beyonc songs |
- Beyoncé's 'Before I Let Go' challenge is here — now get your steps in order before the summer - NBCNews.com
- You Can Finally Stream Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' Album on Spotify and Apple Music - ELLE.com
- 'Homecoming,' From The Bleachers: Members Of Beyoncé's Marching Band Look Back - NPR
- Beyonce "Homecoming" Live Album Review - HipHopDX
- Beyoncé: Homecoming: The Live Album | Review - Pitchfork
- Beyonce’s dad Mathew Knowles launching Destiny’s Child musical - Metro.co.uk
- No letting go: Beyoncé moves black culture into the future - Royal Gazette
- Beyonce gets emotional at GLAAD Awards, honors gay uncle who died of HIV - USA TODAY
| Posted: 23 Apr 2019 01:09 PM PDT By Erin E. Evans Beyoncé is helping us all get in formation for the summer with the #BeforeILetGoChallenge, a new dance routine that is certified to get the party going at any barbecue, wedding or family reunion. On Monday night, the singer posted her first ever Instagram story, highlighting fans across the country who have danced along to her new cover of the classic hit "Before I Let Go" by Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. The post shows several people following Beyoncé's instructions to create what could be seen as a remixed version of the Electric Slide. The #BeforeILetGo challenge is the latest news for an already buzzing Beyhive. On Tuesday, the Houston-born singer finally made her sixth studio album "Lemonade," which was released three years ago, available on Spotify. On April 17, Netflix premiered "Homecoming," a concert film about her epic 2018 Coachella performances that were an ode to historically black colleges and the black experience. She simultaneously dropped a surprise live album of the concert, including her rendition of "Before I Let Go." The song includes several instructions for how to dance along: "Turn around, kick, then slide/ And twirl that ass to the right, now/ Ooh, bunny hop, bunny hop, drop, pop/ Cross your legs, turn around and clap/ Shuffle to the left, let's glide now," she sings. Watch as a few people on Instagram give it a go: Follow NBCBLK on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.   |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2019 06:39 AM PDT "If I gave two fucks, two fucks about streaming numbers / Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify," Beyoncé bragged on The Carters' standout cut "Nice." Now, in celebration of the three-year anniversary of Lemonade, the day has finally arrived: Lemonade is streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. Before today, Lemonade could only be streamed exclusively on TiDAL, which is co-owned by Bey and JAY-Z. In the past, when Spotify subscribers clicked on Beyoncé's artist page, a disclaimer read "Beyonce's album 'Lemonade' is not currently available on Spotify. We are working on it and hope to have it soon." The full Lemonade album comes with 13 tracks, including an incredible demo version of "Sorry" and features from Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and James Blake. In 2017, Beyoncé (who was very pregnant with twins Sir and Rumi) performed a medley of Lemonade songs "Love Drought" and "Sandcastles" at the 2017 Grammy Awards, where she also swept up two awards: best music video for "Formation" and best urban contemporary album for Lemonade. Some of Lemonade's tracks landed on Beyoncé's Homecoming: The Live Album, released last week on all streaming platforms in tandem with her new Netflix documentary Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé, which chronicled the road to the singer's now-iconic Homecoming: The Live Album is available to stream now on all platforms.   |
| 'Homecoming,' From The Bleachers: Members Of Beyoncé's Marching Band Look Back - NPR Posted: 22 Apr 2019 11:17 AM PDT  Members of Beyonce's Coachella marching band talk about Bey's commitment to authenticity and the show's historic legacy. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Coachella hide caption  Members of Beyonce's Coachella marching band talk about Bey's commitment to authenticity and the show's historic legacy. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CoachellaThe precision. The energy. The limitless swag. Fans of Beyoncé are reliving the pinnacle performance of her career once again with Homecoming, the concert documentary released on Netflix last week. The film both documents the performance and sheds light on the eight months of work — four months of putting together the run of show and learning the choreography, followed by four months rehearsals — that led up to her headlining slot at Coachella in 2018. In the two-hour film, extended sections of the performance are intercut with behind-the-scenes clips of Beyoncé conceptualizing the show alongside the 200-plus artists — dancers, musicians, creative directors, technical staff — who helped make it possible.   