Beyoncé whipped fans into formation when she debuted her surprise album Lemonade this past April. The album was certainly sweet and sour, in both lyrics and visuals, by contributing to the dialogue of police brutality. Lemonade is a mix of up-beat dance tracks and more serious ballads. The multi-media event featured prominent artists like Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, James Blake and Jack White, and an accompanying video that served as companion piece for the release
Lemonade embodies the strong, fierce and powerful image of Black women and their bodies while paying tribute to Beyoncé’s heritage, including the landscape of Louisiana and its natives. Each track contributes to the album in a unique way, from lyrics that promote feminism and an awareness of police brutality to the tender emotions of a woman in love and hurt, as well as the drama that follows.
The videos that accompany each track are just as important as the lyrics. In tracks like "Love Draught," "Pray You Catch Me" and "Sorry," the visuals include traditional slave garbs and native African tribal patterns painted on the skin of the dancers, alongside scenery of dark, gloomy trees that seem to represent the slave era. The visuals combined with the slow- and fast-tempo of the songs displays Beyoncé as an ‘ordinary person’ navigating life as we all do.
The music video for Hold Up demonstrates the ‘fed-up’ anger of a woman who has been hurt, yet in the mist of her pain regains control of her love life. The song begins with the poem—"For women who are difficult to love," by Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poetess—and the video features Beyoncé in a flowing, yellow dress gleefully destroying car windows, fire hydrants and security cameras with a wooden baseball bat. This bat—named Hot Sauce— reminds viewers to ‘get in formation’.
One of the more popular songs on the album, Formation, uses symbolism to represent the political and racial tension in the United States. Some of the powerful imagery includes Beyoncé and her lady crew dancing in an empty swimming pool or later dressed in stylish prison clothes; a young Black male dancing in front of policemen; and remnants of Hurricane Katrina. Alongside these symbols, Beyoncé references her mother’s Creole roots and her father’s birth state, Alabama, with lyrics such as, “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana/ You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama.” On the other side, lyrics such as “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros/I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils” make a powerful statement that black is beautiful, a woman's take on ‘Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud’ done to modern tempos and synthesized textures. This time around, Beyoncé’s music is unmistakingly unapologetically black and progressive.
