FORMATION…. HOW DID YOU FIGURE?

Saturday evening, I could not sleep. The weather was very hot and my sister was on the phone, discussing with her friend in a “daylight voice”. Past 10pm, I gave up the struggle to find the still elusive sleep and sought my phone instead. I quickly logged onto Twitter (I find Twitter is usually more fun at that time of the day), scrolling down my TL for the latest drama (Twitter is full of drama, its like a whole country on its own and the drama never ends).

I was not disappointed. I quickly found one. The trending issue was the just released abridged version of President Buhari’s interview with the Telegraph and a popular senator’s quick retort demanding for an apology from the president. A link to the abridged version is here. Of course, the full text of the interview was later released and more truths came to light of what the President actually said in his interview. Read the full text here. But this happened a couple of days later and in the meantime, there were debate points to be raised and shot down on Twitter spiced with witty responses and rude taunts.

In typical Twitter version, people had formed support groups: FOR or AGAINST. I picked one and dived into the fray. It was fun, really.

While all that was going on, I started to see random tweets about Beyonce and a new video. Just like that, she had dropped a new one… a song and a video. As my fellow tweeps would say… “We never experred it”. Gradually, more people started tweeting about Beyonce’s new song and video titled “Formation”.

The general consensus was it was “dope”and “lit”and “woke” and they talked about how Beyonce was so dynamic and “kept changing up her game”. The reviews were enormously positive. By morning, Beyonce had “Broken the Internet”.

I was not surprised, I mean this is Bey and all.

I finally had some time to look at the video on Sunday morning and emmm, I didn’t get it. For me, the song had no distinguishable lyrics. I could make no sense of neither verse, hook nor chorus. It seemed to me like she kept repeating one line all through. Formation, to me would not win any songwriter’s award. It also did nothing for her vocal abilities which I know to be pretty powerful.

The video was equally annoying. It had too much going on. Scarcely would I try to focus my eyes on one group of scantily clad female dancers jumping around, swinging their butt before another group of women doing the same thing, in another set of equally revealing costume would take over the stage. I did not get it and I was miffed.

It wasn’t until much later, after reading a few articles that really broke down the song, that I was able to get what was going on. It was a Black Power themed song.

It talked about the oppression Black people went through, their fight for freedom as well as her own personal travails in the entertainment industry. It urged black people to stay gracious and to focus on getting more successful. Some of her costume and that of her dancers for the video were a throwback to the Black Panther Party which was a movement from 1966 – 1982 (I checked Wikipedia for that). It also made references to ongoing police brutality.

Now I get to why I’m confused.

As a young Nigerian, it’s perfectly understandable that I did not get it at first. I’m not a black American. I’ve never lived in the US or understand its history. So, the question I’m ruminating on is this…. All the people who are neither Black American nor have any idea of their history, who talked about the song being lit and the video woke…. How did they figure?

What a wow.

Photocredit: www.vulture.com