invented” it (or rather the literal instrument to create it), “Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.” In a similar fashion, Germans created the blueprint for the hamburger, Americans perfected it/made it their own. 

    But anyway, what Giddens is saying/would like to remind is: no Black people, no banjo—ergo, no country music. Unsurprisingly, Giddens has been highly supportive of Beyoncé breaking down these musical barriers and reminding people that country music is more Black than it is white. Take away the Black elements of it, and all you’ve got is folk music. Regarding the backlash to Beyoncé’s, let’s just say it, concept album (and it is that), Giddens noted, “I’m like, people can do what they wanna do. They wanna make a country record, make a country record. Like, nobody’s askin’ Lana Del Rey what right do you have to make a country record?” 

    To be fair, Del Rey isn’t as big of an influence, nor is she as visible as Beyoncé. What’s more, Del Rey’s long-standing alignment with retro themes and beliefs blends right into what country music is all about, heteronormativity and “stand by your man”-wise. And, speaking of that song, it seems Del Rey beat Beyoncé to the punch on covering it—even though it’s much more suited to the likes of Beyoncé and her insistence on staying with Jay-Z after he cheated on her with “Becky.” Who has been repurposed, in this phase of her album cycle, as “Jolene.” That’s right, Beyoncé dared to take on one of the most classic and quintessential songs in country, with Dolly Parton’s blessing. Even though dredging up the message of this particular track hardly feels “revolutionary” or “forward-thinking.” Or what Lily Allen dubbed as a “weird” choice on her podcast with Miquita Oliver, Miss Me? Unfortunately, Allen fell right into the trap of saying anything negative about Cowboy Carter. In the wake of her “negative comments” (or expressing a simple non-laudatory opinion that makes no mention of B needing to “stay in her lane”) about the record, a slew of backlash headlines circulated soon after, among them being, “Lily Allen Criticizes Beyoncé’s Album Cowboy Carter,” “Beyoncé Slammed by Jealous Lily Allen as Paul McCartney Defends Her” and “Lily Allen Slams Beyoncé’s Country Album as ‘Calculated’ and ‘Weird.’” 

    Of course, the news outlets were sure to highlight the least flattering words out of Allen’s lukewarm response to the record. One that also related to downplaying Beyoncé’s looks, for, when Miquita tries a different approach to discussing the album by complimenting, “She does look great. She makes me quite excited about forties,” Allen balks, “She’s getting some help.” Miquita claps back, “She has not had any work done, if that’s what you’re implying.” “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that, like, you know, she’s got a great team of stylists, hair people, you know, she works out a lot, you know, she’s got access to the best trainers in the world, like, you know, she’s Beyoncé.” Indeed. And, as Allen additionally pointed out, Beyoncé can do whatever the hell she wants. Yet that shouldn’t mean that the masses automatically have to be strong-armed into praising it lest they be accused of racism/white supremacy. Which was the automatic response to Allen for her assessment, complete with reductive internet comments like, “An English woman gatekeeping country music is wild.” Or Allen, like anyone, is allowed to say what she thinks about the record. This idea that she can’t say shit about country because of who she is and where she’s from is the exact thing people are saying shouldn’t be done to Beyoncé. Except the part where Beyoncé being from Houston is supposedly all the legitimacy she needs. Even though it’s not like just because you’re from San Diego, it automatically means you’re an authority on pop-punk. 

    What was also left out of the headlines was the fact that Miquita, a Black woman, herself said, “I don’t think the ‘Jolene’ one’s good.” And this provided the opening for Allen to say her quoted comment, “It’s very weird that you cover the most successful songs in that genre.” Miquita adds, “It just felt like a standard hip-hoppy…under a ‘Jolene’ cover. It’s like let’s do something with this song, if we’re gonna take it apart and put it back together, I feel like Beyoncé could have done a bit more with it or maybe picked something a little less big to cover.” Of course, the defense for that is: Dolly Parton wanted Beyoncé to cover it. Nonetheless, Allen continues, “Yeah, I just feel like it’s an interesting thing to do when you’re, like, trying to tackle a new genre and you just choose the biggest song in that genre.” Miquita, who, again, didn’t get mentioned at all in the headlines for her “negative comments” about the record then stated, “I think I’d like it a lot more if it wasn’t like, ‘This is Beyoncé’s country album!… I feel like it’s forcing itself to be part of its own narrative of, ‘I’m a country album.’” Precisely. 

    But that’s supposed to be the “whole point” of Cowboy Carter. To invoke the discourse around why it is so polarizing for Black musicians to dabble in country. But maybe the answer lies in the operative word dabble. Because, for the most part, the Black artists of the past few years who have “gone country” (e.g., Lil Nas X) have only gone right back to not being country. As though it can be activated and deactivated on a whim. Which is what country purists are most irritated by when it comes to crossover musicians—whereas country artists who cross over into pop (e.g., Shania Twain, Taylor Swift) are generally welcomed since pop is such a grab bag anyway. 

    The only truly solid, steadfast, all-out Black country musician of note is Linda Martell. Which is exactly why Beyoncé features her heavily on the record as one of the “radio DJs” (apart from Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton—both names clearly used to invoke clout), delivering the lines, “This particular tune stretches across a range of genres and that’s what makes it a unique listening experience.” The name of that brief interlude is, what else, “The Linda Martell Show.” In many ways, these little interludes mimic what The Weeknd did on Dawn FM, with Jim Carrey narrating all of the ethereal lead-ins into the next song. Indeed, a lot of what Beyoncé does is mimicry on this record…and on Renaissance, for that matter—but the latter is retroactively more listenable compared to this. Even if Bey was already alluding to her country “transition” by donning a lot of cowboy hats and also propping herself up on a disco-fied horse.

    ​​The media, indeed, keeps talking about why “so many artists” are “going country,” as though it’s a wearable trend. And, technically, it is. That’s, in the end, what it appears to boil down to. Not to mention being something Madonna established in 2000 with Music, an album for which she adopted a “ghetto fabulous cowgirl” persona. Back when one could still say things like “ghetto fabulous.” But rather than bothering to attempt to truly home in on the musical meaning of country, “Beyincé” banks on the identity politics of it. Knowing that the music itself will be irrelevant to anyone who goes into it with a “this isn’t country” mindset. To (cowboy) boot, it’s her way of styling herself as a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr. (she already paralleled herself with Malcolm X), parading statements like, “My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant… The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.” She then goes on to negate the declaration that it’s a country album (complete with an album cover that makes her look like a Republican propagandist) by noting that it’s really just another “Beyoncé album.”

    And honestly, her message might have been less divisive if she had truly played it that way, without making a big pronouncement that it is country. Which, more often than not, it isn’t. It’s a grab bag, a fusion—as so much of music is (and feels it has to be) today in order to compete for as many category successes as possible. That fusion of sounds is apparent from the outset of Cowboy Carter, with “Ameriican Requiem” (and no, that won’t be the last time you see something spelled with two “i’s”), an opener that sounds more 60s psychedelic-inspired than anything else (and not just because she wields the Simon & Garfunkel-esque lyric, “Hello, my old friend”). But rather, because of the shift to a hippie-dippy sound around the forty-one second mark. Designed to set the stage for her defense against ever being called anything but a “real country gal” again, Beyoncé warns, “It’s a lotta chatter in here/But let me make myself clear (oh)/Can you hear me? (huh)/Or do you fear me?” 

    Again, the combative implication from the get-go is that anyone who doesn’t like her “style” of country/the music on this record in general is just “afraid” and, frankly, racist. Giddens corroborates that idea with her assessment, “Everybody has the opportunity to go back and explore their roots. To go back and they’re like, ‘This is my life too, I wanna do this.’ Like, the ‘stay in your lane,’ the ‘well, that’s not real country,’ that’s just racism. People don’t wanna say it’s because she’s Black. You know, but they use these coded terms.” As for Black people exploring their roots, it’s safe to say that not every Black person is directly related, by any stretch of the imagination, to a cowboy somewhere down the line. In fact, only a quarter of cowboys were Black by the end of the Civil War. Giddens’ logic, therefore, is what opens the floodgates for people with no real connection to their so-called roots to get citizenship in another country because they had a great-great-great-great-grandfather who immigrated from there. 

    Beyoncé is also sure to commence with her nod to the never-ending evolution of racism with the intro line, “Nothing really ends/For things to stay the same, they have to change again.” In short, racist attitudes have many different masks, many different “codes.” Her hippie mama shtick starts to come through more when she demands, “Can we stand for something?/Now is the time to face the wind/Coming in peace and love, y’all/Oh, a lot of takin’ up space/Salty tears beyond my gaze/Can you stand me?/(Can you stand me?/Can you stand me?/Can you stand me?).” The repetition of that last line being more pointed shade at any listener (especially the whites) who would dare find fault with a single note or lyric on Cowboy Carter. 

    But she makes that all but impossible by following up “Ameriican Requiem” with a cover of “Blackbird.” Not just because it’s a bit hooey, but because, well, it ain’t country. And if she did feel obliged to cover it for this album, at least save it for later in the record, after giving listeners some vague taste of the country flavor she’s offering. Instead, we have to wait until track three, “16 Carriages,” to hear Bey’s first true attempt at a country twang (one that at least does sound more sincere than Taylor’s years-long put-on). Especially as this is described as a country ballad. Hell, even a “work song” by some (not offensive at all, right?). In the same review of “16 Carriages,” it was said that Beyoncé remains “palpably in touch” with her “ordinary humanity.” But that’s the thing: Beyoncé was never ordinary. And one doesn’t mean that in the sense that she was inherently more special than anyone else, but in the sense that, from the outset, she was put on the path to fame. Or rather, put herself on that path, convincing her parents to let her pursue a career in music upon discovering her love for singing at seven years old. In this regard, Beyoncé actually avoided the true rigors of being “working class,” with the only “blue collar” job she ever dabbled in being to sweep up hair in her mother Tina’s salon. This idea that she’s “reaching back” to her “working-class” roots is, thus, more akin to trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel for inspiration.

    In another moment, Beyoncé’s obsession with “legacy” seems more aligned with rich white influential family goals (à la the Vanderbilts or some shit) than anything else. Because, again, everything about the Beyoncé/Jay-Z juggernaut is in keeping with the tenets of white capitalism (see also: their ad campaign for Tiffany & Co.). Concluding the song with, “Had to sacrifice and leave my fears behind/For legacy, if it’s the last thing I do/You’ll remember me ‘cause we got something to prove.” The “we” in this sentence, of course, can apply to Black people as a collective. And yet, the more Black people try to “prove” something to white hegemony, the more it seems like an admission somehow of “inferiority” in the first place. Elsewhere, Beyoncé provides the play on words, “I might cook, clean/But still won’t fold,” with that last word meaning that she won’t buckle under the pressure (or fold laundry). While Beyoncé insists the slogs of her early career make her “country strong,” one doubts ever had to hit the same grind as Britney Spears’ schedule for most of the 90s—and yes, Britney is probably more suited, vocally speaking and experience-wise, to singing a country ballad than Beyoncé. Who, despite her constant reminder of loving rodeos, BBQ and being from Texas, is more French than Southern. 

    With this, we segue into the cheesiest song on the record, “Protector” “featuring” Rumi Carter (who makes a cooing sound in the spirit of the one on Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?”). This is Beyoncé at her most “ramblin’ man blew into town but I ain’t here to stay” while she sings, “Born to be a protector.” A protector of who? Why, Rumi of course (because Sir clearly gets no preferential treatment). In a certain sense, this is like Beyoncé’s version of Madonna’s “Little Star” from Ray of Light, a “lullaby,” of sorts, to her own daughter, Lourdes. 

    The tone then shifts on “My Rose,” a brief number that channels major Destiny’s Child vibes and, once again, isn’t country in the least. Though it does offer the self-affirming lyrics, “So many roses but none to be picked without thorns/So be fond of your flaws, dear.” Including one’s flaws when it comes to executing “conventional” country music. However, as though remembering the core of her “genre album,” Beyoncé transitions back to her attempt at country with “Smoke Hour * Willie Nelson.” Like Dolly, Willie (who is about to stand at ninety-one years old) has been brought in to assert the idea that Bey can be a country queen, too (and, on a coincidental side note, Dolly Parton won the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award that same year Beyoncé performed with the Dixie Chicks). 

