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Intersections of music and millennialism. Deep dives, asides, and exasperations by Alex (+ his friends): a lifelong musician, audiophile, and editorializer turned fitness instructor, DJ, producer, and sound curator.
Well, hey y'all, happy Monday
or whatever day this finds you.
You know, it's hard not to talk about
Beyonce announcing her newest body
of work at or during the Super Bowl.
Can y'all sense a little
bit of a difference?
Okay, we're up leveling
over here at Galt's Radio.
There's a little higher resolution
now, which actually is horrifying to
me, um, this is literally just like
water on my shirt because my hair was
wet and it looks like I just like ate
potato chips and like dropped them
in a necklace for me like this is I
don't think y'all need to see me in 4k.
I don't know why this is
The future but it's here.
I'm also testing out.
I will be testing out some new
software We're a small business
y'all believe it or not now.
He's got a checking account.
He's got a credit card He's licensed.
He's incorporated He's set up to make
content and no money Uh, but it's cool,
it's cool actually owning something
and uh, it's fun to Play around with
this stuff a few years ago when I was
doing a pandemic version of this I was
focusing on my cycling classes and I was
teaching from home And I remember all
that energy and it's kind of coming back
to me where I bought the soundboard.
I bought mixers microphones
was learning how to do things
live with Full fidelity audio.
It was tricky, but it was so fun.
Um, and it held me through, I don't
know, until really I got the, the job
to teach in person again, and in a way
I'm like feeling that again, but also,
like, creating content is this hilarious,
like, I don't actually ever even want
to use those words again, nor do I ever
want to hear the word influencer again.
Um, but, the world of it is very We
think we know it so much as an observer.
And then when you step into like a pocket
of your own, trying to create of your
own, you realize like, Oh, there, I mean,
just like anything, there's a lot to it.
And then I've started to see the
lines in the sand of like, okay,
yeah, people really latch onto super
current things, super high def things.
They want to see like my
boogers coming out of my nose.
Um, edited things, beautiful things.
There's all these softwares to
like help creatives and creators.
And then also reactions.
And I realized when Beyonce this
weekend during the Super Bowl
announced her next body of work, and
I reacted through my stories, I was
learning my own thoughts as I was
processing them, which to me signaled.
My instinct, which is, I believe,
correct, which is like, I'm not a reactor.
I think once in a while it's fun, and it's
cool to catalog like your initial impulse
when you see something go live, but it's
not where my most thoughtful analysis
comes out, nor do I think anyone's.
But I get it, if that's
what people want to watch.
So this is like, this
is my pace here, okay?
Something happened like,
what, one or two days ago?
Now we're talking about it, now I'm
thinking about it, I've synthesized, I've
also just gotten a little bit of time with
like, hearing a few other perspectives
of it that I wouldn't have thought of,
and it helps influence my own, so yeah, I
guess it's like, not unadulterated in that
it's like, sat with me and other people
a little bit longer, but it also I think
is a stronger, more cohesive perspective.
Today I did want to, I wanted to like
not necessarily react, but talk about
a timely thing which I found myself
having some strong opinions on and I
love lightning rod topics that stir
strong opinions because I just think
it's interesting that they cause strong
opinions and like you know at the end
of the day whoever has created the topic
in this case it's Beyonce announcing
what seems to be a new album They win,
because we're here talking about it, and
like, this is like, this is how media
works, but we're in this like, rarefied
time when there's not that many people
in a position like hers in the world.
There's, right now, there's like two.
It's her and Taylor, that when they do
things like this, We've never really
experienced things at least like we
Millennials have not had like that
Michael Jackson effect until Beyonce
and now Taylor, I think is having it too
of Using something live in the moment
Something that she knows everyone's
gonna be watching the Super Bowl This
is the thing with the most eyes on it
obviously the most ad spend and there's
so much money spent and made around
this time to then like Use it to then
work her platform Um, it's we don't
have many people that like would create
this sort of like concentric set of like
seismic Rings, um the way that she does
so beyonce announced What seems to be
Act 2 of her, what I believe is rumored
to be a three part, uh, record project.