As momentous as the performance was in real time, and in the days that followed, its shadow has only lengthened in the year since. As the first black woman to headline Coachella — probably America's most-visible music festival — Beyoncé set out to make a deliberate statement about black beauty, culture and fortitude. From the orchestral sampling of Southern greats like C-Murder and Juvenile to the incorporation of classic marching band fight songs, the detail woven into the performance, much of it native to the culture of historically black colleges and universities — HBCUs — was a celebration that now doubles, in the document of it, as an introduction to that culture's traditions: the big football game, the drumline battles, the homecoming concert, the steppers, the dancing dolls. To do so authentically, Beyoncé's creative team enlisted the help of marching band members from across the country to kick up the flavor. "I wanted a black orchestra," Bey says in the film (and in an interlude on Homecoming: The Live Album). "I wanted the steppers. I needed different characters, I didn't want us all doing the same thing. And the amount of swag is just limitless. Like, the things that these young people can do with their bodies and the music they can play. The drum rolls and the haircuts and the bodies... it's just not right. It's just so much damn swag." Beyoncé commends the insurmountable passion and charisma of her band, calling the young performers "the heartbeat of the show." To find her black orchestra, Beyoncé and her team enlisted the services of DRUMLine Live, and sought out black musicians on an individual basis. Over the weeks and months of rehearsal leading up to the show, she trusted the instincts of her assembled band to incorporate their swag in ways that were most natural to their college experiences.  At NPR Music, the home of the Tiny Desk, we know that any good lead vocalist is only as good as their support. NPR Music spoke to members of Beyoncé's commends the insurmountable passion and charisma of her band, calling the band, some of them Tiny Desk Concert alums, about their road to Beychella, the view from the bleachers and the two-fold legacy they're now part of. These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity. Ari O'Neal, guitarist, 25 Tayo Kuku Jr. /Courtesy of the artist  Tayo Kuku Jr. /Courtesy of the artist University of MarylandOn getting the call "It was on my birthday — December 11, 2017 — and I was flown out the very next morning at 6 o'clock and I had rehearsal that same day. I literally got off the plane, went to the hotel room, dropped my stuff off and the car was already waiting outside for us to go. I was looking at all these women that I had seen in her concerts before and I was like, 'Oh my God. Do they know me? 'Cause these are like legends right here. You sure you want me to do this?' " On the family atmosphere of rehearsals "That was my first time being away from home for an extended period of time and I felt so comfortable... I kinda miss it right now. It was a lot of long days of just working and crashing together. We all felt very, very included. We got to have a lot of input, [with] a lot of us going to college and HBCUs, so getting to see how this was formed, just the process, was amazing. It made the days not even feel long. I always left wanting to stay in rehearsal." On what working with Beyoncé taught her "Before this, I have never been in a situation where everything was just so professional. Everyone was always on time. ... To see just a high standard everyone had for each other, that's the standard that I carry for my peers now and will carry for our peers from now on." On the legacy of the performance "I knew it was going to be an amazing show, but I didn't know that impact that it would have, only because I have not experienced what it's like to be in an HBCU. But being a Delta [Editor's note: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. is a sisterhood of predominantly black, college-educated women and is part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, an organization of nine historically African-American Greek lettered fraternities and sororities] and being in the Black Student Union at school, to see those elements made me so excited. And then, to see afterwards how many people could relate, I was thinking, 'Man, I guess I should've expected that,' because so many people relate to this culture. To see all the positive feedback made me feel so good. It really reminded me how deep we are out here. "There's a prayer that I will always say before I perform:
