Beyonce's Pray You Catch Me

Beyoncé is a singer known for her fantastic voice, rejuvenating dance moves, and most importantly her empowering throughout her songs. These skills are no different in her song “Pretty Hurts.” Released on June 10, 2014, from her self-titled album Beyoncé, the song written by Sia, Joshua “Ammo” Coleman, and Beyoncé herself resonates its empowering message with people of all different genders, body types, and races. This song, in particular, is targeted towards women, especially young women who are still developing. Beyoncé gained popularity when she started off in an all-female group named Destiny’s Child back in 1997, and once she broke off from the group, she only continued to grow as an artist and person. In all six of Beyoncé’s solo studio albums, there are songs with galvanizing messages of female power and all of them reached number 1 on the charts. In Beyoncé’s song “Pretty Hurts,” she uses social issues, rhetorical appeals such as pathos, literary devices, metaphors, and vivid imagery to further the theme of female empowerment.

Beyoncé Knowles’s Lemonade video album brings the words of Beyoncé into a visual media and shows the viewer a deeper meaning behind the album. After this video came out many articles came forward analyzing Lemonade. One article, in particular, that was intriguing is Bell Hooks “Moving Beyond Pain.” Hooks starts her article saying that the Lemonade video was created as a money-making, business strategy, but as the text continues the reader can conclude that “Moving Beyond Pain” is actually about African American women, and women in general, standing up for themselves.

In a world where vapid bubble-gum pop songs garner the most Youtube hits, radio requests, and overall attention from today’s youth, it is shocking to think that a pop music icon could release such a thought-provoking song. Contrary to the quintessential 21st century radio hits, Rihanna’s 2008 single entitled “Disturbia” challenges listeners to look beyond captivating beats and an irrefutably alluring hook. Beneath the rhythmically appealing instrumentals lies a series of ominous lyrics that would assuredly frighten the listeners if they comprehended these lines on a deeper level. The speaker explores themes of mental illness and Hollywood infamy and employs a desperate tone that begs the listener for assistance.

Unlike many other mainstream artists, Kendrick Lamar attaches great importance to the lyrics of his songs. Lamar’s song “DNA”, released last April, became a real breakthrough in the world of hip-hop music. In this song, Lamar reflects on various social issues faced by the modern African-American community of the USA. The song’s lyrics, as well as the music video, portrays the most common stereotypes and biases labeled to the African-American community. The central aim of the song is to sarcastically demonstrate the image of African-Americans as they are viewed by biased media. By the use of symbolical sarcasm and double meanings, Lamar underlines the acuteness of the race inequality that remains existing in the modern America.

Beyoncé Knowles, a well-known singer, songwriter uses two of her songs: “Freedom” and “Formation” to tell the story of herself. “Freedom” is the beginning of her story where she is searching for freedom and equality showing that there is still much inequality and injustice for African Americans in America today. The song slowly transitions to a more positive tone when she seems to have made something beneficial out of her difficult situation. “Formation,” however, has a completely different tone. While she does address negative situations from the past at the beginning of the song, she quickly transitions to a more positive tone full of pride in where she came from, who she has become, and what she has overcome. Together, the two songs

One of the most prominent visuals in Lemonade is the setting of New Orleans, Louisiana. In current times, New Orleans is most closely associated with the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2004, in which a strong hurricane devastated the city and left many killed, injured, or homeless. There was national criticism of the government’s handling of Katrina, stating that the government took too long to respond to the crisis due to the city being mostly populated by blacks. However, this is not the only aspect of New Orleans that is central to Lemonade’s narrative. The video also shows staples of the old American South during the time of slavery, such as plantation homes and slave quarters. In this setting, Beyoncé indulges a fantasy of an all-black utopia dominated by women, who dress up, take photographs, and

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" this is an old phrase used to inspire hopefulness and an encouraging, positive can-do attitude in the wake of hardship or disaster. Lemons symbolize the inevitable sourness or difficulties in life, while lemonade is the sweet drink that is the product of the lemons. Often life offers trivial disappointments with almost no explanation and sometimes it seems almost impossible to break the misfortunate spell. However, for some people, each mishap in their lives leave them not only perplexed but eager to see the glass half full rather than empty. Beyoncé is a prime example of making the best out of a bitter situation. On April 23, 2016, Beyonce released her groundbreaking fully visual album “Lemonade”. Lemonade debuted as number one album on the billboard charts and allowed Beyoncé to have the biggest first-week sales count. Nevertheless, with greatness comes a few flaws and “Lemonade” was no stranger to faults. To some, “Lemonade” was the cultural awakening that they needed but for many it was the conversation starter that would strike both emotionally and politically which is why it is such a powerful album but an even more important conversational piece.

