Definitely a must-read if anyone is wondering about the black cultural references on full display at her incredible concert. Beyonce is seriously an amazing performer…
Excerpt:
Saturday night, Beyoncé became the first Black female headliner at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. In a performance that she called “very important for me” and that was politically charged, as has become her style, Beyoncé’s brazen tribute to Black history and Black culture has inspired mass reactions that reverberated across the internet. How could it not, after she declared Coachella forever changed: it is now Beychella.
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Woven throughout Beyoncé’s performance are strategically placed sound bites and musical references. You heard the voice of Malcolm X giving his reverent speech “Who Taught You To Hate Yourself,” about the need to respect and protect Black women, and the earnest vocals of Nina Simone singing about lost love in “Lilac Wine.” The soulful singer-songwriter was inducted into the prestigious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night. The band also played a rousing rendition of Fela Kuti’s 1976 title track “Zombie.”
Lemonade was not made for me, either. As a Singaporean Chinese woman, I would be lying if I said I was familiar with the complex, myriad ways Beyoncé explores black female personhood, sexuality, and spirituality in the film. But as a non-American, non-white woman, what I am familiar with is appreciating art that is not and will never be made with me in mind.
This is a process that white people are now struggling with more publicly than ever. It seems to me that much of the pain in this process comes from entitlement, which often stems from ignorance. I wonder: Do white people in the Western world understand just how much of global popular culture is tailored to their tastes and their histories? Do white people in the Western world know that, for non-white people who wish to participate in and discuss global popular culture, being well-versed in white cultural and musical history is almost compulsory? Do white people in the Western world know how laughable it is that they feel excluded just because a popular work of art dares to be less culturally legible to them?
wupacing 