"But now, looking back at it, everyone held her up. She held us up. And we really helped people walk away with something." Ty Onley, drummer, 31 Courtney Jones/Courtesy of the artist  Courtney Jones/Courtesy of the artist Norfolk State UniversityOn having creative input "I can't remember who came up with that name [The Bzzzz Drumline], but it was somebody in the group of our director, Larry Allen. It's crazy because, obviously, Beyoncé, she got her Beyhive, and then drummers, we have a thing that we do called the buzz roll. So 'buzz' correlated to two things. "Our percussion director, Larry Allen, was super cool, and he was open to our ideas. I'm from Richmond, the DMV. Go-go is our thing. So, we had a section toward the end with 'Love On Top' where we were doing like a go-go vibe, and he would call me over like, 'Hey, man, what you think about this?' We'd brainstorm and put some thoughts together, he'd let me play with patterns and add some vocals to it to make it more authentic. He was amazing at taking everybody's suggestions on different parts. It was all pretty much a collaborative effort when it came down to it. Everybody had a chance to put some input in and you know, bring they swag to the table. It's just a blessing to, you know, to even have that opportunity to say, 'Well, this is how we play this back home and this is the type of textures and stuff that we add to it.' " On adding his HBCU experience to the performance "I went to Norfolk State University. I played snare drum my first year and then I played sextuplets my last three years. I played quints [5 drums] in the show. One thing about HBCU culture, band culture, it will tear you apart if you not authentic with it. If it doesn't look right... man. 'Cause it's a real strong culture, and it's a fine line between you killin' it and people clowning you." Wayne Westley, trombonist, 29 Dasmyn Grigsby /Courtesy of the artist  Dasmyn Grigsby /Courtesy of the artist Florida A&M UniversityOn having creative input "Once we saw the different dance moves and the whole thing, it was our job was to learn that and to add some of the different movements from our world into it. "I remember one day, it was one of those kinds of rehearsals where we had a water break, so the band members, we're attached to our instruments. Someone started playing 'We Ready,' which is like a standard fight song. And we all started chiming in and soon everybody was playing it and the dancers got up and started dancing to it, too. And Bey was talking to her creative team and when we started playing, she just looked up and was like, 'I like that, I love that, Can we add it to the show?' We did that maybe four weeks before the show. And in the film, you see it in the beginning. On the hardest part of the learning the routine "The performance itself was not hard, because by the time we got there it was just embedded in our system. I've been doing this since 5th grade, you know, so once you learn the show, it becomes part of you, it becomes second nature. The actual movements were pretty much easier than what we did on the field, so it just took repetition. "The hard part was learning that much music. Bey, she has albums for days, it was over 40 songs and there's no break. So, learning the cuts and hits with each song, that took time to get the muscle memory. And then Beyoncé, she always starts on her right, but in the band world, you start on the left side, rock to the left. So, with Beyoncé, we had to switch it up, everything right foot first, every time. That was a big adjustment." On the feeling onstage "The first weekend, the anticipation was super high — we got there early and just waited all day to perform. That first walk over to the stage, the energy was through the roof, people screaming, smiling ear to ear to ear. And then onstage, even before the music, when it was all blacked out, you could hear us on stage, being loud obnoxious and crunk, when I tell you everyone was excited... It was wild! And then once you see the sea of people, that took energy to a whole 'nother level. "I was higher up on the bleachers, so I could see what I felt like was all the way back. My first experience seeing something that big, with that many people, was Barack Obama's first inauguration [in 2009], that's the last time I saw that many people in one place." On why this performance has lingered in the minds of the public "I think it's important because, like she said in the documentary, she always wanted to attend a HBCU. Growing up in Texas, seeing the tradition and not being able to be part of the tradition, I think she felt she had an obligation to show the world black people are beautiful, and that HBCUs are a unique factor to the education system. "I think it opened the eyes to a lot of individuals who may have not known what HBCUs are or what they're about and the culture they have. That's a lot of knowledge that was put on to people. If we didn't have them, when they first started, we wouldn't be here because, you know, back in the day, those were the only colleges black people could attend because of segregation. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that everyone should try to do if they can. "I know it touched so many people, from Michelle Obama to someone across the world who might be inspired to go to a HBCU because of Beyoncé and the window she opened. This moved the culture forward, and it showed that black is still beautiful and we need to take our place and be present at times like these, even when that's not an easy thing to do."  |
