What Is Beyonce's Song 'Formation'

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.

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

The main purpose of Beyoncé’s songs is to emphasise feminism and invigorate gender equality through her lyrics. She does so by using by conveying feminist philosophy in her lyrics. In Run the World, Beyoncé sings “strong enough to bear the children, then get back to business.” Figurative language is used to express be that women give birth however then after they proceed to work. Throughout the song used is both repetition and rhetorical question as this is how Beyoncé portrays the women empowerment theme, domination as well as confidence in her tone whilst preaching the line “Girls, we run this motha (yeah!)” and “Who run the world? Girls!”. Having expressed the line “My persuasion can build he nation” Beyoncé is building women up by speaking

All, of the dancers in this music video are African-American, and it is very clear. None of their hair is straightened, they are all in Black Panther-esque outfits, and they are “unapologetically black.” The concept of this video is head-on addressing systemic racism. An obvious example is the dancers but there are also many more. For one, the opening scene, as referenced earlier, includes Beyoncé herself standing on a police car flooded in water while a clip saying “What happened in the New Orleans?” plays in the background. This artist is using her platform to bring attention to the hurricane in New Orleans and how there was little to nothing done by police there. She is calling out the system in this video.

For nearly twenty years, Beyoncé has lived her life in the public eye yet she has always kept her cool, been submissive, and rather quiet when it came to her personal endeavors however after releasing the film “Lemonade”, we are able to see her in a vulnerable light. In Jeremy Helliger’s article: “Dear Beyhive: Stop Whining. Beyoncé Still Hasn’t Earned Her Album Of The Year Grammy” he addresses the idea that although Beyoncé was able to encourage black women to be proud and free, she also she missed the mark by adding raunchy, over the top content to her vulnerability.

Beyoncé recently released her music video on Saturday February 6, 2016. Beyoncé 's "Formation" video forms messages in text and visuals that fits today 's social issues. They call attention to the audience mainly for women and Black America. This piece of rhetoric creates meaning in society by giving us events and visuals to help the

It also happened to be a guidance for that particular group of women on how to get over situations and heartbreaks. As for the video, it was another one of her forms for getting in touch with women’s feelings, being that it showed her resilience. By Beyoncé displaying resilience to women, they had hope in getting better and getting over their hardships. Being able to see how another woman handles situations that the audience has been through allows listeners to be able to learn from their experiences and possibly follow their

While most of the lyrics in Beyoncé’s “Formation” music video are bold statements and used to represent social issues amongst Black America, it can be vividly seen the video uses several rhetorical approaches and signs to present the answer to the initial question: “What happened after New Orleans?” This scene also has Beyoncé standing on top of a New Orleans Police Department vehicle while surrounded by flooding water, which we’re led to believe is part of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Logos is established when Beyoncé addresses the rumors that she’s a part of the illuminate. This is the first time we’ve heard the starlet mention it since there have been hundreds of accusations linking her, Jay Z, Chris Brown and other black celebrities to the possible secret society. By her recognizing the rumor and attempting to dissolve it to present a great issue, she demonstrates great use of logos because she’s able argue her reasoning and persuade the targeted audience.

Over the past few years, racial tensions in America have heightened. During this period, Black America undergo the daily struggle of witnessing the killing of unarmed black men and women. Victims of these endless killings and police brutality, turned into one of many hashtags, which led to the formations of the Black Lives Matter movement. Solange Knowles, younger sister of Beyoncé, soul singer and songwriter was viewed as the angry black woman. Solange used her platform to speak up. She became the most outspoken black artist for black activism in recent years. She embodies the image of a carefree black girl who is willing to let the world know that she is proud of her blackness.

The song come out on Friday February 6, 2016, the day before the Super Bowl 50 was hosted. Through the song she embraced her blackness and the stereotype southerners have created to the black-American people and she also involved herself with the black lives matter movement. Beyoncé State,“Y’all haters corny with that illuminati mess”( Beyoncé 2016). This is a part Of the song's introduction were Beyoncé declare some words to her haters that continue to get involved in her personal life. When the song’s tempo and beat start to increase the musician wrote some lines describing her roots and her mother birthright. The female artist involved a lot of her past and family members but she also attached the different kind of problems African American people had to go through the 1900’s and still are fighting

Although the critically acclaimed album titled Lemonade received positive feedback for the way its visuals captured the struggles of black Americans, specifically black women, there is one song off the album that obviously emphasizes the adversities they are facing. In the beginning of the first verse of Freedom (featuring Kendrick Lamar), she uses the imagery of storm to reference her struggle towards being free. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the song, she continues to use words that are synonymous to disaster and generally negative.

Beyoncé’s choice of lyrics in the song “Formation” reflect a cultural reclamation and celebration of being multiple things: an African-American of any sex, a woman of any race, and specifically a black woman. These multiple messages are allowed for by lyrical content that ultimately asks members of all these marginalized groups to “get into formation” in singing an anthem for empowerment. “Formation” begins with a few words from Messy Mya, a YouTube personality who was murdered in 2010 and was known for his overt satire regarding violence against the black community in New Orleans. This sets the stage for the political message the following lyrics portray. “The intersection between hip-hop and politics has empowered a generation of youth to believe that they not only have rights but maybe even an obligation to make a difference in their world” (Alalman, p. 42, 2011). Expressing self-feelings, thoughts or views through music can make a change in the world, which is what Beyoncé does through her music. The actions in the song is further reinforced in the music video, through African American women fighting for respect on the streets, creating a sense of devotion in the audience. Moreover, the artist openly addresses the culture of open social hate towards black features “I like my baby hair with baby hair afro, I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils”, to which she responds by accepting them as special traits to be cherished and not ashamed of. By embracing all these pejorative

The majority of the “Formation” video is a compilation of Beyoncé’s basic beginnings in New Orleans. She shows the damage done after Katrina and shows the graffiti on worn down buildings. These images are meant to convey the message to young black women that they may have simple beginnings, but any and all of their aspirations are in fact achievable. She shows several events and locations that are important to her childhood, including shots of her church and Mardi Gras parades. The display of the simplicity of her former home, a small house, drowning in the flood, juxtaposed with her current home, a massive

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

This song has a lot of emotion behind it. I believe that when Beyoncé sings this song, she is sending off a message to the families of those who lost their lives during 9/11. She is singing from the victim’s point of view saying to remember me for the positive impact I have made in the world and how I strived to make the world a better place. She is singing to tell us that no matter how rich, successful, or famous you may be, always live your life to the fullest because you never know when it