    With Willie as “DJ” to lead us into “Texas Hold ‘Em,” the sound of a “flipping the dials” effect is made as the “radio” switches to different stations that each play Son House’s “Grinnin’ In Your Face,” Rosetta Tharpe’s “Down by the River Side,” Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” and Roy Hamilton’s “Don’t Let Go.” And if Hamilton sounds, to the untrained ear, like Elvis Presley, that’s because he was one of the latter’s biggest influences (what’s more, Presley reportedly paid the cost of Hamilton’s funeral and outstanding medical bills after the singer died of a stroke at forty)—thus, more flexing/reminding from Bey about white people stealing shit all the time. A “friendly” reminder that everything “white” is actually Black. Though many were quick to remind Beyoncé of how “white” the intro to “Texas Hold ‘Em” is (banjo played by Giddens or not) due to its very similar sound to the Franklin theme. Though that isn’t the only unexpected sonic sampling—there’s also the Fluid ringtone (best known to those who had a Motorola in the early 2000s) that makes a pronounced cameo on “Riiverdance.” So yeah, Beyoncé is trolling a lot regarding people’s “precious” notions of genre. And yet, if genre isn’t “real,” why all this posturing about wanting to align herself with country?

    A genre she again circles around on “Bodyguard” (a song that’s seemingly strategically positioned right before Dolly Parton makes her entrance, seeing as how Whitney’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was on The Bodyguard Soundtrack). Hints of the jealousy motif that’s about to rear its ugly head on Bey’s “Jolene” cover materialize in lyrics like, “I don’t like the way she’s lookin’ at you/Someone better hold me back, oh-oh/Chargin’ ten for a double and I’m talkin’/I’m ‘bout to lose it, turn around and John Wayne that ass.” Funny she should bring Wayne into it. For, although Beyoncé wants to invoke the image of the “quintessential cowboy,” she seems to be forgetting what an overt racist Marion Morrison truly was—this immortalized in a 1971 Playboy interview with fellow racist Bob Hope, during which Wayne remarked, “I believe in white supremacy until the Blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.” One doubts, then, that Wayne would be too keen on Bey using his name in a “country” song. 

    In any case, there are moments, too, when Beyoncé actually does deliver lyrics that sound quite Del Reyian, namely, “​​I give you kisses in the backseat/I whisper secrets in the backbeat/You make me cry, you make me happy, happy/Leave my lipstick on the cigarette.” One can imagine such imagery will also be present on Lasso. That said, “Bodyguard” marks the second song to style Bey as a “protector”—and that protection and guarding isn’t just about her children and her husband, but the legacy (that word again) of Black contributions to country. 

    As she delves into the cover that prompted Lily Allen to make her controversial comment, one can’t help but wonder where the covers of “Bang Bang” by Nancy Sinatra (which she sang to Jay-Z for the On the Run Tour) or “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” by George Strait are—these would actually be very well-suited to Beyoncé’s country brand. Nonetheless, to give her documented blessing, Dolly introduces the reimagining on the “Dolly P” intro, noting, “You know that hussy with the good hair you sing about? Reminded me of someone I knew back when. Except she has flaming locks of auburn hair. Bless her heart. Just a hair of a different color, but it hurts just the same.” 

    After giving Beyoncé the official sanction to cover this country classic, we’re then now taken back to the Lemonade days. Indeed, it’s a small wonder she didn’t sub out the name Jolene for Becky. And yes, Yoncé did feel obliged to make some lyrical adjustments so as to put her own stamp on it. Some of the standout differences being, “I’m warning you don’t come for my man” (instead of, “I’m begging of you, please don’t take my man”) and “You’re beautiful beyond compare” (instead of, “Your beauty is beyond compare”). And then, suddenly, she’s just makin’ a bunch of lyrics up, including, “Takes more than beauty and seductive stares to come between a family and a happy man/Jolene, I’m a woman too/The games you play are nothing new.”

    Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get more cringe, Beyoncé decides to make sure no one is confused about how she’s referring to Jay-Z by adding, “We’ve been deep in love for twenty years/I raised that man, I raised his kids/I know my man better than he knows himself.” And this is the clincher: “I can easily understand why you’re attracted to my man” (this changed from: “I can easily understand how you could easily take my man”). It was perhaps this line that set Azealia Banks off enough to say, “Who is this imaginary adversary that she thinks still wants to be involved with Jay-Z in 2024? She needs to change the subject. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, finds him attractive.” Of course, Banks’ comment didn’t get as much play in the media as Allen’s because it’s fine when a Black woman critiques another Black woman. There’s no “racial tension” to that. In any event, Beyoncé changes the entire tone of the song from being an open, earnest plea with another woman to making it all about how hot and loyal her own man is (wrong on both counts). 

    The  interpolation of “Jolene” continues into “Daughter.” And here there’s an element of Taylor Swift-style songwriting at play (Bey even goes so far as to say, “Look what you made me do”), particularly when thinking of her later “country” efforts like “no body, no crime” and “Vigilante Shit.” There is an evocation of Kill Bill in the lyrics as well, with Beyoncé singing, “Your body laid out on these filthy floors/Your bloodstains on my custom couture.” She even brings “Daddy Lessons” back into it with the lines, “If you cross me, I’m just like my father/I am colder than Titanic water.” (Wouldn’t that just be Atlantic Ocean water?) One supposes that Beyoncé wanted to get the idea of being vengeful across by bringing Italians into it. Why else would she randomly start singing in the language (and not very well) toward the end: “Caro mio ben/Credimi almen/Senza di te/Languische il cor/I tuo fedel/Sospira ognor/Cessa, crudel, tanto rigor.” The other reason for bringing Italian into it is because the following song is the annoyingly misspelled “Spaghettii.” Not just a food, but also the name of Italian westerns a.k.a. spaghetti westerns. 

    Perhaps Beyoncé’s point in referencing this iteration of the western is that there are many different versions and interpretations of a kind of genre. So it is that Linda Martell provides the intro, “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand, but in practice, well, some may feel confined.” And with that, Beyoncé (with a feature from Shaboozey) delves into one of her least country (and most hip hop) tracks on Cowboy Carter, spitting lyrics (delivered in a Janelle Monáe sound) like, “Cunty, country, petty, petty, petty/All the same to me, plain Jane spaghetti” and “We all been played by the plagiaristic.” Naturally, Beyoncé is alluding to white people effectively “plagiarizing” country from Black people. Though it is rather amusing that someone who has been accused of plagiarism as many times as Beyoncé (most recently with her hair care brand, Cécred, which ripped off the packaging style from a small business based in New Zealand) should throw in this little dig. Maybe it’s just “Alligator Tears” on her part, this being another standout on the album for actually sounding country. 

    With its sparse guitar opening, there are immediate comparisons to the style of Fleetwood Mac or solo Stevie Nicks (later on, “II Most Wanted” featuring Miley Cyrus will freely interpolate “Landslide”—which is right up Cyrus’ alley considering that “Midnight Sky” is just “Edge of Seventeen” redone). Another “ride or die” sort of track, Beyoncé assures (presumably Jay-Z), “You say move a mountain and I’ll throw on my boots/You say stop the river from runnin’, I’ll build a dam for two/You say change religions, now I spend Sundays with you.”

    After this, Willie Nelson is back on as “DJ” for the “Smoke Hour II” interlude, wherein Beyoncé seems to vie for more clout by having Nelson say, “You’re tuned into KNTRY Radio Texas, home of the real deal.” He then introduces “Just For Fun” featuring Willie Jones, another slowed-down track that relies not only on acoustic guitar for being deemed country but Jones’ vocal contribution as well (his style being described as “lacing traditional country soundscapes of steel guitar, banjo, and harmonica with signature Louisiana hip hop gumbo”). Of course, nothing can outshine Beyoncé braggadociously touting, “I am the man, I know it/And everywhere I go, they know my name.” They know Miley’s, too. And that’s not the only reason Beyoncé would want her for a collab on “II Most Wanted.” For Miley also has plenty of country roots, starting with Billy Ray Cyrus’ inescapable-for-most-of-the-early-90s “Achy Breaky Heart.” With a father in country, Miley’s own vocal inflection was clearly influenced, and she’s had her fair share of “twangin’ tracks.” She brings out that twang just for Bey on “II Most Wanted,” which, in truth, feels like it should have been given to Lady Gaga so they could make that long-awaited follow-up video to “Telephone.” Ending with riding away in the Pussy Wagon together, there’s the same clear nod to a Thelma and Louise-level friendship as there is on this song. 

    However, the general poseurdom of both women is made apparent when they name-check the 405 as the freeway they’re driving down (“Smoke out the window/Flyin’ down the 405”). Ain’t nothin’ “country” about L.A.—unless you’re a self-superior New Yorker. A persona Beyoncé has been known to try on in her role as the wife of a born-and-bred Brooklynite.

    Continuing the trend of having features on her songs, Post Malone (also born in New York, albeit Syracuse) joins in for the next one, “Levii’s Jeans.” This is arguably more uncomfortable than “Jolene” at times thanks to Beyoncé offering, “Boy, I’ll let you be my Levi jeans/So you can hug that ass all day long.” Perhaps the only thing more difficult to stomach than the thought of Beyoncé singing this to Jay-Z is the thought of her singing it to Post Malone (on a side note: one can still picture her singing it to Jay-Z anyway as he has a songwriting credit on it). 

    Wanting to remind us how deft she is at weaving in and out of genres, the next song is called “Flamenco.” And it does indeed have that Spanish tinge to it (complete with castanets). As one of the shorter tracks (in the vein of “My Rose”), it’s most memorable lyric is, in fact, only memorable because of how generic it’s become ever since Joni Mitchell sang it on “Big Yellow Taxi”: “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” By referencing Mitchell, is this, too, another subtle dig at how, without Black people contributing the banjo to country, country would just be folk music? Who can say? 

    Either way, the following song, introduced again by Linda Martell with a little commentary on genre, is “Ya Ya.” And it goes absolutely batshit. Not just on combining genres, but pulling from as many already well-known songs as it can. Starting with the opening notes that are blatantly taken from Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” and continuing with nods to Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary,” Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange,” Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” and, of course, Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” From the latter, Beyoncé pulls a major Lana by simply repurposing the lyrics, “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations/He’s given’ me sweet sensations” (instead of “excitations”) as her own. And, back on the subject of Del Rey, at least she declared weeks before Beyoncé announced her album that the music industry was “going country,” and then made mention of her own upcoming country-themed album, Lasso. Which, to be sure, was immensely eclipsed by the countdown to Cowboy Carter. An album so entrenched in 60s-era sensibilities the way Del Rey has been for her entire career. 

    Among those 60s sensibilities is “Ya Ya,” with catch phrases like, “Keep the faith” and talk of how her  “family live and died in America, hm” while paying homage to artists of the Chitlin’ Circuit (Tina Turner included) a.k.a. venues where “where white people wouldn’t go to see Black people.” Hence, more than a tinge of sarcasm when she sings, “Good ol’ USA, shit/Whole lotta red in that white and blue, huh.” This being an allusion not just to bloodshed, but to the red that represents the Republican party. And, in some sense, Beyoncé seems to be trying to do with conservative-worshiped country music what Black people did with the “n-word” by taking it over for herself. Reappropriating it so that it can have less of an association with racist whites, and more of one with Black people. Ergo, her reminder again about the origins of country with the lyrics, “History can’t be erased, ooh.” She then backs into a hypocritical corner with her spiel about being able to relate to the common man (as she attempted to on “Break My Soul”) by asking, “Are you tired, workin’ time and a half for half the pay?” What would Beyoncé know about that, having spent most of her life as a millionaire and never working a minimum wage job? Granted, she’s happy to admit, “I just wanna shake my ass/(Have a blast).” Maybe “ass” and “blast” are even becoming a go-to rhyme for her after changing the lyrics on Renaissance’s “Heated” from, “Spazzin’ on that ass” to “Blastin’ on that ass.” Whether that’s true or not, one rarely has the luxury of actually enjoying shaking their ass for the cash. 