| Beyonce "Homecoming" Live Album Review - HipHopDX Posted: 23 Apr 2019 02:05 PM PDT  Like her marriage-solidifying joint album with hubby JAY-Z, it's tempting, on the surface, to just give Beyonce's Homecoming album a perfect 5 rating. If solely to avoid the wrath of the omnipresent "Beyhive," a faction of the fandom known to invade social media spaces like a pack of Vandals and leave lemon and bee emojis on unsuspecting Instagram photos. That, however, would sell the album extremely short: not only is Homecoming an artistically-sound triumph, it's a cultural touchstone and, quite possibly, the live album of a generation. As we all know, "Beychella" was the driving force behind Homecoming and its accompanying Netflix documentary of the same name. And the album is nothing if not hefty: forty songs long featuring the best-known tracks of Beyonce's oeuvre, delightfully remixed and mastered for the expectant live audience inside California's most coveted desert. But don't mistake Beyonce's performance for a cheesy Vegas-style retrospective. This is Beyonce in peak form — physically, spiritually, psychically, and performance-wise. She has previously shown her ability to rap (see the Summer '18-winning "Apeshit"), to get soulful (Dreamgirls soundtrack), and even to get down-and-dirty (Lemonade). On Homecoming, though, she brings it all together in one supersonic performance. The standard Beyonce fare can be found here — "Crazy In Love," "Bow Down," "Drunk In Love" — but that's not, really, what makes the album the classic that it is. It's nice, don't misunderstand — but if Beyonce had just released a live album of her greatest hits, it wouldn't be perfect in any way. Rather, it would just be a "live performance album" that would join the infinite number of live albums that have come before and will come since it dropped. What makes Homecoming — both the album and the live performance — so classic is that Beyonce makes clear, now and forever, that she is unapologetically, and beautifully, Black. She is Black in her essence — Black Excellence, personified — and in her performance, she makes the audience believe that they, too, are Black Excellence personified. The living legend doesn't achieve this by standing onstage and bleating quasi-feminist platitudes. That would be boring, and Beyonce — First of Her Name, Mother of Dragons, and Queen of All Things That Slay — does not do boring. Rather, Beyonce achieves this by bobbing and weaving through nearly 150 years of African-American art, poetry, and activism, and turning it into the musical performance of a lifetime. In between covers of such classics as "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and "You Don't Love Me (No No No)," Beyonce tips her metaphorical hat to the likes of Clark Sisters, Big Freedia, Nina Simone, Fela Kuti, and James Weldon Johnson. She even gets daring in places, giving a cyberpunk twist to "Formation" and duetting with her baby sister Solange on a lilting "Get Me Bodied." There's only one minor — indeed, very minor — issue with Homecoming, as an album: unlike the similarly galvanizing Frampton Comes Alive — which stood alone as a live album, and was, in fact, one of the defining moments of Peter Frampton's now-largely-forgotten career — it's difficult to see it as a stand-alone album without the context of the accompanying Netflix film. The good news is, it doesn't need to. Beyonce's place in history has already long been cemented. And while much ado has been made about her, almost to the point of parody, Homecoming is one of those times where there's no question as to why that's so. It's Beyonce's world, bitches — we just live in it. Bow down.  |
| Beyoncé: Homecoming: The Live Album | Review - Pitchfork Posted: 18 Apr 2019 10:00 PM PDT Six solo albums in, six years after the surprise release of her self-titled album, three years after the groundbreaking Lemonade, one year after the rap album she delivered with her husband, and we're starting to get it. We're starting to understand Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as a musician with unparalleled range, depth, and power: acknowledging her rapperly talents, her breathless musical ambition, her ear and eye for synthesis and abiding love for black culture. With the release of Homecoming: The Live Album, the 40-track companion to her headlining sets from last year's Coachella released as a documentary film with Netflix, we glimpse the artist at work during her peak—in voice, physicality, and confidence—reimagining and remixing her own catalog, decentering herself to shine