As someone who invented the concept of the surprise album drop (sorry Taylor) and the visual accompaniment that goes with it, Beyoncé altered music history in 2013 with her self-titled album that engaged the aforementioned two concepts, generating such hits as “Pretty Hurts,” Partition,” “Jealous,” “Drunk In Love” and “Flawless.” In 2016, she would do the same again with Lemonade, taking the stunning visuals of what she did in 2013 and tailoring them not only to what the media likes to neatly classify as “the black experience,” but, more specifically, to the motif of a woman scorned after her man (Jay-Z) cheats on her. After such a pièce de résistance, it was difficult for audiences, least of all critics, to imagine Beyoncé could top herself after something so epic.
And sure, afterward she released new music, including the soundtrack inspired by The Lion King remake (in which she provided the voice for Nala), called The Lion King: The Gift. And yet, the music itself wasn’t exactly, shall we say, as “resonant” as what we heard on Lemonade or even her collaboration album with Jay-Z, Everything Is Love. That Yoncé chose the non-Top 40 catering “Spirit” as the lead single to promote the record wasn’t going to do anything to cajole listeners into the world of the new Lion King either (apart from her diehard Beyhive fans, obviously). Yet, “Spirit,” just like all the other songs on the soundtrack, is imbued with entirely new life and cachet when seen rendered to film for Black Is King, the Disney-approved project (though one can only imagine the expression on Walt’s face from beyond the grave) Bey has been working on for the past year, long before COVID came along to fuck up such things as being able to execute a film shoot without even more red tape. It also seems all too fortuitous that the visual album should be released now, a year after The Lion King came and went in the world of pop culture relevancy, amid the reigniting of the Black Lives Matter movement. As though Beyoncé wanted to offer some source of light and positivity amid a world that continues to make black people feel unheard, invisible. Hence, the need to bring back the tactics of the civil rights protests of the 1960s.
That part of black marginalization has always stemmed from an inherently racist U.S. population believing that African Americans are just that–African, therefore “foreign”–is a topic of major pertinence in Black Is King. While some have tried to accuse Beyoncé of perpetuating antiquated stereotypes of Africa, complete with tribal body paint and headdresses, the chanteuse incorporates many elements of past and present in her visuals to iterate the point that, more than any other people, it is Black men and women whose history has caused such feelings of displacement. An identity that was ripped from them from the moment the first Africans were tossed onto slave ships like inanimate “material goods.” Starting from the opening shot of Beyoncé walking tranquilly along a deserted shoreline as she delves into “Bigger” (after the “Balance” intro from James Earl Jones, continuing to provide the voice of Mufasa as he did in the animated film), her aim to tell her black audience, no matter what age, “Life is your birthright, they hid that in the fine print/Take the pen and rewrite it/Step out your estimate/Step in your essence and know that you’re excellent” is established from Act One of the narrative.
The varied tableaus of Black Is King range from that first water scene to the deserts of Africa to the all-white funeral (how symbolic) of a fallen royal to the posh maison of a diva are, in part, so varied because of the array of directors Bey worked with to achieve the sweeping, “saga-like” feel of the one hour, twenty-five minute journey. Among the cabal of directors is Ghanian-Dutch filmmaker Emmanuel Adjei, who also recently worked on Madonna’s “Dark Ballet” video starring Mykki Blanco as a modern Joan of Arc. Within the framework of this film, that modern Joan of Arc is the young king himself, cast out of his kingdom by a nefarious manipulator who has made him feel “less than” for the sake of taking the power for himself. If one can see the easy correlation between how Whites have treated Blacks for centuries in America and beyond, it’s because it is, in fact, easy to make.