    The transition between “Ya Ya” and “Oh Louisiana” is practically undetectable as one “oh” leads into another and Chuck Berry’s essentially “TikTok-ifed” lyrics ensue before we’re back to Bey on “Desert Eagle” (though one would think it was called “Do-Si-Do”). The eagle, of course, being the well-known mascot of the United States. A symbol of “freedom”—for some. Mainly rich people, regardless of being Black or white. Just look at OJ Simpson getting acquitted of murder. 

    Repeating “do-si-do” with an echo-y effect, “Desert Eagle” quickly leads into “Riiverdance,” the aforementioned track that samples the Fluid ringtone. Mostly repeating the chorus, “Bounce on that shit, dance,” the fact that Beyoncé is now incorporating a beat inspired by the famed Irish dance that shares the same name as the song (minus the extra “i”) is perhaps another flex that’s meant to inform white people, “See, we can take genres you created and make it our own too. Do you like that?” 

    “Riiverdance” also has a seamless shift into “II Hands II Heaven,” another song that seems more at home on Renaissance than a country-themed record. Even so, Beyoncé doesn’t let up on reminding the whites, “They can’t do nothin’ but envy, ooh/Bliss, please…/Then taste this wine, I’ma taste what’s mine/‘Cause I’ma take what’s mine.” In another portion of the song, she even takes what isn’t by grabbing onto the Elton phrase, “No candle in the wind” (something Del Rey does a lot too). 

    Ostensibly saving one of the bests for (almost) last, Dolly gets on the mic again for “Tyrant,” even if only for the intro about lighting up the juke joint. Her presence makes sense though, as Beyoncé is about to dive into their favorite subject: a man being stolen from her. In this unique instance, it’s a hangman (or rather, hangwoman) that’s the culprit. This per the lyric, “I don’t want him back, but I can’t let go/Hangman, answer me now/You owe me a debt, you stole him from me.” More than the lyrics, the dance-worthy beat is what stands out—a beat that would be at home on any of Beyoncé’s previous hip hop-oriented records.

    But no, she wants to keep reiterating her country commitment, falling in and out of it like another personality throughout the record. This is true of “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’” for sure, as she opens by singing Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” before letting Shaboozey (appearing for the second time) deliver his verses. It’s obvious once this portion commences that it’s a Pharrell-produced song, rejoining Bey after his contribution to Renaissance, which included pissing Kelis off by sanctioning a sample of “Milkshake” on “Energy” (which was removed soon after the album’s release). The three stars that divide the words signify that each portion explores a different musical and lyrical theme (in this regard, it’s a foil for Renaissance’s “Pure/Honey”), at one point bringing us to the subject of Black people’s rightful mistrust in white-dominated institutions via the verse, “They yankin’ your chain/Promisin’ things that they can’t/You the man at the bank?/Is you is or you ain’t?” Nelly asked that a long time ago on “Iz U.”

    The album at last concludes with the fittingly titled “Amen.” And that’s what many will be saying after getting through all that. At least Renaissance reined in the tracklist at sixteen, for fuck’s sake. Indicating that Beyoncé didn’t think she had as much to prove with the house music genre. Beyoncé nails one part of country though—and that’s providing little levity in terms of the stories she’s unfurling. “Amen” is no exception to the rule, with Yoncé being sure to mention to them nefarious whites still listening, “This house was built with blood and bone/And it crumbled, yes, it crumbled/The statues they made were beautiful/But they were lies of stone, they werе lies of stone.” 

    Alas, more than this feeling like an album of “reclamation,” it feels, ironically, like Beyoncé wanting to make the complete transition into “white culture” (what with the skin and hair bleaching portion already done) despite the crux of the record’s existence being in the name of reappropriating Black culture. And yet, her obsession with being accepted by (rather than toppling) the Establishment run by white patriarchal influences was made all the more apparent when Jay-Z took the stage at the 2024 Grammys to make an over-the-top speech about how, despite being the most awarded artist in Grammy history, it still isn’t enough because she’s never won Album of the Year (something she’s sure mention in “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’” with, “A-O-T-Y/I ain’t win”). Neither has Nina Simone, or Diana Ross, or Mariah Carey (those first two more influential women on Beyoncé’s career have, in fact, never won a Grammy at all). But you never saw their husbands get onstage crying, “No fair!” (In Simone’s case, that was because her husbands were too busy abusing her themselves—so was Mariah’s, Tommy Mottola, even if “only” emotionally.) 

    Ultimately, though, if you want so-called respect in country, then just do country without making race the linchpin of the project. A tactic that, in the end, will not hearten the standard country audience to her. And it doesn’t seem like a way to “blur the lines” or “unite” people over the idea that country is for everyone, so much as a vengeful “fuck you, hater” to everyone who 1) told her she didn’t belong in country and 2) stole country from Black people in the first place. In terms of reason number one, Cowboy Carter is, first and foremost, a vanity project and not quite the “cultural reset” that Lemonade was for this cowgirl, who perhaps set the bar too high for herself that year. Even if the CMAs couldn’t comprehend that.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Dolly Parton Blesses Beyoncé’s “Jolene” Cover, Disses “That Hussy With the Good Hair” While She’s At It

    Dolly Parton Blesses Beyoncé’s “Jolene” Cover, Disses “That Hussy With the Good Hair” While She’s At It

    Dolly Parton‘s chart-topping grudge against her titular temptress “Jolene” has been well known since she first put it to a melody and released it in 1973, and now, with a cameo on Beyoncé’s new album Cowboy Carter, she’s directed some of her scorn at another “other woman” on Bey’s behalf.

    Cowboy Carter, released Friday, is comprised of 29 tracks, including several spoken interludes from country legends like Willie Nelson, and features Bey’s cover of Parton’s “Jolene,” introduced by Parton herself. In her intro to Beyoncé’s version, Parton invokes the track “Sorry” off of the Grammy Award-winner’s 2016 scorned woman epic surprise album, Lemonade, which doomed “Becky with the good hair” to a lifetime of looking over her shoulder with the song’s final line.

    “Hey miss Honey B, it’s Dolly P.,” Parton says in the intro to the cover. “You know that hussy with the good hair you sang about? Reminding me of someone I knew back when, except she has flaming locks of auburn hair, bless her heart. Just a hair of a different color but it hurts just the same.”

    Becky, it’s about time you meet Jolene. Start a support group or something. Timeshare a bodyguard, maybe.

    Immediately after Parton’s intro, Bey launches into her cover, tweaking a few lines, such as, “Jolene, I know I’m a queen / Jolene, I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisianne (Don’t try me).” If Jolene let her guard down anytime in the last half-century, it’s going right back up after this.

    Amid fevered speculation about what Cowboy Carter would bring the Beyhive, Parton seemingly accidentally revealed—then immediately tried to hedge—the existence of the cover.

    In an early March interview with Knox News, Parton called Beyoncé “a beautiful girl and a great singer” and confirmed that the two have been in touch, then realized that maybe she’d said a little too much.

    “Well, I think she has!” she said. “I think she’s recorded ‘Jolene,’ and I think it’s probably gonna be on her country album, which I’m very excited about that.”

    She added that “We’ve kind of sent messages back and forth through the years. And she and her mother were like fans, and I was always touched that they were fans, and I always thought she was great.”

    And, as we know, 78-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Parton doesn’t text. Parton faxes, which means that Beyoncé also must fax. So that’s two gifts we’ve been given: Parton’s singular delivery of “hussy,” and the joy of imagining what Beyoncé’s fax machine looks like. What a time to be alive. 

    Kase Wickman

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  • Oh Hello, Beyoncé With a Mullet – POPSUGAR Australia

    Oh Hello, Beyoncé With a Mullet – POPSUGAR Australia

    Image Source: Getty/Kevin Mazur / Contributor
    Beyoncé is entering a new era, and we’re not just talking about music. After announcing a forthcoming country album and new hair-care line, the superstar has been gracing numerous magazine covers. The latest is CR Fashion Book’s 24th issue, dubbed “Audacious.” In one of the photos, she poses in a graphic t-shirt that’s cinched by a corset. In the photo, she is also wearing a skunk-colored mullet.

    The look is true to the original version of the hairstyle – short at the front and sides, and long in the back. To add to the slight “grunge” factor that she has going on with the outfit, the mullet – which is likely a wig – is a salt-and-pepper shade, with some areas appearing lighter or darker and some ending up as a perfect blend of the two shades, creating a gorgeous grey hue.

    The look is a big departure for the star, who can more readily be seen with her signature honey-blond curls and, more recently, a straight platinum look. Still, the bold transformation has delivered the desired effect: people worldwide are continuing to chatter about her beauty brand, Cécred. “It has always been a dream of mine to create top-of-the-line, luxury products,” Beyoncé told CR Fashion Book. “I wanted to combine the best scientific advancements with true rituals from different heritages. I’m interested in solving real problems. I want to break down myths and stereotypes when it comes to our hair.” As she enters a new chapter in her musical journey, the star seems to be in an era of total experimentation, which feels fitting.

    Inspired yet? We thought so. Take a closer look at Beyoncé’s hair below, and remember – as excited as you’re feeling about your own potential mullet transformation right now, it’s always best to see a professional when deciding on a dramatic haircut. (You’ve been sufficiently warned.) CR Fashion Book Issue 24 will be available on newsstands on March 29.

    Image Source: Courtesy of CR Fashion Book

    Ariel-baker

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  • Black Women in Country Are Grateful Beyoncé Is Entering the Genre

    Black Women in Country Are Grateful Beyoncé Is Entering the Genre

    Tanner Adell fell in love with country music young.

    She grew up splitting her time between Los Angeles and Star Valley, WY, which created a stark contrast — but it was the country lifestyle, and specifically the music, that held her heart. Adell remembers falling in love with Keith Urban when he released “Somebody Like You.” And every summer, when she and her mom would set out to drive back to LA from Star Valley, she’d sit in the back of the car and “just silently cry my eyes out as we’d start on this road trip back to California,” she remembers.

    These days, Adell is a rising country music star. And ever since Beyoncé released “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” on Super Bowl Sunday and announced her forthcoming country album, “Act II,” the spotlight has been on Black women country artists like her. A lot of that attention has been positive; Adell and others say they’re incredibly excited about what this will mean for the genre. But it’s also been a bit contentious. After an Oklahoma radio station refused to play Beyoncé because it “is a country music station,” an online uproar convinced the station to reverse its decision — and ignited a larger conversation around inclusion within the genre.

    “Country music is how you feel, it’s your story, it’s part of you.”

    For Black women artists like Adell, pursuing country music often transcends the difficulty that might come with navigating their identity in a genre dominated by white men. As she puts it, “Country music is how you feel, it’s your story, it’s part of you.”

    The same was true for Tiera Kennedy when she started writing songs in high school. She was a big fan of Taylor Swift at the time, and she just fell into expressing herself through the genre. “I always say I don’t feel like I found country music, I feel like country music found me,” she tells POPSUGAR. “When I started making music, it just came out that way. I was writing what I was going through at the time, which was boy drama. And I fell in love with all things country music and just dove into it.”

    Moving to Nashville seven years ago was “a big deal” for Kennedy in terms of building up her career: “Everyone told me that if you want to be in country music, you have to be in Nashville.” When she got there, she was surprised she was so welcomed by others in the industry, which doesn’t necessarily happen for everyone, given how tight-knit the city can be. “I was super thankful and blessed to have met so many people early on who have opened doors for me without asking for anything in return,” Kennedy says.

    For Adell, too, moving to the “capital of country music” almost three years ago was huge in pushing her career forward. And an essential part of that has been finding a community of other Black women artists. “Oh, we have a group chat,” she quips. “We’re extremely supportive, and I think sometimes people are trying to pin us against each other or even pin us against Beyoncé, but you’re not going to get that beef or that drama.”

    “Country is just as much a part of the fabric of Black culture as hip-hop is.”

    But while these artists have been able to foster a strong community within Nashville, it’s no secret that country music has been facing a reckoning when it comes to racism and sexism. Chart-topping artists like Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen have recently weaponized racism as a marketing tool, per NPR. In September, Maren Morris said she was distancing herself from the genre for some of these reasons. “After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.”

    But the reality is that Black artists have always been part of the foundation of country. As Prana Supreme Diggs — who performs with her mom, Tekitha, as O.N.E the Duo — says, “Black Americans, so much of our history is rooted in the South. Country is just as much a part of the fabric of Black culture as hip-hop is.”

