Beyoncé: A Woman Celebrating All Black Women in Music

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, and don’t forget the accent on the ‘E’.

When I need a dose of confidence walking into a meeting or a first date; I imagine that Crazy in Love is playing in my head, and I strut to it; it works every time.

Right before I was ten, I lived with an uncle who was a budding rapper. When he’s away, I would sneak into his closet and play some of his CDs. one of these compilation CDs introduced me to Beyoncé. I heard Destiny’s Child Bills Bills Bills, and I was hooked. What did I know about paying bills at that age?

In no time, I was a Destiny’s Child fan, but my attention was focused on Beyoncé. Eighteen years later, she is still one of the biggest influences of my life.

There have been incredible Black people in music from the beginning of time, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Patti Labelle, Anita Baker, the list goes on and on, Black talent after Black talent. Black women’s contribution to global music is unquestionable, and they will always be in the hall of fame of our hearts.

Something about music is that a lot of music involves sampling, tributes, knowing your roots and appreciating those who came before you, which is one of the many things that makes Beyoncé stand out. The Black community has a beautiful and extensive list of iconic people who have made their mark on the music industry and Beyoncé has, at one point, celebrated these pioneers.

On stage at the Grammy Awards in 2004, she performed alongside legendary Prince, and for her Superbowl 50 performance, she donned a costume similar to one of pop-icon Michael Jackson’s signature pieces.

In 2009, when America elected its first Black president, Beyoncé performed a cover of Etta James’s At Last as Barack and Michelle Obama danced together at their inauguration.

At Tina Turner’s Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2005, Beyoncé gave a stunning performance of Tina Turner’s Proud Mary.

In 2015 Beyoncé performed a powerful 9-minute tribute to Stevie Wonder. It was such an incredible performance that Stevie Wonder is seen cheering for Beyoncé, covering his own music.

In 2018 she released Before I Let Go, creating a new song using elements of the original 1981 Black anthem by Frankie Beverly & Maze. The song is a staple at Black social and family gatherings, and her version is also just as catchy and beautiful.

She has worked with just about every influential Black artist in the industry. Destiny’s Child was influenced by TLC; she dressed up as Lil Kim for Halloween, made music with Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliot, sampled Lauryn Hill; All our favorite Black artists, Beyoncé loves them too!

Beyoncé is the most influential singer-artist-performer-businesswoman of our time. She is an icon to the Black community, and her identity extends beyond just her vocal prowess.

Beyoncé changed the game when her digital album dropped on December 13, 2013. At that time, the music industry was very heavy on creating promos for physical albums, but she shook things up.

Beyoncé took her business and management reins into her own hands and founded Parkwood Entertainment in 2008. Together with her Parkwood team in utmost secrecy, she shot her self-titled visual album and released it on iTunes with no promotion. The impact was so phenomenal that the music platform crashed. Popularly called the ‘surprise album’, very few people can successfully release an album out of the blue the way Beyoncé does. Her unconventional marketing techniques have always worked in her favor, positioning her as a risk-taker and intelligent businesswoman.

Released as her fifth solo album, Beyoncé, had 14 audio tracks and 17 videos. On this album, she samples author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s world-renown speech; on the track Flawless, we hear Chimamanda’s speech, “We raise girls to see each other as competitors. Not for jobs or for accomplishments (which I think can be a good thing) but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”. On this album, Beyoncé declares herself as a feminist, which came as no surprise. She has continuously used her music as an avenue to make a political statement in support of women and especially the Black community.

On April 23, 2016, she did it again when she released her second visual album and 6th solo album, Lemonade which featured poetry by Somali poet Warsan Shire. The album premiered as a 65-minute film on HBO, featuring 12 songs and bagged 4 Primetime Emmy award nominations.

Beyoncé went down in the history books as the first Black woman to headline Coachella on April 14, 2018, it was a moment in Black history that will always be remembered. Beyoncé never lets anyone forget that first of all, she is a Black woman, which was evident in her Coachella performance popularly referred to as Beychella. Her 2-hour set had about 150 all-Black band of singers, dancers and musicians showing the world the beauty of the Black homecoming culture. The show celebrated HBCU traditions such as the step team, the drumline, the baton twirler, the majorettes and even the fraternities and Greek crests.

Beychella which boasted of a beautiful Black orchestra, began with Beyoncé belting out the notes to Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, popularly known as the Black national anthem, written and produced by brothers James and John Johnson in 1899. Her groundbreaking performance also included samples from music greats like Nina Simone, The Jacksons and Fela Anikulapo Kuti. After the event, Beyoncé announced $100,000 in scholarships for 4 HBCUs, Bethune-Cookman University, Tuskegee University, Wilberforce University, and Xavier University.

Beyoncé danced energetically and beautifully throughout her Beychella performance, prancing from one end of the stage to another in heels and not missing a single key. The entire show was black magic beauty at its finest. We witness her breath control and stamina, and the way she flips and twirls her head during her performances is truly one of the wonders of the world. Beyoncé’s stage presence leaves you in awe; she isn’t just a singer; she is an experience.