a light on her influences and foundations. #Beychella redefined what was possible for a music festival. On stage, over 200 bodies undulated in unison but miraculously, every body moved in its own way. They filled out a set of risers constructed into a pyramid, built to look like the bleachers of a football stadium at a black college or university. Filling the structure was an orchestra that included a drumline and a full brass band that introduced themselves with the steady refrain of the Rebirth Brass Band's "Do Whatcha Wanna." Male dancers stood in a trembling line like black fraternity pledges, female dancers dressed as majorettes, background singers formed a choir of unified sound and movement, folding their bodies into Beyoncé's intricately aggressive choreography. It was an old-fashioned revue, a cacophony of talent. It was a defiant celebration of complex, diasporic blackness. Woven into Beyoncé's performance was a genealogy that hat-tipped the Clark Sisters, Big Freedia, Nina Simone, Fela Kuti, and James Weldon Johnson. I was home on the couch when I saw a grainy live stream of the first weekend's show, dazzled, mouth agape, proud: Here was Beyoncé practicing black studies in front of a broad audience, digging into the long, living archive of black ephemera. The Netflix film gives you the performances as Beyoncé wanted them seen, with close-ups of bedazzled costumes and their pastel colors worn by bodies of all sizes. You see the sweat of rehearsals and Beyoncé's exacting physical regimen to get herself back into performing shape after the 2017 birth of her twins. You see the underlying ethos that guides her work in the form of quotes and music cited from the poets, writers, and artists like Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, who conjured worlds that demanded and centered an abundant, fecund blackness. Homecoming is an important document of those performances, with careful mixing and engineering that render each track with stunning lucidity. We hear, for example, Kelly Rowland's feathery soprano during the three-song suite of Destiny's Child hits; it allows us to linger for a moment on the group's legendary chemistry and three-part harmonies. Homecoming doesn't stand on its own as an album experience separate from the film. It probably doesn't need to. Beyoncé and her sister Solange increasingly rely on visuals to paint a fully embodied and populated vision that includes music. Homecoming, an accompaniment to a concert film, feels as if it wasn't ever meant to be experienced in isolation. Still, it could be one of Beyoncé's most important releases for how it illuminates both her past and her future. Beyoncé's core musical vocabulary is the rhythm and bounce of a tune. She's a classicist who believes in a song's structure—choruses, bridges, meticulous verses, extended vamps, key changes. Her uptempo songs like "Crazy in Love," "Countdown," and "Love on Top" are some of the most inventive, dexterous pop and R&B music of the past couple of decades. For nearly the entire 110 minutes, she isolates these adrenaline-spiking cuts, amplifying their kinetic energy with marching-band arrangements. The extended version of B'Day's 2006 single "Get Me Bodied" is a highlight here, as is 2005's "Check on It." Both are supercharged booty thumpers, more than a decade old that sound newly baptized in the world of Homecoming: the clarion calls of trumpets and whoomps of sousaphones, the foot-stomping on the risers and the off-mic "ayys" of the dancers that are sprinkled throughout. The arrangements amplify the relationship Beyoncé's music has to the inherently percussive body. Still, Beyoncé's a singer first, and it's thrilling to hear her full-throated, low-end brassiness with so much clarity. She's still got the flexibility to play in her upper ranges, but the musicality at the bottom of her range, where she belts the early notes of the rare ballad in this collection, "I Care," is stunning. She growls through Lemonade cuts like "Sorry" and "Don't Hurt Yourself," but also whispers and coos through the early notes of "Partition." The recorded versions of Homecoming's interludes and transitions draw out the black pop musical history Beyoncé cites and interpolates. "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" and "Swag Surfin" are important moments, but so are those when she employs TRU's "I'm Bout' It, Bout It" UGK's "Something Good"—regional classics of the black South. She doubles down on her archival work, her career-long project of interpreting black music and big-upping black Houston and black Louisiana. (The only new piece of music on Homecoming is a bonus studio cover of Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly's 1981 "Before I Let Go," an evergreen black jam that gets every generation moving.) The moments feel like nods to the audience she so deliberately centers. The film captures this phenomenon of a