Act 1 being Renaissance, Act 2
being yet to be announced name,
what seems to be a country album.
Now, my knee I had knee jerk
reactions, I'll talk about those.
I've had more thoughtful reactions
after I've synthesized some of this.
But, one thing I realized is like,
I didn't react to the announcement
as negatively as I did to Taylor.
doing a similar thing, but at
the Grammy's announcing her next
album, which really rubbed me the
wrong way when I watched that live.
So I was actually watching that broadcast.
Why did that rub me the wrong way?
You know, I'm obviously coming, coming
in with my own preconceived, like,
or not preconceived, but my own built
perceptions and like, tastes for these
artists and my levels of like caring
what they do and like also caring
about how they carry themselves.
Taylor's announcement seemed
to take the space of having a
minute to express gratitude and
instead she used it to market.
Now Beyonce's was in what could only
be seen as like a capitalist day.
Like the Superbowl is like a sports day
but it's like when everyone's almost just.
It's all in on capitalism.
It's all ads.
It's all money.
Like, it in a way didn't seem to co
opt anything that was problematic.
It just kind of like was yet another
piece of marketing in a day that's like
really become dedicated to marketing.
Like, I didn't watch this game.
I don't usually.
But like, even just the shots
I'm sure of the stadium,
there's like ads all around it.
Like the whole thing is
just like announcing.
Or trying to direct money towards
people, companies, and things.
So I guess one reason I wasn't as
upset about Beyoncé using the moment
for herself was because it's like,
well, everyone's trying to do that.
Everyone's jockeying for attention
in those like two or three hours.
Whereas Taylor used an opportunity to
like, instead of expressing gratitude,
like push forward and like try to
redirect the gratitude into sales,
which felt kind of problematic.
So I guess, yeah, that kind of like,
to me explains why this felt different.
I will say though, I mean, Usher
couldn't even get like five minutes.
Like, I don't know what
the actual timing was.
Did anyone actually watch it live and
can tell me how soon after Usher's
performance she announced this shit?
Like, that's a little rough.
And she has done that before.
Um, in the 2017 to 2020 span when
she was taking multiple years for
some of her projects, one of them
being Beychella, which she performed
one year and then announced, or then
released the recordings of the next.
This exact same thing happened.
It was the year after Beychella,
which I believe was 2019, Ariana
Grande was headlining in the slot
that Beyonce had had the year before.
And straight up during that weekend,
Beyonce announces, Hey, remember
last year though, my set, my recorded
version of that is on Netflix right now.
So people are like, literally
physically at Coachella, like
streaming last year's Coachella.
So she's kind of infamous for like
redirecting attention from someone
else or something else onto her.
But she's at least in a way picking
times or moments where it's like,
The form of attention isn't changing.
She's not like pulling us out
of paying attention to a really,
really, really important earth
shattering thing onto her in a way.
It's like capitalism thing one
or performance thing one just
being redirected onto her.
So it's not great.
It's not the best look.
And Usher absolutely crushed it and maybe
is not as high in the, like, headlines
of the news cycle because of this.
So that's a bit of a bummer.
Now, Beyonce announcing that she's
going to be working in and through,
uh, and inside of country music,
ostensibly for, for her next chapter,
did actually, my knee jerk reaction
was kind of negative to that.
And it is not from a level of gatekeeping
that genre or not being excited of
hearing Beyoncé's approach to that
genre, it's from a couple things.
The first thing is, by now, it's
pretty known and very obvious that
Beyoncé moves through eras in what can
sometimes be seen as an incomplete way.
We can, we can see this in the history of
projects where she's really sunk into one
particular vibe or genre or setting or
aesthetic and then kind of not discarded
it but maybe not fully fleshed it out.
She's a reference artist.
She is a collage artist and this is
not said with a shade but at this point
we have to acknowledge that No Beyoncé
song is written by just her, ever.
There's legions of songwriters.
We even talked about this here last time.
There's songwriting camps to
get these records made for her.
The same is true for the visuals.