    Diggs grew up in California watching her mother, a vocalist for Wu-Tang Clan, host jam sessions at her house. She’s been wanting to perform professionally with her mom since she was a teenager, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that they really committed to their joint country project.

    For Diggs, there’s been nothing but excitement since Beyoncé’s commercial came on during the Super Bowl. She immediately ran to her computer to listen to the songs. “And the second the instrumental came on for ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ came on, I was like, oh my god, it’s happening,” she says. “We are finally here.”

    Tekitha felt the same way. “In the Black and country community, we’ve really been needing a champion,” she says. “We’ve been needing someone who can kind of blow the door open and to recognize our voice is important in this genre.”

    Adell says that given how iconic Beyoncé is, the criticism she’s received speaks volumes about how far country still has to go. “For her to have given so much of herself to the world and when she decides to have a little stylistic change to not just be supported — I don’t understand it,” she says. “I don’t understand why people aren’t just like, ‘This is cool, Beyoncé’s coming out with a country album!’”

    Kennedy tries to focus on the positives of the industry (if she gets shut out of an opportunity, for example, she won’t dwell, she’ll just go after the next), but being a Black woman in America will always come with systemic challenges. “No, it hasn’t always been easy,” she says. “There are so many layers tacked onto that: being a new artist, being female, being Black in country music. But I think if I focused on how hard that is, I would fall out of love with country music.”

    That positive thinking has been paying off; the past week has been really exciting for Kennedy. She released a cover of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which has since gone viral. After she posted the video, new fans streamed into her DMs, telling her they didn’t even know her type of country, which is infused with R&B, existed. It’s something other Black women country stars are echoing: that the new focus on their contributions to the genre is a long time coming — and a huge opportunity.

    “I’m super thankful that Beyoncé is entering into this genre and bringing this whole audience with her,” Kennedy says. “And hopefully that’ll bring up some of the artists that have been in town a long time and grinding at it. I don’t think there’s anybody better than Beyoncé to do it.”

    Lena Felton

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  • Beyoncé’s Recent White-ification Now Makes Plenty of Sense in the Wake of Her Country Album Announcement

    Beyoncé’s Recent White-ification Now Makes Plenty of Sense in the Wake of Her Country Album Announcement


    At the end of a Verizon commercial during the Super Bowl on February 11th, Beyoncé announced that the world was ready for her new music to drop (thanks, of course, to the strong internet network that only Verizon can provide). And while some might have hoped that Renaissance Act II might be a continuation of the house flavor she repurposed from artists like Robin S. and, yes, even Madonna, on Renaissance, it is instead slated to be a country album. This declared on the heels of Lana Del Rey making a similar announcement about “going country” for her next record, titled, what else, Lasso. Because, yeah, what the U.S. needs now is more people confirming it’s a place for shitkickers. 

    Many might have speculated Beyoncé was going to keep running with this cowgirl shtick for Act II, but perhaps thought said shtick might also maintain the house stylings present on Act I. Those with a more perspicacious eye, however, could have detected a genre shift based on Yoncé’s “color shift” in recent months. And what with frequently citing Michael Jackson as an influence, it can come as no surprise that Bey has also taken apparent inspiration from his propensity for skin lightening. As a woman who, like Jackson, has forged her empire on Blackness and what it means to be Black, the increased and not so gradual bleaching of her skin feels particularly traitorous. After all, this is the same woman who has a song called “Brown Skinned Girl.”

    These days, though, she’s looking light taupe at best and “tan for a white person” at worst. But now, with the confirmation of her transition to country (because everyone must presently copy the “old Taylor” for some reason), her whitening suddenly makes all the sense in the world. After all, country is still the whitest genre you know, no matter how much Beyoncé tries to “funk-ify” it (to use a white person’s euphemism), or how much she might later bill it as “reclaiming the Black origins of the genre” (as was her intention with “taking back” house music for Renaissance). Doing her best to show us that she can with the first two offerings she’s revealed from the record, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.” It is the former that many are attempting to bill as a “Daddy Lessons” redux. But no, it’s so much less listenable than that. And “Daddy Lessons” (a recent appropriate favorite of Britney Spears to dance in her living room to) is, obviously, more tolerable because it serves as an irreverent sonic divergence from the rest of Lemonade, which, to be frank, is the most country-sounding Beyoncé should ever allow herself to get (complete with Jack White helping her out on “Don’t Hurt Yourself”). 

    As for “16 Carriages,” it is a slowed-down “ballad”—or, more accurately, Beyoncé finding a way to play up her “rough” childhood spent seeking fame and essentially being pimped out (after being “invested in”) by her parents in a manner similar to the abovementioned Spears. With regard to the lyrics, “Sixteen carriages driving away/While I watch them ride with my fears away/To the summer sunset on a holy night/On a long back road, all the tears I fight,” that word, “carriage,” can refer both to the tour buses she rode while still in the germinal days of Destiny’s Child as well as the “country-centric” type of carriage that refers to the frame of a gun supporting its barrel. And yes, needless to say, Beyoncé already packs a pistol, of sorts, for her “Texas Hold ‘Em” visualizer, featuring three minutes and fifty-seven seconds of the whitest version of Yoncé yet forming her thumb, index and middle finger into a gun as sparks shoot out of it. All while wearing tights with black underwear over them and little else up top. A pair of reflective sunglasses with a winding snake over one of the lenses rounds out the look with a “Swiftian flair” (since everyone knows snakes have been “her thing” since Reputation…even if they were Britney Spears’ first by sheer virtue of the “I’m A Slave 4 U” performance at the 2001 VMAs).

    The trailer for the album itself is a nod to Texas, displaying an overt homage to Paris, Texas (again, more Lana Del Rey shit on Beyoncé’s part) not only via the desolate desert landscape with its many electrical towers, but also the Harry Dean Stanton-esque man in the red baseball hat (though some conspiracy theorists might interpret its presence as some kind of subliminal “support” for Trump). So again, some super white references. The opening to the trailer itself harkens back to the vibe of Beyoncé driving away in the Pussy Wagon with Lady Gaga in the video for 2010’s “Telephone,” with Beyoncé capitulating to playing sidekick at a time of “Gaga supremacy.” But Bey doesn’t seem intent on staying in the Lone Star State by any means, slamming on the gas pedal as she approaches a billboard of herself waving what appears to be goodbye, rather than hello. The “hoedown” tone of the song commences with the lines, “This ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ‘em” in a manner that smacks, in its own way, of Elton John declaring, “You know you can’t hold me forever.” Beyoncé certainly seemed to feel that way about her home state, jumping at the chance to ascend the ladder of fame as she drifted further and further from whence she came (no rhyme intended). Physically and emotionally. 

    And yet, once a person like her reaches such a stature, there’s nothing left to do but “look back.” Reflect on the roots that one abandoned in order to mine “fresh” material. Even though, as usual, Beyoncé is incapable of writing a song entirely on her own. Just as, of late, she seems to be incapable of coming up with an original idea, “persona-wise.” For it’s only too familiar, this “disco-fied cowgirl” thing she has going on. Or, let’s say, “ghetto fabulous” (though it’s probably no longer allowed). This also being the aesthetic Madonna already gave us in 2000 with Music. Indeed, even Madonna has moved beyond the look she herself cultivated by stripping it down to a more conventional cowboy appearance (minus the massive, cartoonish cowboy hats she and Bob the Drag Queen sport) for Act III of The Celebration Tour, which hinges thematically on “Don’t Tell Me,” her most cowboy-oriented visual of Music. And, as a Midwestern gal, returning to this aspect of herself makes sense. Some might say it does for Beyoncé, too. As a “Texan gal.” But we all know she wasn’t exactly vibing (least of all in 80s-era America) with the hoedown life or “hick culture” (an oxymoron, to be sure) until now, when it served her “musical inspiration” purpose. 

    Funnily enough, in 2016, as Beyoncé was starting to fully embrace her Blackness as a “brand” with the release of “Formation,” there was an SNL sketch that made fun of how white people were finally starting to realize she was Black. Now, it seems the tables have turned again, and Bey has gone back to her pandering-to-whites roots. Not only by releasing a country record, but by literally becoming white. And, to quote another lyric from “Texas Hold ‘Em,” “That shit ain’t pretty.”



    Genna Rivieccio

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  • AMC Theaters Issue “Energy” Guidance, Hat Rules for Beyoncé's ‘Renaissance’

    AMC Theaters Issue “Energy” Guidance, Hat Rules for Beyoncé's ‘Renaissance’

    Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé appears to have it all: Two star-studded red carpets in advance of its December 1 release, glowing reviews, and the top slot in this weekend’s box office rankings. But one aspect of the film’s launch has left fans scratching their heads: AMC Theaters, the movie’s distribution partner, has issued special guidance for filmgoers reminiscent of an overbearing Airbnb host or a scolding field trip chaperone.

    Headlined “What to Know Before the Show,” AMC’s special rules for Renaissance guests include vaguely worded expectations such as “Get COZY before it gets crazy. Save your energy for once you are inside the RENAISSANCE showing room. We want to make sure other AMC guests enjoy their movie-going experience as much as you do.”

    Other rules for the movie seem to suggest that the theater chain wants attendees to have fun, but is worried that too much revelry might spoil the experience for others. “You know the words, you know the choreography — sing & dance your heart out, but please respect each other’s space along with the theatre equipment,” AMC warns. “Do not dance on seats or block other guests from viewing, safely walking or exiting the auditorium.”

    “If parts of your outfit will potentially block other viewers from the screen, please remove them as the film begins (ex. headwear, wings, etc),” another rule reads. “And please keep in mind that masks (except for standard face masks used explicitly for health and safety reasons) are not permitted.”

    Another directive suggests that Beyoncé fans might not have seen a movie before, or attended any other sort of theatrical event. “The runtime for this film is 2 hours and 48 minutes, plus approximately 15-20 extra minutes for pre-show and trailers before the film starts,” the theater chain warns. “So please plan your bathroom breaks or other needs accordingly. You won’t want to miss a single second!” One wonders if ticket-holders for Martin Scorsese epic Killers of the Flower Moon, which runs 3 hours and 26 minutes before ads and trailers, were sent similar instructions.

    Those made aware of the rulebook also wondered if attendees of Taylor Swift’s concert film—which also has a deal with AMC—received a similar list of concert film-going rules, Deadline reports. “Did they put the same warnings out before the Swift concert film?” the publication quotes one social media user as saying.

    And speaking of social media, it’s worth noting that AMC’s first rule of Renaissance appears to involve the proper use of hashtags—and cell phones. “We want to see your amazing outfits! Feel free to take selfies and group shots to celebrate the occasion and the beautiful ensembles you came up with, but please DO NOT take pictures or record while the film is playing,” the rules (which are available in full online) read. “Be sure to post your photos on social media with #RENAISSANCETHEFILM.”

    Eve Batey

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  • Beyoncé Drops Surprise Second Trailer for ‘Renaissance’ Tour Film

    Beyoncé Drops Surprise Second Trailer for ‘Renaissance’ Tour Film

    Beyoncé fans already have Friday, December 1 marked on their calendars. That’s the day the polymath’s concert documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, is set to hit theaters—and the day when the concert film box office records set by Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour might see their most significant challenger. And Beyoncé seems to be gearing up for that competition, dropping one last trailer for the film amid an American Thanksgiving tradition.

    The surprise went down during Thursday’s NBC broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Introduced by Today show anchor/parade co-host Hoda Kotb, Beyoncé popped onto screens in a pre-taped prologue (did you actually think she’d bundle up and schlep to 6th Avenue to be there in person?), saying “Hey, it’s Beyoncé, wishing you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving. I’m so honored to share with you the first look at the new Renaissance film trailer.”

    What followed reflects what we’ve heard about the film so far—that as opposed to a simple open-to-close concert film, it’s a mix of performance footage, artsy “visual album” segments, and a behind-the-scenes documentary look of the work that went into the 56-show Renaissance tour, which generated $579 million and is, thus far, “the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in history,” Entertainment Weekly noted last month.

    The trailer begins with Beyoncé’s youngest daughter, Rumi Carter, filming her famous mom. “Rumi, can I teach you a trick? You have to turn it (the camera) to the side. Yeah, there we go,” Beyoncé says, as the trailer launches into on-stage footage featuring artists such as Megan Thee Stallion and Diana Ross.

