When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster... cause I slay. And with that 1 line, Bey had people RUNNING TO RED LOBSTER.
Once again, B comes out of nowhere and interrupts everyone's week for the better. This song is so powerful and so damn catchy (Thank u Mike Will).
Let's go into the making of/fashion/art direction because Beyonce is the best at everything she does, and that has a lot to do with the team she surrounds herself with.
Direction: Though originally misreported as having been self-directed by Beyoncé, "Formation's" actual director is none other than Melina Matsoukas. She won a Grammy for directing Rihanna's "We Found Love" video, and has directed eight other Beyoncé videos since 2007, most recently "Pretty Hurts."
Fashion: The video was styled by the Cut contributing editor and former Cosmopolitan fashion market director Shiona Turini; Nigerian-American designer Ade Samuel; and stylist Marni x Marni. Learn more about the complete wardrobe from Man Repeller.
Producers/Songwriters: Though you won't hear his famous drop on the beat's introduction, "Formation" was produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, who tweeted after the song's release, "Always wanted to work with Beyoncé and after working with her I respect her on even more levels than I knew she was on... Real ARTist Fr." Yonce's co-writer on the track was Swae Lee of rap duo Rae Sremmurd. More from Vulture.
Now, let's go into the message.
Beyonce is not afraid of being political. She has attended numerous protests against police brutality, and in case you haven't already heard, Fox News is outraged by her Super Bowl performance and its references to the Black Panther Party. Cry me a river, O'Reilly, get back to more important things like the War on Christmas. You and Megyn Kelly have 10 months to plan your next segments on how Jesus was white... Anyway...
Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley writes for Time,
This song is all about the pleasures of having a black female body and owning it. “Cocky fresh” Bey calls her black feminist aesthetic. Cocky, as in enjoying pleasure with a sense of controlling her own sexuality that’s usually reserved for men.
Bey revels in her Southernness black womanness: “I like my baby hair, with baby hairs and afros,” she drawls, singing her love not only of black girls’ kinky, coily and curly hair but also of black Southern women’s speech. Yes, Beyonce’s black feminism is a politics of the pleasures reserved for black women: our country roots, our nappy roots, our Cheddar Bay Biscuits, our well-eaten cake by the pound.
But don’t get it twisted: Bey’s black feminism isn’t only for cis-women. The song starts with a voiceover from Messy Mya, killed in an unsolved transphobic murder in 2010, who tells us “Bitch, I’m back by popular demand.” Femme and fabulous, Beyonce’s formation loves and celebrates the art of black femininity in every kind of body brave enough to own it.
Most of all, Beyonce’s black feminism celebrates conjure women and the magic they wield.
NPR's Mandalit del Barco highlights reactions to the video:
The images are very much an homage to the black South... Louisiana is this famous slave port, where so many cultures came together and mixed, but also she references the site of Katrina, where this horrible crime was committed against black people; where its nation didn't show up for us and where this generation is having to learn that its nation continues to not show up for us. And in that, she's both centering black women — her formation is one of black women, who are proudly wearing their natural hair, and she makes a circle amongst her daughter and three girls, which is a little bit of magic and conjuring. But there's also, you know, the centering of queer folks and trans folk, and both by the vocals that we hear and of what we visually see. And that has very much been an intentional thing that's been happening in this new Black Lives Matter movement. From the very outset, there was real messaging that talked about centering queer folks and black women in leadership. So it's really amazing to see all of that reflected back to us in a Beyonce video.
I think that the image with the boy who's basically conducting a police lineup is magic. This is about them being in a trance, and them having to do what they usually try to make him do, which is put their hands up. The next cut about "Stop shooting us," it's not the black power moment that we got in the late '60s and '70s, which she referenced on the actual Super Bowl day, with the Black Panther beret, but it is absolutely a message that comes straight out of Ferguson: "Hands up, don't shoot." I think it was incredibly powerful. I think it was also a nod to Tamir Rice, you know. It's about a black visionary, a black future [where] we are imagining ourselves having power, and magic. And I think it's beautiful.
She showed up to the Trayvon Martin rally and met his parents, but that was disastrous for she and her husband. All of the eyes, which should have been on the dais, and they were all looking at Jay and Bey, who were kind of standing to the side of the stage. They understand what a distraction they can be. But this is all value add; this video "Formation" is not a distraction. It is a beautiful centering and a beautiful conjuring.
Beyonce created an anthem, a visual anthem in every way. And that's been beautiful to see. And it's been beautiful to see other artists kind of wake up around this and realize that this isn't going to cost them to put this kind of messaging forward; that it's actually going to benefit them.
