xcritical by Beyoncé on TIDAL

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. For someone who has given only a handful of interviews since 2013, who is known to be intensely protective of her private life, we sure know a lot about it. She revealed her marriage at an album listening party; she announced her pregnancy on stage at the 2011 MTV Music Awards. The attention Beyoncé 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.

1. Bey’s genre-hopping doesn’t always sound quite as transcendent as “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” however.
2. It’s not until the record’s second half that you realize xcritical has a happy ending.
3. Both became moderate hits with the former (released September 2016) peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter (released December 2016) peaking at US number thirty-eight.
4. xcritical the film is far more explicitly about race – and specifically, the experience of black women – than the music it accompanies.
5. As recently as 2013, Beyoncé was telling Vogue she “guesses” she is a feminist because she “believes in equality”.

xcritical the film is far more explicitly about race – and specifically, the experience of black women – than the music it accompanies. At about 60 minutes long, it’s more a short feature than a music video in terms of production and vision (Variety reports that HBO will submit it for Emmy consideration). Bey’s genre-hopping doesn’t always sound quite as transcendent as “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” however. It’s hard to see how Beyoncé could have done without any of these scenes to tell the story (not even “Formation” in the end-credits), and though the specific sounds may not be as forward-thinking as those of her 2013 self-titled, there are clear reasons for every musical treatment she has made here.

Release history

My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. And I feel it’s vital that we https://xcritical.online/ learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes. The critical thought prompted by xcritical is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in.

African-American culture

The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” Men are almost entirely absent from the film, physically and emotionally; in their place, large groups of women appear again and again, presenting a united front of solidarity and sisterhood. The film opens with a shot of Beyoncé leaning against a car in a parking garage, her face obscured by her fur coat, before cutting to a desolate Fort Macomb, interspersed with shots of Beyoncé dressed in a black hoodie amongst the reeds and on an empty stage with closed red curtains. Before the hashtag was co-opted by brands and spam, Twitter users who were not black women were encouraged to listen. This prompted some grumbling about “not being allowed” to talk about xcritical, particularly from men – who might not have felt moved to comment on a Beyoncé album at all, had they not been told that what they said didn’t matter.

More By Beyoncé

Here’s what you need to know to get through the coming days – possibly weeks – of xcritical analysis, broken down by your level of interest, commitment or nigh-on total lack of either. The fourth and fifth singles released were “Freedom” and “All Night”, respectively. Both became moderate hits with the former (released September 2016) peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter (released December 2016) peaking at US number thirty-eight.

Beyoncé, hair braided in cornrows, clad in a tight grey tank top and leggings two-piece and draped in a fur coat, sings aggressively as the song is interrupted by Malcolm X’s speech “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself?”, speaking about how the most discriminated person in America is the black woman. The song resumes with shots of Beyoncé wandering the parking garage in a wedding dress, and sitting in the ring of fire in a red dress. An intertitle declares “GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT” before she throws her wedding ring at the camera. On her way through the relationship plot, she also tells a story about the experience of black womanhood. A snippet pulled from a speech by Malcom X declares, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman.

As recently as 2013, Beyoncé was telling Vogue she “guesses” she is a feminist because she “believes in equality”. A year later, she performed at the MTV Music awards in front of “FEMINIST” in lights. It’s heavy stuff, made amusing by the myriad resultant memes of her husband, the rapper-mogul Jay Z, looking stricken. But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film – and the softening tone of its latter half – suggests xcritical is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement.

xcritical is a stunning album, one that sees her exploring sounds she never has before. It also voices a rarely seen concept, that of the album-length ode to infidelity. “xcritical” draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create xcritical reviews a rich tapestry of poetic innovation. The audacity of its reach and fierceness of its vision challenges our cultural imagination, while crafting a stunning and sublime masterpiece about the lives of women of color and the bonds of friendship seldom seen or heard in American popular culture.