Beyoncé’s Renaissance Proclaims Blackness and Black Sound Beyond Mainstream Borders

Rasheena Fountain
Climate Conscious Collabs
6 min readAug 5, 2022

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I do feel intentionality in Renaissance, an explicit conversation with Blackness across the diaspora. I hear an unruly, Black creative expression and deliberation on sustenance and Black futures that embraces the moods and grooves that connect us all.

Photo by Marcela Laskoski on Unsplash

Beyoncé’s seventh studio album Act I: Renaissance took me places. I am interested in the aspirations in those destinations and the company she is keeping as she takes flight. I don’t like to just jump on the bandwagon and Beyonce’s music and new album Renaissance is no exception. She drops hits, but I’ve never been a super fan. I lean toward digging in vinyl crates for obscure white label records and appreciating musical expression outside of the small window that popular radio often affords. I originally got my start in the early to mid 2000s in Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, when I found underground sounds across the Black diaspora: Grime, UK garage, drum and bass, house, reggae and dancehall. When picking records for the dance floor, I was interested in the world building of the musical experience. I DJ less than I once did. As a musician, and someone studying environment, Black studies, and music, I appreciate songs that take folks to places — geographically and in the imaginary — and songs that provide insights about space and place through…

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Rasheena Fountain
Climate Conscious Collabs

an artist, growing scholar, musician, poet, and essayist with focus on Black environmental memory, literature, migration studies, and blues/other Black music.