Beyonce's Formation World Tour came to Tampa Friday night and I wasn't in attendance. And my whole entire blog is named after one of her songs, so naturally I chose Beyonce and wrote my song about Formation to fill the little void in my heart, and to make writing the darn thing more bearable.
Note that this paper is a tiny bit on the longer side, and much longer than any regular blog post that I would put up. This is just one of the few papers that I had to write this semester that wasn't a total buzzkill so I thought I would share. Most of it is just lyrical analysis with just a bit of application in between and at the end.
Some would argue
that it is an artist’s responsibility to discuss and shed light on social
issues through their work. Within the past decade the topic of police brutality
has garnered America’s attention and the discussion of racial inequality and
race relations has also become a front-runner for heated discussions. In a
world where black lives are systematically and sometimes intentionally targeted
it is important to empower black individuals to let them know that they do
matter. It is also important to take pride in being black, and to let others
know that black is just as beautiful as everyone else. BeyoncĂ©’s ‘Formation’
does just that. Released in early 2016 and written by Khalif brown, Jordan
Frost, Ashton Hogan, Michael Williams II, and Beyoncé Knowles and produced by
Mike Will Made It and Puss, Formation is unapologetically black and celebrates
embracing black culture while calling on black women to stick together. The
song falls within the Bounce genre, which is a style of hip-hop that originated
in New Orleans, where much of the song’s references and video stem from.