Conference Agenda

A 2017 poll revealed the nation’s top four feminists to be Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (James 2021). These women represent “girl boss” feminism by embodying the height of wealth, power, influence, and visibility. The positioning of these women as feminists by the public (and, in some cases, by the women themselves) paints a clear image of what a feminist woman in popular culture is: accomplished, partnered, and sitting at the top of a capitalist hierarchy. Even more interesting to note are their racial identities: three out of these four women are Black. That the American public would choose three Black women as the public face of feminism in 2017 is no accident; this choice reveals a public reverence for Black women who have, against all odds and despite their race and gender, ascended to unparalleled levels of success and status. Popular Black women who symbolize the American dream of earned fame and fortune through hard work often become markers of racial progress, who then serve as public surrogates for success (Griffin 2004; hooks 2014).

In this paper, I posit Beyoncé as a popular example of a captive maternal as defined by political philosopher Joy James (2021). James refers to Black women who are used by the state as “Black feminized caretakers” of the nation; I consider James’s theory about Black women who sit at the intersection of the American dream and exploitation at the hands of the state in my analysis of Beyoncé’s public performance of feminism. I incorporate similar frameworks posited by Farah Jasmine Griffin (2004) and bell hooks (2014), who theorize Black female vocality and how their voices are used in the spectacle of patriotism. I examine their definitions of feminism alongside their critiques of Beyoncé’s performance of her politics. Finally, I discuss Beyoncé’s song “Upgrade U” (2006) featuring her husband Jay-Z, examining the ways in which her feminist ideologies contradict themselves in her music. Ultimately, a closer study of Beyoncé’s performed politics reveals an uncritical consumption of her commodified feminism by the public.

For many plugged into the world of pop music, December 13th, 2013 is often remembered as the day global superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter released her seminal visual album BEYONCÉ. Departing from the standard album roll-out model, Beyoncé bypassed the intensive promotional template of lead singles and interviews with a simple Instagram post, disrupting industry norms and initiating a new era of promotion for the streaming age. But to Beyoncé’s loyal fanbase, the (in)famous Beyhive, December 13th is not so much well-remembered as it is a watershed of biblical dimension: it was the day their Queen Bey graduated from a celebrity to something even bigger.

Although the self-titled album has been well canonized as pivotal to Beyoncé’s career, this paper shifts attention from the voices of scholars and critics to those of the Beyhive to consider the underexplored perspective of music fandom. I pull from Henry Jenkins (1992) to construct music fandom as a recognizable subculture deserving serious scholarly attention—a framework largely relegated to cultural studies. Susan Fast’s work (2001) is a notable exception, providing a model for analyzing musical discourse alongside fan reception. I particularly pull from Fast’s discussions of mythology to analyze “***Flawless” alongside primary sources of Beyhive social media posts. The framework of mythology signals a legacy of Romantic genius from which the Beyhive at once converges and diverges, establishing a new deified artist emblematic to the streaming age. Departing from the standard paradigm of fandom studies that centers optimistic readings of fandom (as critiqued by Pande 2018 and Johnson 2020), I offer instead a critical reading of the fandom model that followed BEYONCÉ. By exalting their fave to mythical status, the Beyhive exoticizes and dehumanizes Beyoncé—a gesture that has become naturalized in online music fandom at large. This shift also led the Beyhive to become increasingly hostile to criticism, forming affective alliances of hatred (Ahmed 2004) with cautionary political ramifications. Offering a new perspective on the self-titled album, these discussions not only suggest the importance of fan reception to Beyoncé studies but also illuminate various conditions that expand our understanding of the state of popular musical culture today.

Although sampling is common throughout Beyoncé’s many records, there is a particular intentionality behind her strategic sonic choices starting with Lemonade in 2016. This album and those that follow all sample artists from the Black community and all who exist at its margins. Renaissance (2022), in particular, creates a sonic archival record of Black queerness by citing artists from both the Black community and queer community specifically. What makes this album so “unique” is many of the musicians cited hail from Beyoncé’s own personal interactions with the queer (more specifically “quare,” to describe Black queerness) underground in years past (E. Patrick Johnson 2001).

In this paper, I argue that Beyoncé uses sampling as a citational practice in Renaissance to pay homage to artists within her sonic landscape. This analysis of such recognition in Renaissance will be further supported through musical analyses using production equipment such as MIDI controllers, samplers, and DAWs. Sonic citation offers an implicit commendation of musical traditions and the sociocultural significance that accompanies them. In congruence with the identity politics brought forward in Lemonade and Homecoming, Renaissance delivers a rich cultural history of queer Black socio-political movements, blending cultural context with the usage of 1s and 0s (Katz 2010). By combining her personal experience as a Black southern woman with her own sonic exposure to quare culture on Renaissance, Beyoncé gives a new perspective on deeply rooted musical adulation in lighthearted popular tunes. Furthermore, Beyoncé’s Renaissance occupies a unique space in popular music, as her musical citations pull from underground house and ballroom scenes. The track “Alien Superstar,” for example, pays homage to one of house music’s greats, jOHNNYDANGEROUs, a pioneer of the deep house sound, as well as Danube Dance or Peter Rauhofer, trailblazer of the tribal house subgenre. Additionally, Beyoncé combines religious and secular music in the song “Church Girl” by sampling gospel group The Clark Sisters alongside the Showboys’ “triggerman” beat. By sampling such artists, Beyoncé creates a niche intersection between cultural contexts in Renaissance. Analyzing such complexities found within the process of her musicking, I argue, elevates our understanding of Beyoncé’s musicological historiography.