When Beyoncé says something, people listen. When she planted her iconic silhouette squarely in front of a towering screen that simply read “feminist,” thousands of essays and think pieces followed. When she sang, “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation,” everyone heeded; whether they were boycotting her or queuing up for her then-record-breaking Formation World Tour, people fell in line. Last year, when Queen Bey requested that attendees of the last few shows of her historic Renaissance World Tour wear their “most fabulous silver fashions,” they packed stadiums dressed in outfits shinier than a disco ball. As per The New York Times, searches for silver clothes and sparkly, mirrored cowboy hats increased by 25% that same week.
We listen to Beyoncé because she’s one of the most important artists of our time and very arguably our greatest living entertainer. But we also listen to Beyoncé because – at least since 2013 – she is notoriously silent. Silence, of course, is a part of the present-day Beyoncé brand. How else would the First Lady of Music, deemed as such by one Clive Davis, flawlessly execute her industry-shifting surprise drops or differentiate herself from the hordes of pop stars bending to the algorithmic whim of TikTok and the like?
Because Beyoncé says very little – and when she does, it’s normally in a very highly curated setting – we collectively project a lot onto her. And we also take her fans’ musings and theories as something of an extension of her artistic intention and the inner workings of Parkwood Entertainment, her production company. This curious phenomenon – the idea that through her current sting of releases, Beyoncé is “reclaiming” whitewashed genres — ran parallel to the entire Renaissance era, and now it’s trickling into Act II. That idea, however, glosses over the contributions of Black artists who have been holding down these genres before the Renaissance trilogy…
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