It has been three years since the death of Trayvon Martin; in those three years, police brutality against unarmed black people has become a media focal point in the public eye. With police killing 102 unarmed black people in 2015 alone, five times the rate of unarmed whites, this attention is not undeserved. Even amidst the bloodshed, there has been underreporting, with most coverage of protests against the violence happening through social media—international movement Black Lives Matter is a notable example.
The arts have played an important part in the public's growing awareness of this issue, from BLM collaboration with the 24 Hour Project for a photo series to the release of John Legend and Common's "Glory," which won an Oscar. Beyoncé has been notably absent from the conversation, despite her outspokenness about her feminism and stance on several social issues. It was in the midst of this silence that she casually dropped "Formation," a day before her Super Bowl appearance.
Needless to say, silence made way for a roar.
To call "Formation" electrifying is almost an understatement—the music, and its accompanying video, are so much more than your usual pop earworm. Beyoncé's embraces black culture, notably the Southern imagery that she was brought up on, and throughout the video embraces an aesthetic that isn't so much Beyoncé as it is an embodiment of a powerful, black woman from the South, one who has succeeded and not forgotten her roots. She sums it up best in the refrain:
My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana
You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bamma
I like my baby hair, with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got a hot sauce in my bag.
Looking past the cultural positivity, we must take note of the political statement's made in the video, apparent from the first shot of her squatting on a NOLA police car submerged in water. The first voice we hear is also none other than late NOLA comedy legend Messy Mya, who was shot six years ago in NOLA's 7th Ward. Another notable sequence features a black boy dancing in front of a wall of armored police, and putting his hands up before a wall tagged with the words "Stop Shooting Us" is seen, a clear reference to Michael Brown's shooting.
Also present is the voice of gay bounce musician Big Freedia; through the inclusion of queer black voices, Bey leaves nobody out of the narrative she's telling or the roots she's honoring. At the end, the police car is seen sinking, with Beyoncé using her weight to do so. "Formation" embraces the persecuted, not an abnormal theme in her music, but it embraces blackness in a way Beyoncé has not done so before.
There has, of course, been controversy, from accusations of Beyoncé suddenly monetizing her blackness when it is relevant in the media to officers boycotting the Super Bowl Halftime Show because she was "too harsh" on police. Maybe it's for the best that they boycotted the show: not only did Beyoncé easily usurp the spotlight from headliners Coldplay, but she and her dancers paid tribute to pioneering activist group the Black Panthers as they danced to "Formation."
Only an artist at Beyoncé's level can stir up this much conversation about an important topic at a worldwide-level from premiering a song with no prior announcement. Simply put, she slays, and "Formation" has her in top form: woke as ever, middle fingers in the air, and hot sauce in her Gucci bag.