I mean, at the highest level, the
same is true for the storyboarding
of the eras themselves.
I felt the needle switch,
in a way, from Beyoncé.
thinking ahead and doing something that
people weren't doing, hearing, seeing,
or thinking about, to Beyoncé lagging a
little bit with the Renaissance project.
It did just feel like, to me, when I
heard Break My Soul be a house record in
2021 or 2022, I was like, huh, really?
Like, a lot of people are doing this.
Now, We'll get to like how and why
Beyonce does it and that's different.
She's coming to it I believe ostensibly
with different principles different
intentions But it did it was the
first time literally the first time in
her long career that I felt like, uh
The waves already happening like the
wave is just you're adding to it now
interesting Like you're not pushing it
or redirecting us to a different wave.
You're actually just like Getting on your
surfboard with the other people on their
surfboard riding, riding the house wave.
So it kind of felt like she was behind,
and in a way the country thing is like
the second time that I've been like, Uh,
other people have done this, and it's kind
of funny as I was posting in my stories
to like, it's Almost a thing that if you
arrive at a certain level of preeminence
as a main pop girly or just like a big
pop star that is a huge broad audience
that gets to release like, let's say like
five, six plus records in their lifetime.
It seems almost inevitable that one
of them is going to be a country one.
And I was like listing out to all
of the, not to gender it, but it
seems like all the women like put
the 10 gallon hat on at some point.
And this one for some reason felt
like we literally just did this.
Five, six years ago was like a big
groundswell of this which doesn't
invalidate her doing it now But it does
feel like at least on the trend cycle.
This is lagging.
I thought a lot about like
Madonna did this in 2000.
It was the first record post Ray of Light.
I think Ray of Light was
the last one in the 90s.
And then music, I think,
was in 2000 or 2001.
Maybe 2002, but I think earlier than that.
And that was when some of the
music that sticks to me from her
career the most came from that.
But very much her country moment.
And then the five, six years ago
that I'm talking about was like Kylie
Minogue, who is like, if anything,
Very much a trend following like
they call them chameleon artists.
Miley Cyrus gets this
designation sometimes too and
it's meant as a compliment.
I actually don't always see it
that way because I'm like they
really just trend chase in a way.
They do it well, I think Kylie and
Miley, that's funny they rhyme.
Do it well, but like, so Kylie
released Golden in I think 2015 ish.
Um, And like, really explored
just inside out the country genre.
Always like, very pop.
Kylie Minogue is like
a pop, pop, pop girly.
And also, by the way, completely unabashed
about trends chasing or trend following.
She like, nobody does it better
than her and she like, owns it.
Um, But that happened, Lady Gaga's
Joanne, when she put the like pink
hat on and was like the country singer
songwriter with a little bit of folk.
I mean, she had a straight up song
called John Wayne on that record.
That was 2000, I think 16.
Um, and then also right now it
seems to be happening again.
Like Lana Del Rey just days ago announced
like, or like officially announced or
corroborated the rumors that her next
record called Lasso is a country record.
And like, it just seems like the, for
some reason, what used to be like maybe a.
10 year cycle is now like five, although
I guess 2015 is almost 10 years ago.
So maybe my brain is not on the right
setting, which is wild to me, but
it just feels like this little like
genre fetish cycle is spinning faster.
So all that is just to say that it
feels yet again to me that maybe in
the course of this three act project,
Beyonce is like behind the aesthetic
eight ball in such a way that like.
is really reading as like a I don't
mean this in a derogatory way, but
like an aging millennial star, like
it doesn't have necessarily their
thumb on the pulse of like at least
what the most cutting edge thing is
anymore, the way that she once did.
But let's like step back and talk
also about how, how and when she
started doing this like eras style.
I hate calling it eras because it seems
like Taylor Swift has trademarked that
at this point, but how and when Beyonce
started doing these genre deep dives.
It took several albums to see this
start to play out in her career.
So Beyonce had three or four albums
with Destiny's Child, I think three,
then her first solo album, and then the
fourth, which was Destiny Fulfilled.