mutual, pointed gaze with its frequent close-ups of black audience members, who were few and far between at the actual shows. Her rapport with the crowd is loose, filled with "I see you's" that are left in the recording and further punctuate that Beyoncé was hoping to make a specific statement to a specific group of people. The album sounds communal, like a revival meeting in a small, sweaty tent that leaves you lifted and fortified. It's as much about Beyoncé as it is about the people who made her and the people who sustain her. As I was listening, my upstairs neighbors, two young black women, were also listening at full volume. My friend in Miami was texting me hot takes, while my sister, who'd attended the show on the second weekend, was tweeting about how much the white people in the audience seemed to just not get it. Every Beyoncé event is a gospel you want to tell somebody about, but this one doubles down on this feeling of communion. She's singing songs you already know, and connecting them to other songs you remember, too. She's drawing on her past, looking back, but also looking squarely back at us. Black women and rock'n'roll pioneers like Memphis Minnie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Etta James, and contemporary queens of rhythmic music like Janet Jackson and Missy Elliott have not received sufficient credit for their innovations. Beyoncé, famously, was the first black woman headliner of the nearly 20-year-old festival. In a space where she was not obviously welcome, she made an enduring impression. A home. Then she made it about something other than herself. She brought an entire lineage into the room. Within a few months of each other, both Knowles sisters released projects that reimagined home as a soulful black utopia, rooted in the best of its abundant past but queerer, more holistic, self-aware, embodied, and feminist than before. Homecoming is a wondrous, rapturous collage that reveals how Beyoncé has made a career of playing, dipping, and diving in the "great pool of black genius": the genius of her forebears, her contemporaries, and her own. For her entire life, she's brought the mainstream over to her. Where will we all go next?  |
| Beyonce’s dad Mathew Knowles launching Destiny’s Child musical - Metro.co.uk Posted: 23 Apr 2019 02:22 PM PDT  Beyonce's father, Dr Mathew Knowles, has announced that he is bringing the songs of Destiny's Child back for a musical. The music manager, who created the famous girl group in the 90s, is taking his daughter's girl group to the stage. Survivor: The Destiny's Child Musical will be premiering in Houston next year, with additional plans for London's West End, Broadway in New York and even a bootylicious world tour. There is no word on who play the parts of the best-known DC line-up – Beyonce, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams – or even the disbanded members LeToya Luckett, LaTavia Roberson or Farrah Franklin. The musical promises to provide 'an honest depiction of the achievements, obstacles, and evolution of the world's most iconic girl group and the mastermind behind them'. The story will be told from the 68-year-old's perspective and will document the band's 'humble beginnings and travel through a captivating storyline addressing the layers of evolution – good and bad – that Knowles faced during his pioneering climb into the music industry'. Advertisement Advertisement Speaking of the musical, the music mogul said: 'I want to pull back the curtain. 'I feel it's time to give the world an opportunity to hear, see and feel the victories and failures that I've had as a husband, father and manager who risked everything in pursuit of fulfilling dreams – those of mine and others.'  The manager made the announcement months after telling Metro.co.uk that he 'certainly' played a part in stopping Destiny's Child from collaborating with R Kelly who has faced allegations of sexual and physical abuse which were put forward in the Lifetime documentary Surviving R Kelly. Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Mathew said that while rumours about R Kelly came into play in his decision making, he first turned down a song from the R&B star for the band's first album because it wasn't good enough. The father of Beyonce and Solange, told us: 'I was there, and my former wife Tina was there. 'The thing with R Kelly was, he liked to record late at night, around midnight. And what was different with his studio was that one room had a recording suite, and next door was a club, with 40 or 50 people dancing.  'R Kelly was managed by Sony, by someone I won't name, and at that time, they would almost force you to record with [their] artists,' he added. Advertisement Advertisement 'And R Kelly wasn't cheap – it was $75,000, plus travel costs, so we're talking $100,000 for a song. 