Beyonce’s Black power ‘Formation’

Beyonce is making it a habit to drop songs on us out of the blue.

As some of you may know she did this with her latest song, ‘Formation’, which brought the internet into a worldwide tail spin.

This track is a quintessentially about empowerment. And in particularly empowerment to Black women, Black LGBT and Black children everywhere.

‘Formation’ highlights the poor Black South including those parts of New Orleans that are still overlooked in the city's rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. There’s homage to African American history and ancestors linking them with the struggles many face today.

Beyonce, used the biggest TV platform - the Super bowl halftime show - to perform ‘Formation’.

Not content with having a powerful song, she showcased her track with Black panther leather costumes, while her clique of 30 black women were seen in their curly afros and Panther beret. To the shock horror of the conservative right wing, Fox News, the dance troupe blended southern dance styles with raised fists symbolizing a revolution and empowerment. The video and performance has caused the Internet to go insane, but personally I can’t say I am surprised with certain aspects of ‘white outrage.’

‘Formation’ is a call for all Black women to love themselves. She created a video that makes us remember Jim Crowe, Hurricane Katrina, our ancestors and police brutality¬—all of which shaped black lives in America. This anthem shows that she is in support and solidarity with us. This pro-Black trap song is the new the Negro Anthem. Negro, a black word that makes others uncomfortable, but Beyonce just made that word ours again.

Most Americans have come to accept Beyonce as an international superstar, but now from certain quarters there’s a backlash. But she doesn’t care; instead she is unapologetically embracing her blackness rather than toning it down. During the Superbowl event the whole show is focused on football and commercials, but Queen B managed to “slay” this Negro Anthem and make it the highlight of the night.

A majority of Black people in the US hailed from people enslaved, who were forced to come and live in a culture that dehumanized them and shut them out from the mainstream world. For years, Africans were living in a country where their pain and their culture were, and still are, appropriated for the White majority to consume on their own will.

Today, we are in a Black cultural movement where powerful Black artists such as Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, are narrating our untold stories and our struggles through art and music. Some people are becoming uncomfortable on how they are being portrayed, but it is now time for them to sit back and listen.

Beyonce’s Superbowl performance couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s Black history month, Trayvon Martin’s birthday, the day before Sandra Bland’s birthday and the Black Panther’s 50th anniversary. The Black Panther Party was founded in 1966, made up of primarily men, but in the 70’s it reached a female majority. However, females were regulated in the movement itself and were considered irrelevant. Using Black women in her performance acknowledges their role in the fight for civil rights and symbolises the empowerment of Black women and a new revolution; ‘Black Lives Matter’.

I will save you the time and not go into depth about the video, but since the use of the police car caused so much controversy I will say this. Beyonce using the weight of her body to sink the police car in the water signifies a baptism, a call for a rebirth of a new nation.

A nation without police brutality. A nation where it is okay to rock an Afro and culture is not appropriated. A nation where it’s okay to be Black. Beyonce created an anthem in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. In the words of Dr. Zandria F. Robinson, this song is “the turn up before the social movement”.

Briana Bell