This song displays the traditional messages sent by male artists. What about female artists? What do their songs portray? Andsager and Roe’s findings give a good description. According to them, there are two kinds of female artists. The strong, more established female artists portray women as “fully equal.” These women are in their thirties at least, they are more established, and they dress in casual suits. They sang romance, female emancipation, and heartbreak like the rest, but they did not compromise their image in their videos. They use Trisha Yearwood as an example in her song Everybody Knows. The other type, were women who “fell into the lowest level on the consciousness scale.” They used Deana Carter’s song We Danced Anyway as an example. In this song she rolled on the beach in a wet t-shirt. Another one is Faith Hill’s song Breathe. In this song, Hill is seen rolling around in her bed sheets with no clothes on.

In 1982, Michael Jackson released one of the most iconic songs/music videos the world has ever seen. “Thriller” is a Halloween classic, and has been a hit since the day it was released. The Thriller Music video is roughly 13 minutes long, and is classified as a “short film”. 34 years later, the iconic Beyoncé released her album “Lemonade.” Lemonade is made up of 12 songs, and each song has its own separate video, but all the videos somehow connect and the videos were turned into an hour-long film. For this blog, I will compare/contrast the two videos.

Beyonce is an African American female artist making incorporating empowering messages for women around the world. She is creating work that speaks to an audience that might not receive authentic mainstream. Beyonce ultimate goal is to visually and sonically entice wisdom through her music. Recently in a shocking video release, Beyonce debuted a new song “Formation” as well as a politically charged music video. This song was an uproar in the music industry worldwide. Millions of people around the world negatively viewed this song as a controversy. The music video and song caused many people to debate and cause a worldwide conflict.

Kendrick Lamar took the music industry by storm last year after his release of his sophomore album To Pimp A Butterfly. Immediately, the album quickly became critically acclaimed and resulted in multiple awards such as winning four grammys this past winter. The album goes deep into Kendrick’s personal struggles as new found celebrity, while also touching on subjects surrounding the black community. For this paper I took a look at the standout song off the album Institutionalized, that deals with the internal struggle people go through in life because of the barriers of thinking they are imprisoned to in their lives. Along with this, the song also has elements that tie

The author of the album LEMONADE is R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Her background sort of does create bias, because she is mostly known for writing love/breakup songs. The authority that I can attribute to her is power. She is a very well known in music and entertainment. I believe the purpose of this album was to tell a story of how you can take all of your obstacles in life and turn them into something great. The title and message says when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It also has other messages that coincide with each song along with the visuals. Current and past events most definitely could have inspired this work. Such as, her marriage, her parent’s marriage and life in general. The intended audience is obviously her fans but it can also be for people who has had similar dilemmas. She displays her tone by the melody of the music along with the lyrics. The visuals also send the tone of the message.

At this moment, Kendrick’s monologue addresses the battle encountered by African Americans today and the frustration that comes with wanting and deserving more than they have. The backing vocals in this section of the song imply that American society wants African Americans to submit to it and praise it, even though many of them have suffered from it. This introduction signifies how dazed society is to the black people and how there is a constant battle between

On February 15, 2016, Kendrick Lamar took the stage at the 2016 Grammy Awards show. Shackled in chains, he moved lethargically across the stage in a prison uniform. Words began to stream out of his mouth and I imagined the elephant that filled the room as an unapologetically black male made a statement to the world about African American oppression in the United States. Kendrick Lamar’s showcase included an intricate set that addressed social issues such as mass incarceration with song, “The Blacker the Berry”, while keeping hope towards better days with song “Alright”. The elaborate performance on February 15, 2016 would be a performance that will go down in history. An artist used his platform to discuss important issues in the United States to a diverse audience. With so much passion invested into the song, it was almost impossible to pick any other song besides “The Blacker the Berry”, as it discusses a wide range of issues within the United States, especially related to the black body.

While on her previous albums, Beyoncé was trying to empower all women, on Lemonade, Beyoncé speaks directly to black women. “As Jacqui Germain astutely noted on feministing.com, ‘Beyonce using the specific cultural marker of ‘Becky,’ [a social trope for white womanhood] in Lemonade is less a question of who’s excluding whom and why, and more so just us watching Beyonce be the ... multi-layered Black woman’” (Thompson, C., 2016). It was through this album that Beyoncé changed how the public thought of her. She was no longer afraid to not fully share what she wanted to say about current culture, and finally talked straight to black women to raise them up. It was also through this album that Beyoncé changed her image. Before her sixth album, Beyoncé definitely had feminist songs, but with Lemonade, she used rage to share her message, a message telling women that even after getting married, a man may not always be right for