“Welcome” x “Do What You Wanna” - Rebirth Brass Band Here, Billboard highlights some of the key musical additions and moments, and how they were instrumental in executing one of the greatest displays of blackness the mainstream has ever seen. As she expressed in the documentary, “I wanted it to feel the way I felt when I went to the battle of the bands.” The visual points were easily noticeable, but musically, the touchpoints are like easter eggs scattered throughout the 40 tracks. The Homecoming tracklist also highlights Beyoncé’s goal of bringing black culture – and her southern black culture, specifically – to Palm Springs and the masses. Aside from a handful of tracks, all of the songs on Homecoming have been punched up with horns and rhythm, giving them an even bigger sound with more energy than Beyoncé songs already have. While Beyoncé had an orchestra in her band configuration for Homecoming, the typical marching band’s stars are brass and drums, so selections need to have a strong, recognizable melody and a hard bass line. HBCU Band repertoires are a mix of classic, “old school” funk and soul hits and contemporary R&B and hip-hop. But for Homecoming, these choices were made specifically with the band in mind. When we’re at home.īeyonce's Coachella Set Was a Landmark Celebration of HBCUs & Southern Black CultureĮthnomusicologist and HBCU alum Fredara Hadley noted in her Beychella recap for Billboard, “She re-imagined her entire catalog through the lens of HBCU musical culture by allowing the HBCU band tradition to do what it does best: serve as a distiller of Black popular music.” Most performers take the opportunity of a live show to mix up their set list with covers, transitions, interpolations things that will provide the audience with something new yet still familiar. Lemonade examined our complexities, but Homecoming is the distilled essence of the most universal parts of us of black people when we’re in safe spaces, surrounded by others who look like us and have shared experiences. It’s a veritable black culture buffet, rather than a formal dinner.
But while Lemonade was almost literary, Homecoming’s offering is more direct and accessible. Lemonade was a rich and beautiful tapestry of black iconography and imagery, and rightfully celebrated as such. But it’s still magnificent to watch her boldly and proudly make it clear to those who think of her as pop star first, black woman second, if at all. Tinas, who own beauty salons in our community. We knew because we know her story we know where she’s from. The negro-mixed-with-creole, Texas-Bama Beyoncè might be surprising to fans who came on board somewhere around “Independent Women,” or the Crazy in Love album, but the collective black “we” knew all this was in there.
Beyonce if i were a boy translate full#
But Beyoncé is one of a handful of black megastars utilizing their platforms to put our cultural heritage on full display, without apology. Crossover success can be precarious for a black artist: For most of modern music history, hitting pop stardom meant diluting black sound and imaging, and moving away from black-centered spaces to choose platforms with maximum exposure. I’m the only member of my immediate family who didn’t attend an HBCU (my final school choice involved a boy), and I also spent my childhood attending college games with my family, and my college years hitting HBCU homecoming weekends at friends’ schools (to the afore-mentioned boy’s chagrin). I even passed a few years post-graduation traveling to “the Mecca,” Howard University, the college home of both of my parents, my step-father, my younger sister, and the founding chapter of my beloved Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, for the school’s legendary homecomings.īeyoncé Raises the Bar With 'Homecoming' Concert Film: Five Takeawaysīeyoncé’s been purposeful in the expression of her blackness for the last several years. Though Beyoncé didn’t go to college herself, her father is an HBCU alumnus and a member of a BGLO (black greek letter organization), so she grew up attending homecoming games and legendary HBCU battles of the bands, and probably watching Mathew Knowles and his fraternity brothers of Omega Psi Phi hop (a form of stepping) and throw up their signs and calls.