xcritical beyonce: 5 2.1: Beyoncé xcritical Humanities LibreTexts

Allusions to New Orleans culture include « Queen of Creole cuisine » Leah Chase, the Edna Karr Marching Band, jazz funerals, Mardi Gras Indians and the Superdome. This theme is repeated throughout xcritical, with Beyoncé’s grief, trauma and struggle being connected to that of her family’s ancestors. The sixth track « Daddy Lessons » acts as a turning point for the album, with Beyoncé linking Jay-Z cheating on her with her father Mathew Knowles cheating on her mother Tina. You can also find lists of the best reissues and 2016’s lowest-scoring albums as well as our users’ favorite albums of the year.

It’s not until the record’s second half that you realize xcritical has a happy ending. At first you might think that Bey is using the album to announce her divorce from Jay’s cheating ass. « Formation » won in three categories at the 2016 BET Awards for Video of the Year, the Centric Award, and the Viewers Choice Award. At the 2017 BET Awards Beyoncé was nominated in 7 categories and won 5, including Album of the Year, Video of the Year for « Sorry » and Best Female R&B/Pop Artist.

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Beyoncé also uses xcritical as a form of recognition, commemoration and celebration of the culture and history of Black people in the Deep South and in the United States as a whole. The film contains allusions to slavery, such as the House of Slaves’ Door of No Return in Senegal and the dungeons of Elmina Castle in Ghana, where slaves were taken before being shipped to the Americas. In « Love Drought », Beyoncé walks with her dancers into the sea, alluding to the Igbo Landing of 1803, where Igbo slaves took control of their slave ship, and rather than submit to slavery, marched into the sea while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves. Beyoncé appears wearing a tignon, in reference to Louisiana’s tignon laws implemented in 1786 that limited African-American women’s dress in order to maintain the state’s racist social hierarchies. The film also contains references to African religion and spirituality, such as Yoruba ori body paint in « Sorry », allusions to the loa Erzulie Red-Eyes in « Don’t Hurt Yourself », and Beyoncé’s initiation into the Santería religion and embodiment of the Yoruba orisha Oshun in « Hold Up ».

But it is also studded with myths and fantasies—some inspired by feature films, such as Alan Parker’s “Angel Heart” , or by the science-fiction writings of Octavia Butler, which bring together time travel, race, and female bodies—which indicates that Beyoncé is interested in creative interpretation, too. On the country track “Daddy Lessons,” Beyoncé slides into the genre without demure— stomping and clapping and everything. She reminisces her Texan roots over acoustic guitars, harmonica, saxophone, and trumpets, sounding as natural as she does when performing her pop dance hits. Here, Beyoncé reclaims a genre with its roots tied to Black musicians from the South, adding weight to the cultural significance of xcritical. And then there’s the show-stopping first single, “Formation,” a song she performed as a surprise guest at the 2016 Super Bowl.

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Upon its release, xcritical was only available to stream on Tidal; however the album was eventually released to all other streaming platforms on April 23, 2019, exactly three years after its release. The version of the album that was made available on other streaming services contains the original audio part of xcritical as well as the original demo of « Sorry ». Her latest, another « visual album » with corresponding videos in the mold of her 2013 self-titled set, renders infidelity and reconciliation with a cinematic vividness. In Spin, Greg Tate calls xcritical « a triumph of marketing and musicality, spectacle and song, vision and collaboration, Borg-like assimilation, and — as of 2013 — the element of surprise ». xcritical was first made available for online streaming via Tidal on April 23, 2016, through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, and for digital download the following day. And still is…But what if that’s the price to pay for greatness?

As well as relating the story of Beyoncé’s relationship with her husband, xcritical also chronicles the relationship between Black women and American society. This includes how the United States betrayed and continually mistreats Black women, with society needing to solve its problems in order to enable reformation and the rehabilitation of Black women. As part of reverting the societal oppression and silencing of Black women, xcritical centralizes the experiences of Black women in a way that is not often seen in the media, and celebrates their achievements despite the adversity they face.