'I personally rejected the song, because I didn't think it was a good song. Not just because of [his] reputation – this was around 1998, we had just begun to hear some of those things.' However, when we asked Mathew if the rumours surrounding R Kelly played a role in his decisions from then on, he said 'certainly, it was both of those things'. The music manager said: 'The girls were 15, 16. When they went to the bathroom, Tina would go with them. They did not leave our eyes.' Now we just have to wait and see if Dr Mathew will go into further detail with this musical. Metro.co.uk have contacted reps of Mathew Knowles for further comment. Got a showbiz story?If you've got a story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk Entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Mike Thalassitis' restaurant will open on 27 April and donate proceeds to CALM MORE: Kris Boyson 'tells Katie Price to stop going under the knife over fears for her health' Advertisement Advertisement
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| No letting go: Beyoncé moves black culture into the future - Royal Gazette Posted: 22 Apr 2019 04:09 AM PDT Published Apr 22, 2019 at 8:00 am (Updated Apr 22, 2019 at 4:19 pm)
"A classic in its own right." "Changed the game." "Flawless." That is just some of the effusive enthusiasm that greeted Beyoncé's cover of Before I Let Go. The song is a bonus track on her live album, Homecoming, which was released — unexpectedly — with her documentary of the same name that fleshes out her earth-stopping 2018 Coachella performance. This praise is richly deserved. As Pitchfork's Alphonse Pierre notes in his review, the song is ridiculously infectious, and it showcases Beyoncé's talent for putting out music that forces you to get up and dance. But what is most striking about the track is how it works as a sort of cultural talisman. Indeed, to label it a "cover" is, in some ways, so inapt that it almost feels misleading. Instead of merely rehashing a cherished black tune, one with deep roots in the communal past, Beyoncé's interpretation moves black culture into the future, offering a sonic tableau of tomorrow that is predicated on the yesterdays we have shared. In short, Beyoncé — as always, but especially on this song — preserves and pioneers. Understanding the resonance of Beyoncé's version of Before I Let Go requires looking at why the original is so significant. Released in 1981 by the soul band Frankie Beverly & Maze, the song quickly became a black cultural touchstone. Its lyrics agonise over a relationship that is on the verge of ending: "We were so close, our love was strong/ I can't understand it, where did we go wrong?" Beverly sings. "I won't be hasty, girl, I've got to know/ I want to make sure I'm right before I let go." Despite the weightiness of its words, the song is a bop: the bravado of the guitar, the strut of the synth, bolstered by Beverly's ethereal crooning. It's this joy, this lighter-than-air ecstasy, that has made the song a staple. For almost 40 years, Before I Let Go has featured prominently at black social gatherings such as the family cookout. The song's allure is hard to put into words and is perhaps best observed. It has the fascinating effect of drawing everyone, young and old alike, to the floor, pulled into doing the Electric Slide by the sheer groove of the song. The resulting mass of people can be described only as an embodiment of unified black bliss. In covering this black anthem, Beyoncé taps into a history that is bigger than the song itself, evoking the sense of euphoric nostalgia that comes with that tradition. "There's so much history in this one song," I texted a friend as I listened to her version for the first time, tearing up. "I remember listening to the original song with my dad when I was a kid," I wrote to another. I'm not alone: after the live album's release, a quick scan of social media revealed this track, in particular, was striking a powerful, visceral chord among many black listeners. True to form, Beyoncé's spin on the song transcends mere duplication. For one thing, her version has been repurposed with the rhythms of a pep rally — bringing it in line with the broader theme of her Coachella set. After we hear the cheers of the crowd, the horns, hand claps and high-hats kick in — it feels like half-time on game day at one of the historically black colleges and universities that took centre stage in the pop star's musical odyssey last year. For the next two minutes or so, Beyoncé sings a faithful rendition of Before I Let Go, making a meal of the lengthy note on the song's chorus, before switching gears and gliding into what some critics have pointed out is an interpolation of the popular 1986 song Candy, by the funk group Cameo, another cookout classic and a contender for Electric Slide favourite. It is here that Beyoncé pivots from lyrics about the past and nods to a future of black achievement she is creating. "I pull up to Coachella/ In boots