    The focus on her kids continues with footage of Blue Ivy Carter, Beyoncé’s eldest child with husband Jay-Z, performing on stage with her mom. “Time is my biggest obstacle,” Beyoncé says in a voiceover. “It’s impossible to not realize how fast it’s going when you’re looking through the eyes of your children.”

    Speaking of children, eagle-eyed viewers will note that the original members of Beyoncé’s former group, Destiny’s Child, are also featured in the trailer. We see LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett onscreen, as well as Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

    I think about all of my heroes and all that they endured,” the artist says in a voiceover. “I know that all of my struggle and sacrifice is opening the door for the next. They are the new beginning.”

    “I have nothing to prove to anyone at this point, she concludes. “We are creating our own world. This is my reward. Nobody can take that away from me.”

    Eve Batey

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  • 24 Beyoncé Halloween Costume Ideas to Help You Run the World

    24 Beyoncé Halloween Costume Ideas to Help You Run the World

    Beyoncé embarked on the road to world domination (yet again) in 2023, blowing us all away with her show-stopping looks on her “Renaissance” World Tour, her precious family moments, and her history-making Grammy wins.

    Between all that and her iconic performances over the years, there’s no time like the present to spend your Halloween living the life of Beyoncé. Whether you want to rock a bunch of different looks with your girlfriends or just fly solo, we’ve got 24 different ways for you to be Queen Bey.

    Related:

    72 Beyoncé "Renaissance" Lyrics For Instagram Captions That'll Lift Your Spirit

    Ryan Roschke

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  • Beyoncé Officially Announces ‘Renaissance’ Tour Film: “Be Careful What You Ask For”

    Beyoncé Officially Announces ‘Renaissance’ Tour Film: “Be Careful What You Ask For”

    Virgo season is upon us—again. Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour is headed to the big screen, the Grammy winner announced early Monday following the first reports of the film’s existence. She uploaded the trailer for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé alongside the caption “Be careful what you ask for, ’cause I just might comply,” quoting her song “All Up in Your Mind.”

    Released by the singer’s production company, Parkwood Entertainment, the film will reportedly blend live concert footage with “parts of the long-gestating visual album Renaissance and a documentary-style account of making the record and building out the tour,” as reported by Variety. Says Beyoncé in the trailer, “When I am performing, I am nothing but free. The goal for this tour was to create a place where everyone is free and no one is judged.”

    At one point Beyoncé can be seen rehearsing alongside her oldest daughter and current backup dancer, Blue Ivy Carter, and fans also get a glimpse of Rumi and Sir, her twins with Jay-Z. “Start over, start fresh, create the new, that’s what the Renaissance is about,” she says.

    The Renaissance film will hit US theaters on December 1. Tickets start at $22 plus tax, a paltry sum in comparison to the $322 average ticket price for the tour, according to StubHub data reported by CNBC. Plans for a movie have long been in the pipeline, as reported by Variety, with crews having been spotted filming footage in Beyoncé’s hometown of Houston last month. Mega agency CAA had reportedly been shopping the potential documentary to studios and streamers since September.

    Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour, which beckoned celebrities and royals alike in a sea of silver outfits, began on May 10, 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden, and concluded last night in Kansas City, Missouri. It overlapped with Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which becomes its own theatrical attraction on October 13. The latter film has already smashed advance ticket sales records and caused at least five films, including horror sequel Exorcist: Believer, to shift dates. December new releases have officially been put on notice.

    Savannah Walsh

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  • Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner at the Beyoncé Concert

    Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner at the Beyoncé Concert

    A headline such as “Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner at the Beyoncé Concert” seems like the stuff of an AI-generated sentence arbitrarily spit out from some other non-related prompt. And yet, the sentence became a reality (whatever that means anymore) on September 4th (no less than Beyoncé’s birthday), at the final Inglewood date of the Renaissance Tour. Although many had speculated that the duo’s “romance” had already fizzled out, it seems they were just biding their time until they could unveil it in a more bombastic official capacity. For it’s no secret that the Kardashian-Jenner clan is known for making the announcement of their “relationships” in a big way (with none of these men ever deterred by how many children the K-Js might already have from previously failed “interludes”). And, considering, Jenner was also joined at the concert by her momager, Kris, and half-sisters, Kim and Khloé, it appears as though the outing is ultimately made for The Kardashians episode fodder. 

    This, undoubtedly, isn’t something that would bring much joy to Beyoncé, who has never been known for being all that “chummy” with Kim, whose marriage to Ye obviously didn’t sit well with Jay-Z or Bey, with both skipping their wedding back in 2014. And yet, Kim did manage to make the cut for being invited to Beyoncé’s forty-first birthday last year, so who’s to say that she hasn’t “made peace” with any ill will toward the constantly-seeking-attention “reality” star? Though one can imagine her vexation upon learning that the biggest headline to come out of her birthday show was not the fact that Diana Ross (sort of) sang “Happy Birthday” to Miss Knowles onstage, but that Chalamet and Jenner were rather heavy on the PDA as a means to confirm their “relationship” is still going strong, and now in a public capacity. 

    Indeed, even in an article that offered the headline as “Diana Ross Sings Happy Birthday to Beyoncé During Surprise Appearance at Los Angeles Tour Stop,” the topic quickly shifted to the presence of the Kardashians, with Kim’s appearance also stealing some of the spotlight as well. But her “sparkle” was nothing compared to the video footage seen ‘round the world of Chalamet’s displays of affection toward Jenner, some of which were often a bit half-hearted as he actually tried to watch the show and kissed her with his eyes open while Jenner had her back to the stage (how sacrilegious!). The image of Chalamet looking at Beyoncé while kissing Kylie can be interpreted as one would like. One interpretation being that Jenner has already siphoned some of his soul out and he’s growing more dead-eyed and complacent by the day. 

    Jenner, whose skin tone is “on-brand” with the blackfishing that all the Kardashians are known for, is a clear step down from one of Chalamet’s first famous girlfriends (and an actual person of color [“POC” sounds too much like “POS”]), Lourdes Leon. A.k.a. Madonna’s daughter a.k.a. Chalamet is probably never going to do better than that, fucking for clout-wise. Yet that hasn’t stopped him from seeming to relish the so-called perks of orbiting the famous-for-being-famous brood. After all, he hasn’t ever gotten half as much publicity for any of the movies he’s starred in, no matter how critically acclaimed most of his performances have been (even if often on the one-note side). Yet it seems a new “era” is on the horizon for Chalamet…one that might be his “flop” period (Wonka does, in truth, look like a harbinger for that). For it’s no secret that there’s something of a Kardashian-Jenner hex upon any man who dares “enter the fold” (pardon the sexual innuendo of that phrase). With Ye being the most overt example of that amid the various Get Out comparisons that were made before he went entirely off the rails. 

    Perhaps that’s why Jenner has transitioned to “white meat,” as it were, “taking one for the team” by switching it up from the fam’s usual fetishization of Black men as a means to be able to tell the public, “See? We’re not like Rose Armitage.” Chalamet doesn’t seem to mind that he’s an inevitable pawn in their game called “Social Climbing With Our Pussies.” The more they can infiltrate the world of Legitimate (Low) Art (complete with Kim now starring in a season of AHS), the more people will forget that they have no talent of their own, other than, of course, commodifying their names in new, ever-changing ways. 

    And as the two “canoodled” to the tune of “Alien Superstar” (a song choice that’s almost too on the nose for the illuminati theories that abound with regard to any celebrity and their “romantic pairings”), Beyoncé’s extra-sensory “B” feelers could likely intuit the attention being detracted from her performance—and on her birthday! Echoing the effect of Taylor Swift showing up to Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley’s wedding festivities, the attention strayed slightly too far from the main attraction for the main attraction’s taste. Worse still, Chalamet, in “indie boy” fashion, smoked cigarettes at the concert like some sort of heathen defying a holy place of worship. 

    But of course, Beyoncé is “graceful” and “humble” enough not to be bogged down by such ego-tripping trivialities, n’est-ce pas? At least, that was meant to be the takeaway from her focus on Diana Ross’ “cameo,” running across the stage to embrace her (which was met with typical Ross coldness) and gush, “You are so amazin’—this is the legendary Diana Ross! There would be no me without you and thank you so much for all of your sacrifice and your beauty and your grace. Thank you for opening doors for me.” Because, yes, the ego of every celebrity can’t help but make things about them. Much to Ross’ repressed chagrin. As if women who came before want to be reduced to nothing more than a “stepping stone” for the current “hot thing” (Madonna also knows a bit about being diminished in that way under the guise of being exalted). 

    Thus, while Beyoncé might have given the performance of a lifetime, it was all, in the end, mitigated by this “odd couple” taking their “romance” to the proverbial stage as well. With Jenner adding to the “theater” by engaging in her PDA antics right next to where her murdering ex, Travis Scott, was also standing in the “VIP area.”

    So it is that point one went to the Kardashians for the ongoing celebrity battle to grab attention (even causing people to let persona non grata Lizzo’s presence go, um, largely unpublicized). Perhaps Beyoncé can get back to being the true spotlight at her upcoming Vancouver (a place with far fewer celebrities bound to materialize) show on September 11th. Except that, well, the date of September 11th is always a spotlight stealer in and of itself. Even so, it’s far less “stealing” than Kylie and Timothée, who are so different that they don’t even have monikers that can be turned into a “clever,” one-unit couple name. Unlike Bey-Z, Jayoncé, etc.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Kelly Rowland Recalls the Moment She Accidentally Revealed the Sex of Beyoncé’s First Child

    Kelly Rowland Recalls the Moment She Accidentally Revealed the Sex of Beyoncé’s First Child

    Would it be worse for Beyoncé to be mad at you, or just disappointed? While Beyoncé’s wrath is likely no fun, for Kelly Rowland, feeling the weight of Beyoncé’s disappointment was just as bad. During a July episode of Billy Mann’s “Yeah, I F*cked That Up” podcast, Rowland revealed the biggest mistake she ever made during an interview was accidentally revealing the sex of her former Destiny’s Child bandmate‘s first child, Blue Ivy Carter.

    Rowland didn’t name the outlet she spilled the beans to, but she did share how awful she felt afterwards. “That was the worst moment ever!” she said. “The worst moment ever. It was such a mistake.”

    The “Dilemma” singer didn’t reveal the news on purpose. In fact, it wasn’t until the interviewer was talking to her afterwards that she realized she had let Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s news slip. At that point, it was too late to backtrack.

    “I was like, ‘What are they talking about? I didn’t say . . . Oh my god!’” she said of the moment she realized her mistake. “It was bad because it was no one’s business.” Mann went on to ask if Beyoncé was angry when she found out. “I mean, disappointed. Yesss,” Rowland responded.

    Thankfully, Beyoncé forgave her pal, and they still remain close to this day. Still, the memory of her slip up haunts Rowland even now that Blue Ivy is old enough to join her mom on stage during her Renaissance World Tour. She continued, “I felt terrible because it’s not my news. It was honestly the worst. It wasn’t my news to share, and I didn’t mean it like that. The ‘she’ just kind of slipped out. I was like, ‘Uh-oh.’”

    Sabienna Bowman

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  • Swarm Crystallizes That Celebrities Are the New Gods, and There Is No Freedom of Speech When Speaking “Ill” of Them

    Swarm Crystallizes That Celebrities Are the New Gods, and There Is No Freedom of Speech When Speaking “Ill” of Them

    For as much talk as there is of late about how “terrible” and “harrowing” it is to be a celebrity, perhaps the worst fate in the present climate is being someone who “dares” to speak “ill” (a.k.a. point out certain flaws and hypocrisies in the work compared to the lifestyle) of a celebrity. With all the tools available at a fan’s disposal to “end” the person who says something they don’t like about their “god” in the twenty-first century, it truly has never been a scarier time for the mere expression of an opinion.