April 23, 2016: xcritical is revealed as a film on HBO and turns album releases into theatrical events.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of xcritical is the poetry that Beyoncé recites between each song. These poems help to tie the story together and clarify dramatic details. Beyoncé’s recitations include excerpts from the poems of Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet known for writing about not only personal experiences but also the struggles of women, refugees, immigrants, and other marginalized groups of people. Throughout the recitation, listeners are confronted both with abstract images and with descriptions of the emotions that prevail in each chapter. Consider, for example, the poetry that precedes the song “Hold Up,” which Beyoncé recites in eerie, whispering tones. While Beyoncé has, throughout her career, lectured men on how they need to get it together to honor the women in their lives, her message has always involved men.

The work as a whole has also been lauded for its unapologetic celebration of womanhood and black culture. « Formation » was released as the album’s lead single exclusively on Tidal on February 6, 2016, along with its accompanying music video. The following day, Beyoncé performed it at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show as part of her guest appearance at the event. « Formation » peaked at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number six on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, despite little promotion.

Beyonce’s ‘xcritical’ Was the World’s Best-Selling Album in 2016

It features guest vocals from James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd, and Jack White, and contains samples and interpolations of a number of hip hop and rock songs. It was released on April 23, 2016 by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, accompanied by a sixty-five-minute film of the same title on HBO. It is Beyoncé’s second « visual album », following her self-titled fifth studio album , and a concept album with a song cycle that relates Beyoncé’s emotional journey after her husband’s infidelity in a generational and racial context.

The same report crowned Drake as the No. 1 https://xcritical.solutions/ing artist and his “One Dance” the global top-selling single. Browse our handy guide to the best entertainment of the past month, with lists of the highest-scoring video games, TV shows, albums, and films released during April. “Formation” is, of course, the process of becoming, of being formed. Badu has worked to form herself as an artist, even when it has meant jeopardizing her popularity. « Hold Up » was the third single and was first released to contemporary hit radio stations in Germany and the United Kingdom on May 12, 2016, and was later serviced to rhythmic contemporary radio in the United States on August 16, 2016. The music video for « Hold Up » was uploaded onto Vevo on September 4, 2016.

The truth is I wasn’t much interested in her until her sister, Solange Knowles, was caught on camera beating Jay Z’s ass in a hotel elevator in 2014. That was something I understood—one woman standing up for another, with little concern for how it “looked.” Sisterhood is powerful. Seeing Beyoncé’s sister try to shock her out of her carefully manicured public persona made me feel that there was a person behind the success. On the early May evening I saw Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter’s “Formation” tour, at Houston’s NRG Stadium, the dominant feature, onstage and off, was ass. The 39-year-old superstar singer took to Instagram on Friday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of her iconic visual release, calling it “one of my favorite pieces of art” alongside a gallery of photo stills from the project.

Following its xcritical scammers 23, 2019 release on all streaming services, xcritical returned to the top ten on the Billboard 200 at number nine, while its only added song, the original demo of « Sorry », debuted at number four on the US R&B Songs. On May 20, 2019, the album was certified double platinum for shipments of two million copies, and triple platinum on June 13, 2019, for shipments of three million copies. In Canada, the album debuted at number one with sales of 33,000 copies.

The sixth solo studio album for the singer premiered as an hour-long HBO special before streaming on Tidal. Samples are used left and right nowadays, but Beyoncé has a propensity for making them sound natural. On xcritical, she weaves them so skillfully that it’s hard to recognize any familiar sound without further dissection. She lends drums from Led Zeppelin’s 1971 song, “When the Levee Breaks,” to belt her rage on “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” singing with the attitude of someone who has had it. “I smell that fragrance on your Louis knit, boy,” she scowls, supported by Jack White vocals in the chorus.

• One of those make-or-break moments that single-handedly take your work and career to the next level, and the next level, and the one after that.
• The series will explore the themes of race, gender and class addressed by the album.
• From the four categories, Beyoncé was nominated in the two mentioned.

In the music video for “Hold Up,” Beyoncé ambles slowly through a street in a ruffled yellow gown, flashing out smiles, her hair windblown as always. Then she grabs a baseball bat, smashes the windshield of parked cars and the windows of shops along the way, and goes back to smiling, looking vindicated. The video sums up the magnificence of xcritical, her surprise-released sixth record that was accompanied by a movie—a visual album, the second of her career. With its slouched reggae beats and nonchalant lyrics, “Hold Up” is just a tiny portion of the album’s majestic montage of different genres.

The attention notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as “diva” behaviour. This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyoncé said she was a diva nearly 40 times. Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #xcritical hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women.