with the goose feathers," she sings. "D'Ussé and champagne/ I did the damn thing." It's a boast, but it's true. With her acclaimed performance at Coachella in 2018, Beyoncé became the first black woman to headline the festival. In this light, she almost inverts the song's initial sentiment of departure — rather than leaving, she is arriving. If it wasn't clear before Coachella, it's unmistakable now that, in the music world, Beyoncé is the bar to surpass. But Beyoncé isn't interested in excelling on her own. "Queen" is the title fans apply to her, but as she continues to set the terms of the industry, she has an eye towards simultaneously lifting as much of her history and as many of her people as possible. "I brought the squad with me," she says, coolly, on Before I Let Go, referring both to her family and friends who shared the Coachella stage with her and to black audiences more generally. In her documentary, Beyoncé recalls of the festival: "When I decided to do Coachella, instead of me pulling out my flower crown, it was more important that I brought our culture." In short, when she is referring to and celebrating things such as her squad, she is thinking in terms of establishing a collective — a black collective of empowerment. Popular songs always inspire second lives: covers that bring the sentiments of the original to new generations of listeners. As Slate's music critic Carl Wilson wrote last year, "covers can stitch distant sound worlds together across genres or serve as acts of criticism, revealing aspects of the originals that their makers might never have suspected". In that sense, it should surprise no one that a song as beloved as Before I Let Go has the sort of afterlife it does. What makes Beyoncé's cover stand out is how firmly, and authentically, the pop star embraces the past — documenting and defending a culture that constantly wrestles with the twin pressures of appropriation and erasure — while also expanding that history. Ascending right along with her is an arena of blackness, emerging from years of mainstream dismissal. • Brandon Tensley is the associate editor at New America, a host of Slate's "Outward" podcast and a writer  |
| Beyonce gets emotional at GLAAD Awards, honors gay uncle who died of HIV - USA TODAY Posted: 29 Mar 2019 12:00 AM PDT CLOSE  Beyonce paid an emotional tribute to her uncle, and Jay-Z to his mother, as they accepted the Vanguard Award at the GLAAD Media Awards (29 March). AP LOS ANGELES – Beyonce got emotional Thursday night as she and husband Jay Z were honored for being allies to the LGBTQ community. "We're here to promote love for every human being," said Beyonce, taking the stage at the GLAAD Media Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Jay Z. "And change starts with supporting the people closest to you. So let's tell them they are loved. Let's remind them they are beautiful. Let's speak out and protect them. And parents, let's love our kids in their truest form." Presented with GLAAD's Vanguard Award, Beyonce paid an emotional tribute to her late Uncle Johnny, "the most fabulous gay man I have ever known," she said. Her uncle helped raise both her and sister Solange Knowles, she said. "He lived his truth. He was brave and unapologetic during a time when this country wasn't as accepting. And witnessing his battle with HIV was one of the most painful experiences I have ever lived," said Beyonce, choking up as Jay Z put his hand on her back. "I'm hopeful that his struggle served to open pathways for other people to live more freely." "LGBTQI rights are human rights. To choose who you love is your human right," added the pop star, before quoting her own song, "Formation." "Who you make love to and take that (expletive) to Red Lobster is your human right." The crowd cheered. Janet Mock and Lena Waithe were among those who toasted the couple at the event, where Sean Hayes was also honored and Gwyneth Paltrow served as a presenter. "When we heard your album '4:44' we all knew it was an instant classic, but the song 'Smile' made it revolutionary," said Waithe, referencing the track Jay Z featured his mother Gloria Carter on, revealing she is a lesbian. "The line 'Love who you love because life isn't guaranteed' is a line I will never forget," Waithe continued, calling the tune "a modern day negro spiritual reminder to those in hiding that there's still time to make their way to freedom." Still, it might have been Shangela who stole the whole night. The famed drag performer delivered an epic Beyonce tribute performance, mimicking the pop star's choreography move for move. And yes, Bey loved it. "I'm overwhelmed. I've put a run in my stocking from Shangela," said Beyonce afterward, as the crowd roared. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2019/03/29/beyonce-honors-gay-uncle-who-died-aids-glaad-awards/3308165002/  |
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