    Perhaps the biggest mistake one can make about Swarm is assuming it’s a satire. As though someone in a particularly “passionate” fanbase wouldn’t do something that unhinged. That someone, in this “fictional” case, being Andrea “Dre” Greene (Dominique Fishback). An “awkward, gawky” girl who, as it becomes immediately clear, has a very unhealthy relationship with her “bestie”/“sister” (Dre, we later find out, was adopted by Marissa’s parents), Marissa Jackson (Chloe Bailey, adding another meta element to the show for being Beyoncé’s protégée). The two “share” an apartment in Houston (meaning Marissa pays the rent, often by asking for supplemental support from her parents, who aren’t ware of Dre’s presence in her life…or, at least, they pretend not to be). Again, not a coincidence, considering Beyoncé hails from “H-Town.” Nor is it a coincidence that the show is called Swarm to echo the fanbase name of the Beyhive. Or that the show’s creator, Donald Glover, worked with Beyoncé on The Lion King, and that proximity to her perhaps gave a new level of insight into the obsessiveness her level of stardom encounters. Glover’s co-creator, Janine Nabers, also has plenty of experience in playing up the surreal nature of fandom, with a show like UnREAL also tapping into a form of celebrity culture (even if “reality star”-based) and how it “feeds” fans. Most of whom are looking to be fed because it fills some kind of void within them. A void everyone has to fill, one way or another.

    In Dre’s situation, worshipping Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown)—the obvious Beyoncé stand-in—and deluding herself into thinking she’s part of The Swarm “family” is a way to tell herself that she is loved, that she belongs to a “tribe.” Case in point, her insistence to Marissa, “They’re my friends.” Marissa has to remind, “They are not your friends. Those are some crazy-ass fans. They don’t give a fuck about you, you know that, right? It’s not real.” But it’s the “realest” thing Dre has in terms of a source of “community” and “common ground.” As a foster child, she was clearly cast out from her own original tribe early on, the sting of abandonment not quite as sweet as being part of the bees of Ni’Jah’s hive. Therefore being the one to sting instead of getting stung. The protective bubble of “love” that Ni’Jah fills Dre with is matched only by the one that Marissa fills her with (and yes, it’s as “big lesbian crush,” to quote Janis Ian, as it sounds). But, as far as Dre is concerned, their rapport is being poisoned by the presence of another one of Marissa’s new boyfriends, Khalid (Damson Idris). Who Dre freely watches fucking her sister without Marissa knowing. At first, when Khalid catches her, his reaction is creeped out before giving way to being slightly turned on as he performs with even more gusto.

    Later, he calls her out for being such an obvious virgin (nicknaming her “Cherry Pie”) as Marissa finds out that Dre is short on rent. A recurring theme that will come full-circle in the final episode in that Dre still “miraculously” finds a way to afford Ni’Jah concert tickets even when she can’t afford rent (this being the “magic” of a credit card). Notably, all episodes (except for number six) start out with, “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional.” A tongue-in-cheek “disclaimer” from Glover and Nabers that becomes ultra-meta in episode six. The first episode, “Stung,” begins in April 2016, better known to the Beyhive as: the month that Beyoncé released Lemonade. Still her most acclaimed album to date. Viewers are also introduced to the loud buzzing sound they’ll become accustomed to hearing whenever some crazy behavior is about to ensue. This includes Dre applying for a Discover card and using it to buy $1,800 concert tickets for Ni’Jah, the obvious fictionalized version of Beyoncé described in a bio as: “Texas native Ni’Jah is no stranger to fame. After being discovered on talent competition Star Seek, she led 90s icon R&B group XLLENT. Her solo career began with smash hit ‘Love on a Cloud,’ which helped her debut solo album, Loveli Days, go double platinum.” Yes, it’s a familiar mirror of Bey’s own come-up story.

    We’re given further insight into how some forms of obsession are more acceptable than others in that having multiple article clippings and photos up on one’s wall is deemed “enthusiasm.” This barrage of mass media being what we see in Dre’s room. And yet, enthusiasm gives way to psychopathy when a person feels the need to bludgeon anyone who says something disparaging about Dre’s idol. The only other person she defends so violently is Marissa, who kills herself at the end of the first episode.

    In episode two, “Honey,” Dre finds herself further avenging (after already killing Khalid) Marissa’s death in Fayetteville, Tennessee. By this time, it’s August of 2017, and she’s working at a strip club called The Lure. It’s there that fellow stripper “Halsey” (real name: Hailey) is given life by Paris Jackson, playing up the “I’m Black” dialogue with perfect irony-drenched poise. But Dre—presently going by “Carmen”—has no place for new friends in her life, determined to kill Reggie a.k.a. Tonk (Atkins Estimond), the person who commented of Marissa’s death, “That nigga got what she deserved. Stupid AF.” This in response to someone else saying, “I heard she killed herself to Festival.” A Ni’Jah single from Evolution (a title not unlike Renaissance).

    When Dre confronts Reggie about another comment in which he says Ni’Jah could die and he wouldn’t miss one song of hers, he proves to be a salient example of the online troll who would never stand by his statements in real life out of shame (“I don’t remember sayin’ all that”—as though posting in a fugue state of arbitrary contempt that needs to be funneled into the vessel of a pop star. Dre is happy to remind, “But you did”). In what will prove to be one of many in a series of dumb luck instances that allows her to keep killing without being detected (what will later be called “fallin’ through the cracks”), she is aided in the murder of Tonk by her fellow strippers, who assume he’s trying to sexually assault her. In thanks, Dre leaves them in the lurch by driving away from the house and disappearing into her next new identity.

    Episode three, “Taste,” shows us a throwback clip of Marissa talking up Ni’Jah (“We gotta protect her at all costs”) before the title card prompts us with the place and time, “Seattle, Washington, December 2017.” Dre has broken into someone’s house and continues her running script of asking, “Who’s your favorite artist?” When the person in question answers “Lil Gibble,” Dre demands, “How many Grammys does Lil Gibble have?” “I don’t know.” “None. Ni’Jah has twenty-six.” This a clear allusion to Bey’s thirty-two. Indeed, Glover and Nabers are meticulous about their references, from Solange attacking Jay-Z in an elevator to Beyoncé getting bitten at a party where Sanaa Lathan was rumored to be the culprit (which will soon be heavily parodied in the episode).

    The next scene in “Taste” after Dre’s Grammy question finds her channeling Patrick Bateman as she mops up the blood to a Ni’Jah tune called “Agatha” that goes, “Avant-garde coochy/You been used to the civilians/Eat the peach right/We ain’t shoppin’ at Pavilions.” In the car she’s about to steal from her dead victim, Dre opens a phantom text from Marissa (she’s been keeping the ghost alive by texting herself from Marissa’s phone) that asks the size of Alice Dudley’s (Ashley Dougherty) casket for commenting of the Bey and Jay (recreated as Ni’Jah and Caché) elevator scene, “I thought you were a feminist and then you’re with this man.” But her plans to kill Alice at her gym (which she’s allowed access to via more dumb luck) are foiled by the sight of someone wearing a Caché tour jacket and a prominently displayed backstage pass attached to his person. This vision has her chasing a new butterfly altogether. Using him and preying on his vulnerabilities (food) to get what she wants—access to Caché’s tour after-party—eventually, viewers find that the episode is called “Taste” because Dre does end up tasting of the “forbidden fruit” that is Ni’Jah by literally biting her at said party.

    This fittingly leads into an episode called “Running Scared,” wherein we find Dre, appropriately, even more on the run than usual after Bitegate. Ironically, after news of the bite leaks, The Swarm finds her to be the greatest threat to Ni’Jah of all …instead of her, let’s say, “fiercest” defender. The time and location has jumped to April 2018 in Manchester, Tennessee. Where Bonnaroo famously takes place (this being a nod to Bey’s Coachella performance in 2018, branded “Beychella,” and rescheduled from her plans to headline in 2017). It’s also where Billie Eilish (who has a slightly less intense fanbase) makes her grand entrance as motherly Eva, a cult leader who takes “Kayla” under her wing, insisting she’s drawn to women with names similar-sounding to her own: “Kayla, Clarissa—” “Marissa?” Dre chimes in hopefully. Inside the too-good-to-be-true compound, the “tribe” (that’s actually the word Eva uses) offers to get her an artist pass into Bonnaroo, prompting Dre to open up about how she’s “friends” with Ni’Jah, but that the last time they saw each other, they had a “misunderstanding.” Eva and the others play along with whatever Dre wants to believe, with Eva knowing that she’ll soon get her under her spell through the wonders of hypnosis, leading Dre to confess not only her real name, but some of the murderous things she’s done.

    Despite the theoretical bond that such honesty might create between her and Eva, who kisses Dre to cinch the deal, it’s no match for Dre’s loyalty to Ni’Jah, for whom she will always literally kill for. Especially when she finds out the cult bitches were lying and they’ve had her head so inside out that she didn’t realize it was already Saturday. Ni’Jah’s headlining day. And lo and behold, no “artist pass” to allow her entry into the festival. After dealing with the cult (read: killing most of them) she gets in her stolen car and speeds to the venue. “Tragically,” it’s too late. The show is already over, forcing Dre to watch the streaming version of it while crying.

    It’s perhaps long before this point in the limited series that some might be wondering, “Why am I watching this if I feel absolutely no empathy for this character? That, in fact, they make me as murderous toward them as they are toward anyone who dislikes Ni’Jah?” Because, even with all the bids to render Dre as “winsome” with her sad background, societal ostracism, etc., one tends to feel as much bristling by being around her as anyone else in the series. And so, the answer to the aforementioned question lies in the reality that, despite being hard to watch, it’s nonetheless a study in the horror show that is celebrity worship syndrome. In Dre’s scenario, it’s the worst strain of it: borderline-pathological. A willingness to commit crimes “for” said celebrity. And, like most who are down the cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs rabbit hole, Dre can never see just how much of a bottom-feeding parasite she’s become in the process. For not only does she kill at the drop of a comment that rubs her the wrong way, she also attaches to any source that shows her enough of the right kind of affection.

    Affection she certainly never got in her foster home (apart from Marissa). We’re taken back to the trauma of this household in episode five, “Girl, Bye.” A teleplay, it seems worth noting, that was co-written by none other than Malia Obama (one will do their best to refrain from coughing the words “nepo baby”). Considering the Obamas’ well-documented love for Bey and Jay, it lends another spine-chilling uncanniness to the overall product and its meta nature. “Girl, Bye” jumps us forward in the timeline to May 2018 in Houston, Texas. At the mall trying to get Marissa’s phone turned back on, Dre clocks a poster for the Running Scared II poster (meant to allude to the On the Run II Tour that Jay-Z and Beyoncé embarked upon the same year). She’s spotted by Marissa’s former boss while salivating over the ad and obliged to have lunch with her in the food court, making up a story about how she met Ni’Jah and they’ve become really close.

    Dre is, obviously, more out of options than ever and feeling pushed to the edge because Marissa’s father, Harris (Leon a.k.a. the saint in the “Like A Prayer” video), is the one who disconnected Marissa’s phone. Which serves as one of Dre’s primary delusion lifelines. Thus, she goes back to the Jacksons’ house with the intention of threatening her former parents with a gun to get them to turn the phone on again. All she’s met with, however, is venomous rage that perhaps even transcends her own as Harris chases her out with a shotgun after pronouncing, “This is Texas. I’ll shoot your ass and have a beer over your dead body.”

    To layer on more meta cachet, Chloe x Halle’s “All I Ever Wanted” plays as Dre runs from Harris and finds herself in Marissa’s old room. Cast out of the house once again, Dre suffers anew from the pain of being unwanted. With only The Swarm to turn to online for something resembling “kinship.” The episode is humorously ended with Erykah Badu’s “Caint Use My Phone” (a riff on “Tyrone”) playing during the credits.

    Episode six, “Fallin’ Through the Cracks,” subsequently turns expectations upside down as it plays out like a true crime documentary that flashes ostensibly way forward into the future. One wherein Loretta Greene (Heather Simms), the Black female detective who linked all the murders Dre committed together, rehashes how she unearthed the killer behind all these cold cases through one glaring motive: Ni’Jah. Loretta notes of how no one put the pieces together for so long about Dre, “I’ve seen this before.” The director asks, “Seen what?” “Black women, fallin’ through the cracks.” To warp the meaning behind the previous disclaimer at the beginning of every episode, none of the same actors appear to play who are now the “real” people in the story, being played by “themselves.” Nabers and Glover prompt things to get meta once again at the end of the episode, when Glover is interviewed about his next project, based on Dre’s story, commenting “I’m directing this show that I’m working on right now with like, uh, Chloe and Damson and Dom Fishback. It’s in the works, it’s going well.”