All of those albums and her first
solo album were very R& B, rhythm and
blues, like very, very, very R& B.
Then she started, um, in her first
two solo albums, so Dangerously in
Love and B Day, exploring, I think,
a micro genre of, like, pop R& B
that was at the time called go go.
Omery's One Thing was, like,
a very popular, kind of,
go go style R& B pop song.
Crazy in Love is almost interchangeable,
just as a produced track with, with
One Thing, and that kind of style.
She's also been, like, Criticized
of like stealing on Marie's career.
So that's another thing but in a way
she was not straying too far from
like R& B as the center Um, I Am Sasha
Fierce album three was very much a pop
album started to push into some of the
electronic stuff That was really popular.
That was like when Gaga was
had become really big and
like euro edm was on the radio
And then album four for B called Four.
So I mean this is spanning 10 years of her
own solo career back in a way almost more
ardently in the center of the R& B genre
and was more of a throwback R& B record.
So it was like 80s kind of like 80s
synth vibes with some like new electronic
sounds like she also I mean one of her
singles was a major laser produced track
so like it had edges of like modernity
but it was still very very very R& B.
It really took us, or took her,
until Self Titled, which was in
2013, to show us that she could take
really abrupt pivots and left turns.
And when she did that for the
first time, it seemed like the
first left turn was into hip hop.
It was kind of always a part of her legacy
because, especially in her relationship
with Jay Z, and she had featured as a
singer on some hip hop songs previously,
she's never really rapped until she
released in that If y'all remember,
like, she released what would become
Flawless onto SoundCloud first, and it
was like, the beginning of it really
fleshed out, and it was super hard.
It was a, it was like electronic trap,
and she's like, not really singing.
She's singing a little bit, but it's
more like, chewed up parts of her vocal.
Like, I'm in a H town,
coming, coming down.
Like, it was more It was just
different and that hip hop kind
of aesthetic was really played
out on self titled some tracks.
She didn't sing at all Some of what
would become my favorite tracks were
the ones where she was like really
far away from what she had done but
it took me personally a really long
time to get used to her like not being
like a singer's singer in that moment
because she had just just years ago
released like love on top and was like
Belting for the gods and I was like,
oh my god, keep doing this, but she
was like nah Um, which was cool, right?
Like, she got your appetite right where
she needed it and then, like, left turned.
To me, that's the cutting edge
thing that I'm not personally
feeling from her anymore.
Coming off of that, then we had,
to me, like, the prototype of her
being, like, Hey, that genre thing,
like, that exposition of a genre, I
want to do, like, a lot of that now.
And Lemonade was really that.
So, Lemonade was an album where she
explored within not the longest album.
I think it was an 11 or 12 song album,
like Maybe five or six different genres.
It was really a mood and story driven
record Aesthetically, obviously i'm sure
we all remember if you're following me
you remember and this was a record that
you probably loved it was very much like
kind of like southern gothic it was a
lot of really ornate fashions used as
the backdrop of which the story that
she was painting of being a black woman
with roots from the south dealing with
like philandering men and the greater
story of not having power or agency in
the way that a modern woman or black
person or black woman could or should.
So it was this really ranging project,
really soulful, and the genres that she
explored were very wide ranging to match.
So we had some singer songwriter.
We had, um, Pray You Catch Me was
very much a singer songwriter song.
We had some like alternative pop.
I mean, the single Hold Up is like a
really weird single built out of samples.
She really started using
more samples in this project.
We had Rock, Don't Hurt Yourself,
which was one of my favorite songs
with Jack White, I thought was
like an extraordinary and strange
and unexpected use of her voice.
We had Gospel.
If y'all remember the ballad Sandcastles.
Very gospel driven just piano and voice
on that song maybe with some background
voices, but very in the gospel canon And
then we also had um Freedom which was like
a gospel style like R& B chant anthem.
We definitely had Multiple
sub genres of hip hop.
I mean sorry was a trap song Formation
which I think would be correctly
characterized as a trap song, right?
I think who did was that
a Mike Will Made It song?
