Brooke Obie Reviews ‘Black Is King’ for Esquire and Film Streams
On Aug 11, 2020, Brooke’s piece Beyonce’s Black Is King Offers a Blueprint for Decolonizing Black Masculinity was published on Esquire Magazine:
In April 2016, Beyoncé stopped the world with the drop of her visual album Lemonade.
Though the film chronicled Beyoncé’s cycle of grief and healing after her husband Jay-Z’s infidelity, Lemonade is much more than the diary of a woman scorned. It was an exorcism of generational curses and a recipe to decolonize both romantic love and self-image. Black women around the world converged on Twitter to bask in Beyoncé’s celebration of Blackness and the power of motherhood, sisterhood and spirituality, both ancient and new, to help heal inherited wounds.
In the week after Lemonade, Damon Young of Very Smart Brothas put together a list of Black male artists with the potential to meet the moment and create a Lemonade for Black men. Rappers like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and even Mrs. Carter’s husband were mentioned as possible contenders who had the stature and skill to create art for Black men at a similar level.
But in the four years since Lemonade, no one picked up the baton. Even 4:44, Jay-Z’s musical response to Lemonade where he admitted his infidelity and documented his growth as a husband, father and dedicated capitalist, didn’t come close. Since Beyoncé is in her own stratosphere, competing against only herself anyway, it seems fitting that she answer her own call.
“I feel like I’m not a king yet,” an unidentified Black American man speaks as her new visual album Black Is King opens. His voice is disconnected from his body, floating over black opening credits, echoing his disconnection from the Continent of his ancestors, stolen through the terror of American slavery. His humanity has been stripped away, generation after generation after generation—but it’s not the end of his story. “But, like, I got potential for it, you feel me?” He says. “But sometimes, I don’t know how to navigate.”
With the stunning Black Is King, Beyoncé has made another blueprint, a Lemonade for Black men.
Read the whole article on Esquire.com.
Also on Aug 11, Brooke spoke on a panel for Film Streams about Black Is King, featuring Solange’s choreographer Maya Taylor and artist Cameron Granger. Watch the panel in full below:
Thank you for your insightful comments, Brooke Obie. I am writing a scholarly paper on this issue too, so your work is greatly appreciated!
Thank you for reading! Always happy to be cited and quoted in academic research!