    While “Fallin’ Through the Cracks” might have shown us “Tony’s” true fate (getting arrested for jumping onstage at a Ni’Jah concert), the final episode, given the fit-for-a-delusional-person title of “God Only Makes Happy Endings,” takes viewers to Glover’s beloved Atlanta in June of 2018. Here we’re given a sense of how Dre-as-Tony’s life briefly took a turn for the better before they finally surrendered to their Ni’Jah “protecting” methods again. For Tony meets Rashida Thompson (Kiersey Clemons), a college student who is surprisingly drawn to Dre. And has no idea how eerie it is for her to ask, after inviting Dre back to her house, “How are you so chill? You should be like a med student or a serial killer.” Alas, we’ll never know if Dre was a Pisces or a Virgo (these being the signs most closely aligned with serial killing). Probably the latter…you know, with its Beyoncé connection and all.

    In an interview with Elle before Lemonade’s release, Beyoncé stated, “I hope I can create art that helps people heal [for Dre, that “healing” comes in the form of mass murder]. Art that makes people feel proud of their struggle. Everyone experiences pain, but sometimes you need to be uncomfortable to transform.” Dre was uncomfortable and she did transform…into Tony (this name being an homage to Tony Soprano, as both he and Don Draper were inspirations in the creation of this character). But transformation doesn’t always necessarily mean “improvement” or “leveling up.” The very thing that celebrities want to believe they’re encouraging with their work. This done while condemning and being freaked out by the potential for Dre’s mutant strain of “fandom.” Yet celebrities simultaneously feed off such shades of ardor via their ever-burgeoning bank accounts. Begging the question of who the real “antagonist” is in this dynamic. Like the fat cat industrialist or the tabloid journalist claiming they wouldn’t be in business if there wasn’t a public demand, we sometimes have to wonder if that’s really true. If the existence actually creates the demand, not the other way around.

    On 2019’s “Black Parade,” Beyoncé brags, “Hear ‘em swarmin’ right? Bees is known to bite,” as though encouraging the type of drone army behavior fandoms have become known for. Each one sharing its own unique celebrity worship syndrome. And, should Glover and Nabers decide to approach another fandom in a series format, they might consider one that’s far likelier to be even more murderous than the Beyhive: the Barbz.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Beyoncé emerges as Grammys queen; Styles wins album honor

    Beyoncé emerges as Grammys queen; Styles wins album honor

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Beyoncé sits alone atop the Grammy throne as the ceremony’s most decorated artist in history, but at the end of Sunday’s show it was Harry Styles who walked away with the album of the year honor.

    The Grammys spread its top awards among other artists, leaving Beyoncé off stage at the end of the night. But the superstar was a constant presence throughout the night, even when she wasn’t in the room, especially once she won her 32nd award and surpassed late conductor Georg Solti in all-time wins.

    “I’m trying not to be too emotional,” the superstar said after her historic win as her husband Jay-Z stood and applauded her. The singer thanked her late uncle, her parents, Jay-Z and her children for supporting her. “I’m just trying to receive this night. I want to thank God for protecting me. Thank you, God.”

    The Grammys stage at the end of the night has eluded Beyoncé since 2010, when she won song of the year for “Single Ladies.” She added four trophies to her collection for her album “Renaissance.”

    Styles was emotional accepting his album of the year award, saying he was inspired by everyone in the category. “A lot of different times of my life, I’ve listened to everyone in these categories. It’s so important to remember that there is no such thing as best.”

    The British singer-actor took home three awards Sunday. “It feels like validation that you’re on the right path,” said the singer backstage. “When we get in the studio and begin the record, we just make the music we want to make. It feels really nice to feel like ‘Oh, that’s the right thing to do.’”

    Beyoncé missed being in the room when she tied Solti’s record early in the telecast. Host Trevor Noah said she was on her way to the ceremony but blamed Los Angeles traffic for not being in person to accept it.

    Once Beyoncé — the night’s leading nominee — finally arrived, Noah presented her with the best R&B song award at her table.

    Beyoncé won for best R&B song for “Cuff It,” dance-electric music recording for “Break My Soul,” traditional R&B performance for “Plastic Off the Sofa” and dance-electric album for “Renaissance,” which was nominated for album of the year.

    Lizzo won record of the year for “About Damn Time,” delivering a rousing speech that brought many in the audience, including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Adele, to their feet.

    “Me and Adele were having a good time, rooting for our friends. This is an amazing night. This is so unexpected,” Lizzo said, dedicating her award to Prince.

    “I wanted to make the world a better place, so I had to be that change to make the world a better place. Now, I look around and see these songs are about loving your body and feeling comfortable in your skin and feeling good.”

    Jazz singer Samara Joy won best new artist, shrugging off challenges by such acts as Wet Leg, Anitta and Maneskin. The New Yorker was virtually in tears when she collected the award and noted that her little brother was her date. “I’m so, so grateful. Thank you.” She has released two albums as a lead artist and also won the Grammy for best jazz vocal album earlier in the night.

    Veteran singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt shrugged off big-name rivals like Adele, Swift and Beyoncé to win the song of the year award. “I’m so surprised. I don’t know what to say,” a visibly stunned Raitt said, adding that the song “Just Like That” explores organ donation. It capped a night when Raitt won two other Grammys — for best Americana performance and best American roots song.

    A who’s who of hip-hop royalty took the stage for an epic, rousing 15 minute tribute to the genre’s 50th anniversary. The performance included Grandmaster Flash doing part of his seminal hit “The Message,” Run DMC, Chuck D and Flavor Flav along with Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes and Nelly all taking the stage.

    It ended with everyone on the stage and LL Cool J shouting “multi-generational! Fifty years!”

    The performance was a crowd-pleasing moment for a ceremony that has long had a shaky history of not recognizing rap.

    Bad Bunny opened the show with a festive, high-energy performance that brought many of the audience including Swift who rose to her feet and danced near her table at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena.

    Sam Smith and Kim Petras won best pop duo-group performance for their song “Unholy.” Petras said Smith wanted Petras to make the acceptance speech because “I’m the first transgender woman to win this award.”

    “I want to thank all the incredible transgender legends before me who kicked these doors open for me so I could be here tonight,” said Petras, who made a reference to friend and Grammy-nominated musician Sophie, who died after an accidental fall in Athens, Greece in 2021. “You told me this would happen. I always believed in me. Thank you so much for your inspiration, Sophie. I adore you, and your inspiration will forever be in my music.”

    Petras thanked Madonna for being a tremendous supporter of LGBTQ rights.

    “I don’t think I could be here without Madonna,” Petras said. “My mother, I grew up next to a highway in nowhere Germany. And my mother believed me that I was a girl. I wouldn’t be here without her and her support.”

    During the in memoriam segment, the Grammys recognized the lives of Loretta Lynn, Migos rapper Takeoff and Christine McVie with several star-studded performers paying them homage. The touching performances included Kacey Musgraves singing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in tribute to Lynn; Quavo and the Maverick City Music hit the stage to honor his nephew Takeoff with the song “Without You;” and Sheryl Crow, Mick Fleetwood and Bonnie Raitt performed “Songbird” to remember McVie.

    Kendrick Lamar won sixth career trophy for best rap performance for “The Heart Part 5” and also won best rap album for his studio offering, “Mr. Morales & The Big Steppers.”

    “You know, as entertainers, we say things to provoke thoughts and feelings and emotions,” he said. “So making this record is one of my toughest. … I would like to thank the culture for allowing me to evolve in order to make this. I finally found imperfection with this album.”

    Viola Davis emerged from Sunday’s show an EGOT — a term for those who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — after her win for best audio book, narration and storytelling recording. The actor gave an emotional speech and emphatically said “I just EGOT” after she marched on stage to collect her award.

    “Oh, my God,” she said. “I wrote this book to honor the 6-year-old Viola, to honor her, her life, her joy, her trauma, everything,” Davis said. “It has just been such a journey.”

    The show made its return to Los Angeles after the pandemic first delayed, then forced the Grammys to move to Las Vegas last year. Noah hosted the ceremony as well, which saw Jon Batiste take home album of the year.

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    AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy contributed to this report.

    ___

    For more coverage of this year’s Grammy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.

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  • Grammys Moments: A rap tribute for the ages, Beyoncé triumph

    Grammys Moments: A rap tribute for the ages, Beyoncé triumph

    As he accepted an innovator’s award named for him, Dr. Dre mused about what he had in common with many of the people he saw from the Grammy Awards stage.

    “Where would a lot of people in here be without hip-hop?” the r enowned rapper, producer and entrepreneur said.

    The 2023 Grammy Awards may ultimately be remembered as the year the music industry’s top event tried to embrace rap, whose leaders have regarded the institution with suspicion for almost as long as the 50 years of history that were celebrated on Sunday.

    It was only four years ago that song of the year winner Childish Gambino boycotted the show over perceived disrespect for rap. Kanye West and Eminem were among past stars with groundbreaking work overlooked for more middling fare and, for years, rappers complained their work was banished from TV.

    The 15-minute Questlove-curated travel through time was a joy that brought dozens of stars to the stage, including Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Ice T, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Method Man, Salt-N-Pepa … the list goes on, and still there were those you wished were there.

    Nearly as important was the eight-minute version of DJ Khaled’s “God Did” that closed the show — Khaled took public note of the length — that featured a spellbinding appearance by Jay-Z.

    Quavo’s tribute to Takeoff of Migos was arguably the highlight of a packed and memorable “in memoriam” segment to artists who died over the past year.

    Kendrick Lamar gave an incisive acceptance speech after “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” won a Grammy for best rap album, his third trophy in this category.

    It was a night it seemed the Grammys finally accepted rap as music’s dominant form. Will rappers finally accept the Grammys? That remains to be seen.

    QUEEN BEY’S HAUL

    Beyoncé took a place in history on Sunday when her four Grammys gave her a career total of 32, better than anyone else.

    And yet…

    The Grammys have a clear pecking order, with four of its awards the most prestigious: song, record and album of the year, and best new artist. Beyoncé has won only one of those awards, when “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” was named top song in 2010.

    She’s been nominated eight times for record of the year, and never won. Her most memorable Grammy moments came when two peers stood onstage with their own trophies and saluted her: when A dele said Beyonce’s “Lemonade” should have won instead of her in 2017, and Sunday when Lizzo spoke of skipping school in fifth grade to see Beyoncé perform.

    Thirty-two trophies. It’s still hard to shake an empty feeling.

    TRIVIA QUESTION

    Whose record did Beyoncé beat? That would be classical conductor Georg Solti.

    RAITT’S TRIUMPH

    It may take Bonnie Raitt a few days to lose that look of shock. The 73-year-old guitarist won best song for “Just Like That,” a piece inspired by a story of a heart transplant, where she tried to emulate the writing style of the late John Prine. It was especially gratifying because Raitt is more of an interpreter. “I don’t write a lot of songs, but I’m proud that you appreciate this one,” she said. It was 33 years after “Nick of Time” was named album of the year.

    NOAH’S NIGHT

    Show host Trevor Noah skillfully played the role of a fan, instead of serving snark from the stage, moving through the audience “like a floating Chinese balloon,” he said. And why not? With Adele, Lizzo, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and the like around, there was plenty of star power. Noah was neither insulting nor obsequious. And one delightful device — having fans talk about their favorite albums — paid off when a memorable grandma got to announce Styles’ album of the year win.

    HARRY’S STYLE

    OK, while he was performing “As it Was” Styles was dressed a little like one of those holiday tinsel decorations you thought you’d put away. The smooth pop composition clearly served him well. Later, he marveled at the quality of the competition and how hard it is to pick a winner. “You never know with this stuff,” he said backstage. “I don’t think you can look at any of the nominees and not feel as if they’re deserving. I’m really grateful they chose us.”

    PETRAS’ MOMENT

    In accepting a Grammy for her duet on Sam Smith’s “Unholy,” Kim Petras proudly took note of her status as a transgender woman and paid tribute to heroes like the late transgender singer Sophie and Madonna. The latter returned the favor by introducing a performance of the song. Petras and Lizzo, who won record of the year for “About Damn Time,” made strong, joyful statements about accepting differences. “I felt on the outside looking in and I stayed true to myself because I wanted to make the world a better place,” Lizzo said.

