Beyonce’s tribute to Southern Gothic Louisiana in “Lemonade”

Black death is a term used by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah to describe the continuous challenges black people face to succeed even slightest comparable to their white counterparts. It’s the loss and unfair treatment that puts black people at a disadvantage and makes fulfillment in life unreachable. Successful black people are tasked with the role to bring other black people up with them. In the words of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, “in my mind, three generations of progress would be undone by my vain commitment to tell stories about black people in a country where the black narrative was a quixotic notion at best. If I knew anything about being black in America it was that nothing was guaranteed.” As a successful black woman in a political climate where outward racism is making a comeback, Beyoncé feels the need to be assertive and unapologetic in her blackness. In 2016 she released an album called “Lemonade” where she acknowledged the infidelity of her husband, Jay-Z, and used historic and folkloric references to Black figures. In the video for her song, “Daddy Lessons” she is wearing a traditional southern gown and is singing in a style most associated with country music. Another example of pulling from historical black sources and folklore is, “Hold Up,’ the album’s second single, Beyoncé appears as Oshun, a Yoruba water goddess of female sensuality, love and fertility” (PBS). In her song “Formation,” she says, “My daddy Alabama / Mama Louisiana / You mix that Negro with that Creole make a Texas bama.” This is a nod to her roots and to Southern Louisiana. The video for her song, “Sorry” “Beyoncé is joined by fellow women on a bus called “Boy Bye,” their faces painted in Ori, a sacred Yoruba tradition” (PBS).

Much of the album is a message to young black women to love themselves and celebrate her family’s history. One PBS article questions, “What does an-hour long visual album rich in African and southern African-American tradition do, beyond get people talking?” They state that “Yeboah said it sends a message to young women of color to continue to strive and move forward.” To continue, PBS goes on to say that “some things in the film that just aren’t that deep but are still powerful. Whether you’re 21, 31 or 12, this empowers a woman.” Not everyone took Beyoncé’s desire to be authentic and uplifting in a positive way. Professor Tyina Steptoe writes, “Some white fans reacted angrily… the hashtag #BoycottBeyonce circulated on social media… ‘Saturday Night Live’ spoofed negative white reaction with a video called “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black.” To her fans and critics, it was clear that Beyoncé has made her racial identity and modern racial politics central to her public image in 2016.” according to one PBS article, “Throughout the visual album, the use of natural hairstyles and clothing, neck jewelry and beading draws inspiration from Nigeria and the Maasai of Kenya.” In Beyoncé’s 2008 song, “Creole,” she says, “so all my red bones get on the floor / And all my yellow bones get on the floor / And all my brown bones get on the floor / Then you mix it up and you call it Creole.” The backlash that came with Beyoncé’s black recognition were caused because “these are not words or images typically associated with Queen Bey” (Steptoe). Steptoe writes that “In both ‘Creole’ and ‘Formation,’ Beyoncé positions herself as a mixture of different places and colors. That heritage, however, does not negate the fact that she is a black woman.

Blackness is a broad enough spectrum to encompass a Creole ethnic identity.” Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” gathers a community of black women in comparison to Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved in that “Before her death, Beloved’s grandmother, Baby Suggs, models the achievement of embodiedness through community” (Cothren 148). This inequality is “one of the most important themes of the Southern Gothic, and its victims are consistently African Americans” (Cothren 10). Beyoncé’s Lemonade is reflective and considered to be a “visual landscape [that is] is packed tightly with a consistent iconography of black Southern women’s history and movement through the rural and urban Souths of the past and present” (Robinson). She shot multiple scenes in Algiers Neighborhood, a section of Southern Louisiana that is famed for being the birthplace of some jazz music and historically black churches that sculpted black history for freed slaves in the south. As an artist, she chose historic black neighborhoods to film in Southern Louisiana to pay homage to her heritage there. The authenticity and thought behind each element of the visual album is inspiring and highlights Beyoncé as more than a singer but as an artist. By embracing her Southern Louisiana roots she inspired other black women to do the same. Beyoncé references Creole culture to acknowledge her Creole heritage and inspire other black women to embrace themselves.