Beyoncé’s impact on the music industry is as clear as day. After the release of her surprise album Beyoncé and the 1-hour film of sheer brilliance that was Lemonade, other artists followed in her stead and begun dropping surprise albums and releasing mini-films for their music. She is a creative genius and the industry standard.

Identified as a mezzo-soprano, along with the likes of the incredible Tina Turner, Beyoncé cannot be put into a box vocally; she experiments with different music genres and excels at everyone. She is a rapper, opera singer, rockstar, a country music singer, name it, she can sing it. Her impressive vocal range has birthed songs like Halo, Love on Top, I Care, All Night, Bigger and Spirit, hitting notes that we can only dream of.

Twenty-four GRAMMY awards put Beyoncé as the most awarded female artist in GRAMMY history. Her bodies of work aren’t just winning Grammy awards but also NAACP Image Awards and recognition by the Peabody Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes and several others.

I remember watching Mrs Carter World Tour and thinking, “I have to see Beyoncé live before I die”. In 2018, I saw her twice. I attended On the Run Tour 2 in New Jersey, and Chicago, it was an out of body experience.

The level of detail and energy that goes into her tours is incredibly remarkable, filling stadiums from city to city and country to country.

Her tours are so exceptionally performed and designed that they have international award recognitions as well.

February 6, 2016, just one day before she performed at the Super Bowl 50 as the only woman ever to perform twice at the Super Bowl, her Formation music video was released. Incredibly catchy, but the message was resounding and crystal clear. Using a lot of imagery, the video, along with the lyrics, celebrates Black culture and also addressed the ills and sufferings that the Black community in America faces.

Set in post-hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, the video addresses police brutality that has plagued the Black community for too long. It features the mothers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner; innocent Black men who were killed by the police. We also see a young Black boy dancing in a black hoodie (paying tribute to Trayvon Martin) and writing on the wall that read ‘stop shooting us’.

In Formation video ,Beyoncé also praises black hair, which is too often demonized; she also paid respect to civil rights activist Martin Luther King. In the song, we hear Malcolm X intone: “The most disrespected woman in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” The video was extremely well-timed for Black History Month.

Though she may sing sexy songs like Rocket and dance hits like Get Me Bodied; she uses her global platform at every chance to celebrate Black people and give attention to the issues affecting the community. She used her Formation video as the most potent and effective way to pass her message across. Taking it up a notch, Beyoncé performed Formation at the Super Bowl 50 half-time show, one of America’s most-watched events. She and her dancers stormed the field dressed in all-black with signature black berets, a symbolic reference to the Black Panthers.

A few months later, at the Glasgow leg of the Formation World Tour, Beyoncé paused the show to give a minute of silence for victims of police brutality, including Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and countless others. Later that year at the MTV awards, Beyoncé walked the red carpet with the mothers of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and Eric Garner, four unarmed Black men who lost their lives to police brutality.

On Juneteenth, a day set aside for the commemoration of the abolishment of slavery, Beyoncé released Black Parade, a song with one goal: celebrating Blackness. The release of Black Parade was an intentional move for the Houston native as June 19, 1865, is when the enslaved in her home state of Texas were informed of their freedom. After the release of Black Parade, Beyoncé launched Black Parade Route, a directory of Black-owned businesses curated by Zerina Akers, to support black businesses, especially during the harshness of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Black is King, a film written, directed and produced by Beyoncé, was released on July 31, 2020.

At every point when you think Beyoncé has done the best she can do, she tops her last project over and over again, proving that she is her only competition.

Streaming on Disney+, Black is King came after Beyoncé lent her vocals to Disney’s live-action version of The Lion King. As part of the Lion King project, she created an album called The Gift featuring African artists Busiswa, Burna Boy, Shatta Wale, and others.

Inspired by the 2019 remake of The Lion King, Beyoncé’s 85-minute film tells a beautiful and compelling story, infusing several elements of African culture; Black culture. Shot in locations such as Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria, the film also celebrates the beauty of the African continent as well as its diverse people.

Beyoncé says, “Let Black be synonymous with glory”; and indeed, Black is King is a glorious masterpiece.

What I respect most about Beyoncé is her unmatched level of dedication to her craft; it inspires me. She tells us that she grinds till she owns it, and we see that with every project that she has ever put out. In her Homecoming Netflix documentary, we get to see the grand scale preparation that went into her show, taking eight months to prepare for a show that lasted two hours, it’s unlike anything anyone had ever seen or ever done before.

No one motivates me to better myself more than Beyoncé. She is a shining example of hard work paying off. She has become an adjective for talent, excellent work ethic, and success, something we all aspire to be.

Beyoncé asked the world one of the most important questions ever, “You Ready?” in her most famous song Crazy in Love, and 18years after, no one is ever ready for the out-of-this-world experience she brings every time.