    INTRODUCING…

    One element that worked less well was an effort to have family or friends introduce performances. You lose the idea of “real people” when Madonna is one of the choices. The best was the first — Catherine Shepherd, the proud wife, and the two children of Brandi Carlile (the kids also debuted in a hotel ad). “I’m a very, very lucky queer,” Carlile said backstage.

    WHY AM I HERE?

    The Rock as one of the Grammy presenters? Jill Biden? James Corden? At least the outgoing talk show host noted the incongruity of him giving an award for dance and electronic music. There’s enough musical firepower in the room that would surely relish the opportunity to present an award. And while we’re asking why someone was there, Ben Affleck turned himself into an unwanted internet star when the camera panned to him in the audience and it seemed like he’d rather be anywhere else. Don’t actors know how to fake looking like they’re having a good time?

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    Associated Press writers Beth Harris and Jonathan Landrum Jr. in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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    For more coverage of this year’s Grammy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards

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  • The Grammys ended in controversy, again. Here’s what to know

    The Grammys ended in controversy, again. Here’s what to know

    NEW YORK (AP) — A night in music brimming with shocking upsets, historic wins, tributes for artists like the late rapper Takeoff and hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, the 65th Grammys were back in full swing Sunday. Once again, Beyoncé was in the running for the top honor.

    More Grammy Awards coverage

    Once again, the show ended with someone else winning album of the year.

    This year was widely seen as a chance for the Grammys to honor the superstar with a marquee award, especially on a night where she could have ( and did ) become its most decorated artist.

    Instead, Harry Styles won, and a line from his acceptance speech stung those who thought Beyoncé should have won.

    Here’s what happened, how it’s been perceived and who picks the Grammys’ top honors.

    WHAT’S CONTROVERSIAL ABOUT STYLES’ WIN?

    Styles won for his third album, “Harry’s House,” and even he seemed surprised when his name was called.

    The British pop star was competing against other giants in the industry: acts like ABBA, Adele, Bad Bunny, Brandi Carlile, Coldplay, Lizzo, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé.

    While accepting the award, he said, “This is really, really kind. I’m so, so grateful… I’m just so — This doesn’t happen to people like me very often. And this is so, so nice. Thank you very, very much.”

    The line, “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often,” drew criticism in the hours after his win.

    Styles was born and raised in Northern England and rose to fame in 2010 when he auditioned for the Simon Cowell-led talent competition show “The X Factor.” He placed third with the boyband One Direction. His solo career has earned him several Grammys and Billboard-charting albums and singles.

    Styles hasn’t said what he meant by his words. Some have interpreted it as him trying to express how far he’d come from his youth. Others, however, see the remark as an example of white privilege.

    WHY ARE PEOPLE MAD AT STYLES’ WORDS?

    Many of Beyoncé’s fans are fiercely protective of the singer. They’re called the Beyhive, after all.

    Despite Beyoncé’s 32 Grammy wins – the most of any artist in history – many are troubled by the fact she has yet to win album of year and that she’s lost to white musicians every time she has been nominated.

    Washington Post pop music critic Chris Richards, in a story headlined “Beyoncé just made Grammy history. Why does it feel like she still lost?” wrote that her historic achievement feels hollow.

    “Why does that feel like not enough,” Richards asked. “Because for the past 20 years and counting, the Recording Academy has routinely failed to recognize Black artists at their creative peaks — and to her credit, Beyoncé keeps updating that peak with each new album.”

    Similar criticism was raised in other stories and by online commenters, some of whom noted a Black woman hadn’t won album of the year since Lauryn Hill in the late ’90s.

    Ashley Smalls, a Black feminism and pop culture doctoral student at Penn State University criticized Styles’ speech in a tweet: ”‘this doesn’t happen to people like me very often’ when a Black woman hasn’t won that award since 1999 is crazy lol.”

    WHAT IS BEYONCÉ’S GRAMMYS HISTORY?

    The artist is tied with her husband, Jay-Z, for most nominations all-time with 88 but she has only won 32 times. Most significantly, Beyoncé has lost album of the year four times to Taylor Swift, Beck, Adele and now Styles.

    Beyoncé has been nominated in each of the most prestigious categories across her decadeslong career but she has won in these categories just once for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).”

    A Black woman has not won album of the year since Lauryn Hill received the accolade for her breakout album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1999. The last Black person to win the award was Jon Batiste, last year for his album “We Are.”

    WHO DECIDES ALBUM OF THE YEAR?

    According to Billboard, the Recording Academy boasts more than 12,000 voting members. The entire membership is allowed to vote in the big four categories — best new artist, record, song and album of the year. Members are also responsible for nominating in their area of expertise, as well as voting on the winners this categories.

    Numerous artists have criticized how the Grammys nominate artists. The Recording Academy is undergoing a campaign to diversify its membership and has a goal of having 2,500 female members by 2025.

    WHAT’S NEXT FOR BEYONCÉ AND STYLES?

    Both are hitting the road for international tours.

    Styles’ next show is in Thailand next week and he’ll play shows in Asia and Europe into the summer.

    Beyoncé will be starting her “Renaissance” tour in May in Sweden and will play dates in Europe and the United States.

    ___

    For more on this year’s Grammy Awards, visit: www.apnews.com/GrammyAwards

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  • When Beyoncé Said, “Who Run the World? Girls,” This Isn’t What She Had In Mind… But It Was More of a “Symbolic” Statement Anyway

    When Beyoncé Said, “Who Run the World? Girls,” This Isn’t What She Had In Mind… But It Was More of a “Symbolic” Statement Anyway

    While a “pretty thought” to express, the assumption made by most (realists) when Beyoncé said, “Who run the world? Girls” back in 2011 was that it was a more “metaphorical” sentiment. For it certainly didn’t apply in practice to the political arena: the sole source of true power on Planet Earth (apart from “billionaire businessman”). Not then, and not even now. Yes, there have been “strides,” but, at present, only about seven percent of women comprise leadership positions in high-ranking government roles. As of 2022, only thirteen countries were represented by women as a Head of State. Sadly, this will no longer include Jacinda Ardern, the beloved prime minister of New Zealand who has decided to step down from her role in February of 2023 and let someone else take on all the stress that comes with it. Ardern was an especially remarkable “anomaly” in the political arena because she was the youngest woman to become a head of state, and then did that one better by becoming the second female head of state to give birth while in office. Proving that, yes, women really can do it all. Often because they’re not given much of a choice.

    Ardern’s decision to leave her post, however, proves that when a woman is given the opportunity not to have to juggle it all, she should take it. And Ardern was very candid in openly declaring, “I know what this job takes and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple. We need a fresh set of shoulders for that challenge.” This is something that, clearly, most men would fail to admit. Complete with “statesmen” like Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump and Joe Biden taking on the presidency at an age that calls into question a particular mental fitness required for such a rigorous job. Or what should be a rigorous job if one is actually doing it. Nonetheless, these men are given the green light to take on positions they have no business “performing” (and it is all ultimately just a performance for them).

    But Beyoncé clearly didn’t want to think about that when she touted repeatedly, “Who run the world? Girls.” In addition to, “My persuasion [read: vagina]/Can build a nation/Endless power/With our love we can devour.” But it’s obviously the hate-driven subjugation spurred by men that has continued to succeed in this life. With messages of hate, if we’re being honest with ourselves, truly winning out over “radical love.”

    What’s more, the type of women that do seek power often end up being walking examples—see: Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen, Marjorie Taylor Greene—of internalized misogyny within the very gender that should seek to obliterate it at all costs. The only shining beacon of that obliteration has been Iceland (whose current prime minister is Katrín Jakobsdóttir). This not only being the first country to have a female president with the election of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1980, but also the first openly gay (female or otherwise) president in the form of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who took office in 2009. And it was Finnbogadóttir who said that her election would not have been possible without Kvennafrídagurinn, or the Women’s Day Off strike that took place on Friday, October 24, 1975. On this day, ninety percent of Iceland’s female population participated in the strike, which entailed not going to their jobs or doing housework/child care of any kind.

    The intent, of course, was to show men “the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society.” That indispensability wasn’t just in Iceland, but worldwide. And yet, Iceland remains among the few countries with something vaguely resembling gender parity. So sure, if Beyoncé was thinking about Iceland when she sang “Run the World (Girls),” the lyrics might apply. For even Finland, for all its Scandinavian progressiveness in having a youthful female prime minister like Sanna Marin, couldn’t avoid the “scandal” that arose when videos of Marin drinking and partying at a private residence with her friends leaked to the public. The question of whether or not a man in power would be subject to even half as much scrutiny was immediately raised by women, including those who showed support for Marin’s right to party by posting videos of themselves drinking, dancing and generally having a good time in the wake of her “moral fitness” being put under a microscope. Indeed, a woman having a good time is still a cardinal sin in most men’s eyes—especially when she’s in a position of authority. Authority that is constantly undermined by male judgment, hypocritical accusations and a general petulant outcrying. All designed to somehow “prove” that women are “inept” and “too emotional” to shoulder the responsibility of running a nation. Cue the abrupt record scratch sound effect over the tune of this song potentially playing over an election win for Hillary Clinton.

    Even Beyoncé’s lyrics don’t provide much in the way of a “vote of confidence” for female capability as she says things like, “This goes out to all my girls/That’s in the club rocking the latest.” As though the highest achievement a woman can reveal to accent her “power” is being well-dressed in the most expensive garb. Which is ultimately just a reiteration of the stereotype of women’s frivolity (hear also: “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”) more than a “boosting” commentary on a woman’s ability to pay for her own shit. To that point, Beyoncé also declares, “I work my nine to five [no she doesn’t], better cut my check.” This being yet another prime instance of Beyoncé pretending to act like she’s ever been a part of the conventional working world (with the “nine to five” trope also cropping up in “Haunted” via the lyrics, “Workin’ nine to five/Just to stay alive/How come?”). The most recent sonic illustration of that being “Break My Soul,” during which she urges the masses to quit their job by insisting, in this alternate universe where she’s an office worker, “I just quit my job I’m gonna find new drive/Damn, they work me so damn hard/Work by nine, then off past five [once again, Bey clearly hasn’t updated herself on what more modern working hours are]/And they work my nerves/That’s why I cannot sleep at night.” Really? It has nothing to do with the pain of a lie like, “Who run the world? Girls”?

    For what Beyoncé is really alluding to in that song is the Lysistrata-based fact that women “run the world” with their sexual power (e.g., “You’ll do anything for me”—yeah, because pussy runs dick, hence the term, “Pussy Power”). As Samantha Jones once said of giving head (as opposed to head of state), “The sense of power is such a turn-on—maybe you’re on your knees, but you got him by the balls.” This being one of those things women have to tell themselves in order to keep going. That no matter how demeaned they are, they still have their ultimate power: the threat of withholding sex (once more: Lysistrata). And even that isn’t much of a source of power when it’s so often ripped from them through sexual assault.

    To boot, what will become of that power in a world ever-changing with regard to gender fluidity and sexuality? It seems that’s the real reason “conventional” women like Giorgia Meloni end up in high government positions: to somehow ensure that they can keep what little power they have with the cisgender straight white males who actually run the world by championing discriminatory practices that exclude trans and LGTQIA+ rights. It’s a bleak reality, to be sure—but it is reality. And according the UN’s prognostications for gender parity in government at the current rate, it will remain a reality for another “130 years.” At which time, most of the population will probably be dead because of male decisions made (or rather, not made) about how to conserve what’s left of the environment.

    To add insult to the injury of it all, Beyoncé chose to kick off 2023 by performing in the United Arab Emirates—even if somewhere as “progressive” as Dubai. Where laws against women (including a husband’s “right” beat his wife) are notoriously not in favor of the Bey-backed sentiment regarding women running the world (but “principles” tend to go effortlessly out the window when one is paid twenty-four million dollars to lose them). Not to mention the Emirates being very anti-LGBTQIA+ a.k.a. the community that Bey freely pillaged from for her Renaissance album.

    In short, it’s pretty hard evidence that she’s not all that committed to making a point about women running the world in any way other than “symbolically.” And the same goes for women like Meloni, who actively seek to reinforce the patriarchal system we’re trapped in by working “within it” instead of against it.

    Genna Rivieccio

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