And yet, sometimes, like Beyoncé, all one can do is be “unbothered” by the rampant hate being hurled one’s way, as she exhibits most playfully during one of the standouts of Black Is King, “MOOD 4EVA.” Waking up in a palatial mansion with a MOOD… or rather, a sleep mask that says “MOOD” on it (cue the merchandise opportunities), she goes about her day in relaxed tranquility–complete with a white male butler (which feels most assuredly more political when Bey wields the trope) to do her bidding. Naturally, what would any Beyoncé visual album be without the presence of Jay-Z, who makes his appearance during this segment to sing his rap–though it looks as though he’s literally been dug up to do it. Jay, of course, isn’t the only one to make a cameo in the film, with Yoncé seizing on the opportunity to get the likes of fellow Destiny’s Child member Kelly Rowland (alas, Michelle was shafted), Naomi Campbell and Lupita Nyong’o to appear in the cotillion-themed segment for “Brown Skin Girl.”
Also there to make her presence known again is Blue Ivy Carter, who offers her vocals throughout this track because why wouldn’t she want to become a Beyoncé in training (which is probably why her mother fought to trademark her name)? It is in this moment, and many others, that Bey takes her chance to highlight the importance of queens as much as kings, with one interlude remarking upon how women have taught more about manhood than men themselves. In “Brown Skin Girl,” Beyoncé additionally reminds that the woman of color is stronger than any other being, her “back against the world” for so long she’s created her own. And, to do so, the necessity of getting in touch with one’s ancestry to piece together the sense of place and identity that the U.S. never gave its black denizens has been essential. For, as it is said during the end of “Nile” featuring Kendrick Lamar (who, unfortunately, does not cameo), “When it’s all said and done, I don’t even know my own native tongue, and if I can’t speak myself, I can’t think myself, and if I can’t think myself I can’t be myself and if I can’t be myself I will never know me, so, Uncle Sam, tell me this: if I will never know me, how can you?”
This point about Black displacement and the stamping out of identity is underscored repeatedly throughout, with another moment narrated by a male voice offering, “People don’t remember who they were, what they were, where they were taken from, why people tried so hard to make us forget.” Elsewhere, Beyoncé laments that the the absence of a reflection in society has been the norm in the Black community “for so long, it might make you wonder if you even truly exist.” Black Is King serves to remind that you do. A love letter to black excellence and its origins in general (as was the recently released “Black Parade”–alas, only played during the credits instead of given a visual), and to her only son, Sir, in particular (complete with dedication at the end), all Beyoncé seems to want is the best for her brethren.
Rarely being the case in her career, the film has been met with some eye rolling on a few people’s parts, accusing Bey of wielding “Wakandafication” for the sake of appealing to the non-black masses. Such critics include University of Oxford researcher and Black feminist historian Jade Bentil, who commented, “The repeated tropes/symbolic gestures that homogenise and essentialise thousands of African cultures in service of securing the terrain for Black capitalist possibilities and futures is tired.” As well as a similar critique from Afro-political feminist Judicaelle Irakoze, who noted, “You can love Beyoncé and criticize the harm her art creates when it appropriates African cultures and glorifies them under black capitalism. [I want her] to use her power and status not to glorify Africanness rooted in the power game against the white gaze.” And yes, there are brief moments of discomfort when one can tell Beyoncé genuinely believes herself to be the all-encompassing embodiment of Africa itself as she appears in an all-white ensemble speaking in one of its many languages. But it’s important to remember that while Bey is among the most prominent representatives of “Blackness,” particularly to white folk, she is not the final word on what that means. Nor, least of all, what Africa “means.”
That aside, it’s impossible to tear her down in any way for the stunning visuals provided, a sumptuous odyssey that effortlessly matches, even tops, both her self-titled and Lemonade visual albums. Concluding with “Spirit,” delivered at first in an a capella mode as she stands amid a choir, one is hard-pressed to ever say that Bey doesn’t consistently show all the way up… which, perhaps, is why she can’t be bothered with too much of a promotional blitzkrieg beforehand (hence her mastery in the art of the surprise drop). The work she puts in speaks for itself.
In spite of the undeniable brilliance of the film, one can still imagine an outraged Karen or Chad type saying that one would never be allowed to name something White Is King amid this “liberal culture war.” Well, that’s probably true. But maybe because it’s finally time for a new hue to reign–one that has for too long been forced to “exist in nature without any light at all.”
