“Afrofuturist Readings of Beyoncé’s Lemonade”
On April 23, 2016 pop music genius Beyoncé Knowles Carter released her sixth album and second visual album, Lemonade. There is no denying that this album is an ode to Black women everywhere, especially southern Black women. Interestingly, before this album, Beyoncé was considered not political “enough.” Suddenly with the release of Lemonade, she is “too” political and in all the “wrong” ways. She received an avalanche of criticism, including from Black feminist bell hooks (more on this later.) Luckily, many Black feminist scholars and activists got in formation and recuperated the intellectual and political vigor of this visual album (check out #LemonadeSyllabus by Candice Marie Benbow.) Amidst all these multilayered conversations, I became curious about what is the relationship between afrofuturism and Lemonade.
Wait, what is afrofuturism? (I don’t want to assume all our readers know, especially first time visitors.) During a recent talk for THE conference on afrofuturism, 2016 Planet Deep South Colloquium, Ytasha Womack, author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, defined afrofuturism as a way of looking at the future through a Black cultural lens. “Afrofuturism sees the past, present, and future as one,” proclaimed Womack. What really resonated with me was when she stated, “[Afrofuturism] uses imagination to transform your circumstances.” Thus, afrofuturism becomes the virtual space of hope, transformation, and possibility. So what does afrofuturism have to do with the record-breaking Lemonade? Let’s take a closer look.
1. “Hold Up”
bell hooks, comments in the controversial “Moving Beyond Pain,” that Lemonade is “the business of capitalist money making at its best.” This is a compliment, right? Lemonade did launch the 2016 Formation World Tour with revenue of up to $123 million and Beyoncé’s new line of sportswear, Ivy Park. Plus, it gave a much-needed boost to her husband’s online music service Tidal. (The visual album was exclusively released on Tidal before becoming available on any other venue.) There’s a conversation to be had about folks who according to blog writer, Briana L. Urena-Ravelo, “take on an aggressive stance against capitalism when a Black woman, like Beyoncé, is engaging and succeeding in it.” But a closer look, especially of “Hold Up,” tells a more nuanced story.
Beyoncé walks gloriously wearing a yellow, Ochún-inspired dress as she smashes cars and property with a baseball bat. Interestingly, what hooks perceives as Beyoncé’s “random” acts of “violence” looks differently when you look at what she is directing her calculated rage at: commodities and private property—quintessential items of capitalism. “Hot Sauce,” Beyoncé’s bat, does not hurt one single human being. Here, she reminds us that material things do not hold the same value as human beings. During Ferguson uprisings (the complex response to Michael Brown’s murder and other,) Ferguson community destroyed commodities and private property, too. Much of mainstream media focused on the destruction of the material, the popular image of Walgreens engulfed in flames comes to mind, the media’s message was loud and clear, broken windows were more important than the destruction of human life. Beyoncé’s “Hold Up” introduces a future where material things are not held at the same caliber as human life, or worst, more important than human life. In this staged future, we destroy commodities to assert #BlackLivesMatter.
Figure 1. Beyoncé, "Hold Up," (production still), 2016.
2. “Love Drought”
In “Love Drought,” black women walk in procession towards the ocean in rural south. Nettrice Gaskins, blog writer of Musings of a Renegade Futurist, notes that this scene pays tribute to Yoruba orisha Yemaya, who “cares deeply for all her children, comforting them and cleansing them of sorrow.” Ashley Flake and Celaya Lemon, founders of futurist fashions at FashNFresh, also note in this scene a historic return to the transatlantic slave trade. Instead of surrendering to the chains of institutional slavery, many enslaved people chose to surrender to the loving protection of Yemaya. This is the haunting world of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, when choosing death is better option than a slow inhumane death at the hands of slavery. Beyoncé did this; she blurs the boundaries of time and brings the past to the present to offer a seed of hope for the future. Moreover, she reminds us that the love of black women coming together “can move a mountain,” “calm a war down,” and “make it rain now.” While many took this as a literal romantic love for her husband, Jay-Z, notably, there is no screen time given to Jay-Z in this song. Instead, we are visually offered the loving presence of Black women holding hands and raising them as they look towards the ancestors and to the ocean that “cleanses of [one’s] sorrow.” This is the beginning of Redemption.
Figure 2. Beyoncé, "Love Drought" (production still), 2016.
3. “Forward”
“Forward” is an underrated afrofuturist gem in this visual album. This is the first time we see face-to-face the power and grief of the mothers of those slain by police. It is no coincidence they make a cameo during the chapter moving us “Forward.” Beyoncé and her team of storytellers astutely remind us that in order to move forward, we must address the pain of the past. We must right the wrong. We must look at pain in the eyes, even if it makes us uncomfortable. Beyoncé evades only showing Black suffering though by depicting the mothers in full regalia with their heads raised high. We see them in their full human complexity: their beauty, their pain, and their resilience. Lezley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, states in an interview, “So, I appreciate [Beyoncé] for being bold enough to confront things and be sensitive at the same time.” The mothers are depicted as #BlackGirlMagic; they are also depicted as real and human, to borrow from actor Jesse Williams’s speech when recently awarded the BET Humanitarian Award.
Figure 3. Beyoncé, "Forward," (production still), 2016.
4. “Freedom”
In “Freedom,” Beyoncé opens in a cappella a song written by hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar (because it takes a village to produce an album of this caliber). The camera then zooms into a Black female ballerina dancing on the stage in front of an audience of Black women that includes the mothers directly impacted by police killings and corrupt judicial systems becoming faces of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. “Freedom” pays homage to Black spirituals, she literally sings “I’ma wade, I’ma wade through the waters.” She references the ways art was politically and subversively used to undermine those in power. “Freedom” carries a political and subversive message as well, one coded, not meant for everyone—a message fit to those escaping contemporary bondage, “I keep running, jump in the aqueducts.”
5. “Formation”
Formation is filled with afrofuturist moments! I will focus on a very brief, but powerful scene from the visual album. Beyoncé briefly centers a young black boy wearing a hoodie as he dances in front of an army of police officers with their hands in the air. Here, Beyoncé takes us to a recent past—she takes us to February 26, 2012 when Trayvon Martin was criminalized and executed on scene by George Zimmerman simply for being a black boy wearing a hoodie. Zimmerman served zero days for his crime against humanity. However, Beyoncé conjures up an alternate world--- not here yet—but we must dream it into existence. In this world, black boys dance freely and carefree in urban streets, even in the presence of police officers. In this world, police officers put their hands up when they commit crimes and are held accountable just like everyone else for their actions. In this world, there is hope for freedom and justice.
Figure 4. Beyoncé, "Formation" (production still), 2016.
I have only touched the surface of all afrofuturist references of Lemonade. I invite you to revisit this visual album anew and support Black speculative arts.
