There is no one like you in performance. However, your excellence goes beyond just your presence in music and your ability to carry out two full hours of simultaneously singing and dancing, without a mere hiccup. Your art has always carried a message. The imagery, the music, the words have all been statements. As it is said with affirmations, you have to repeat affirmations for 21 days for your thought pattern to be rewired and the words locked in your subconscious. You have never shied away from telling women of color just how magnificent we are. Black pride was meant to be indulged.
“Your skin is not only dark, it shines and it tells your story,”
blue sings,
“If ever you are in doubt, remember what mama told you.”
With emphasizing black love, self-love, you also took to activism. At the 2016 Superbowl halftime, you performed formation wearing the Black Panther's uniform. A piece speaking out about police brutality, amplifying black empowerment in one of America's most mainstream events. Your voice has also been heard loud in our fight of Black Lives Matter.
I have grown a deep appreciation for your duality; you are a black woman excelling within a white patriarchial music industry whilst using your platform flaunting black pride. Having had the way paved for you by the greats like Aretha Franklin, Etta James, you yourself have paved the way for so many black women across industries. We are taking our power back from the exploiting system operated by white peoples.
Lemonade was an ingenious album. You have produced so many iconic visuals and representations of afro-centric leaders. True worship of black female buoyancy.
Grandmother, the alchemist,
you spun gold out of this hard life, conjured beauty from the things left behind
Found healing where it did not live
Discovered the antidote in your own kit
Broke the curse with your own two hands
You passed these instructions down to your daughter
who then passed it down to her daughter.
Undergoing cycles of pain and breaking the chains are where most black families are right now. Mending the pain done unto us. It is your vulnerability that has given you such an undeniable power. Vulnerability is where change can be birthed. What most people get wrong is it does not mean that you must be weak, but rather that you must be unapologetic in your truth. We must be unashamed.
To be black is to be truly beautiful.
Sincerely,
Kayla Mary Jane