I think so and then That brings us
to, not necessarily in sequence,
but her first real country song.
The one that set the stage,
potentially, for what's to
come, which was Daddy Lessons.
Now y'all, when I watched Lemonade
Premiere Live, the first time I was
like, on my feet, like sweating with
excitement and like clapping and moving
my body to the music and the story
simultaneously was Daddy Lessons.
She was fully captured in
what she was wanting to say.
Her as the consummate performer,
um, and story weaver of that time.
Guitar driven, kind of like, dark, honky
tonk country, slight folk, like southern,
western, southwestern, country genre.
It was It was the perfect container.
And I remember saying in the moment,
I want an entire album of this.
So why is it that now, uh, eight
years later, I'm not sure that I do.
I think one reason or one, one
thing that informs my less than
fully embodied excitement about her
doing a country album now, I think
kind of trailed from what she did.
So first off, we should say all of those
different genre singles on Lemonade were
submitted to the Grammys for consideration
in their respective genre categories.
I think there was some record that
was broken by her submitting to what
I believe was five different genres
from one album in the same year.
Now she famously was denied consideration
for Daddy Lessons, the country song.
Which was wild because it was the most
of its genre that was being submitted,
you know Like it was the it was a
perfect pairing daddy lessons was
unequivocally a country song and it was
an incredible one and so like silent
but visual protest of that decision.
She performed it live with the Dixie
Chicks, also a group who were blacklisted
and blackballed by the Grammys for
different reasons than, uh, having
come out against George Bush post 9 11.
They were written off by the
Country Music Establishment.
Now, Beyonce hadn't even like really
dipped her toe in, but she was kind of
being denied entrance at the first gate.
So she said, okay, my sisters
come on stage with me.
They performed, not at the Grammys,
I believe, at the CMAs, the Country
Music Awards, and an incredible
arrangement with like banjo.
They had that like famous Barry Sax
player who like dances when he plays.
He has like the Wild blonde hair and
it was an extraordinary performance
in a rehearsal audio from a rehearsal
of them doing that song is on
Spotify And it's extraordinary.
It's almost more dialed than the
Performance that went live so even before
she got started in country She was being
denied and I think that is the point
that she now wants to Prove and flesh
out and say this is a genre that has been
gatekept by the wrong people for too long.
This is a black genre and it is now being
owned, operated, and kept with offense by
white artists and the white establishment.
So that is a story in and of itself
beyond enough for an incredible record
to be made and a story to be told.
But let's also look at
what came after Lemonade.
She took that genre focused
approach into her next projects.
Now it took a long time between
Lemonade and Renaissance, it was
six years, but she wasn't not She
created three kind of big bodies of
work, one of them being homecoming.
There wasn't any new music for
homecoming after lemonade, maybe like
a track or two or a feature that she
had done on some other songs that
worked their way in, but it was a re.
Casting a resetting of her own catalog
music that we all knew at that point to
the kind of visual aesthetic of an HBCU.
Um, kind of painting the picture
of like their homecoming with a
massive presence of a marching band.
She had, I think, 200 people on
stage, performers, dancers, um,
other singers and like band members.
I mean, just the sound
engineering of that is so complex.
That in and of itself is a feat, but I
think it was so cool to watch someone
not make any new music But just say i'm
gonna perform my first six albums and
some of the destiny's child music in
a new light And tell a new story same
material new story and in a way new
genre, kind of, you know what I mean?
Then after Homecoming, she took on both
the Lion King project and the Carters,
um, together their album, I think
in 2018, called Everything Is Love.
Um, that was very much a hip hop album,
but the Lion King record that she released
over the course of two years, first just
the soundtrack and the music, and then
the next year was the fully fleshed out
visual, um, film called black is king.
That was very much more than just an
exploration of blackness, very much a
deep dive into modern, uh, African music.
Now that album, while it was so
celebrated visually and the, the
amount of like fashion, aesthetic,
musical, historical, traditional,
cultural, ethnic, religious imagery.
that she wove into that project was
so extraordinary but musically she
was criticized for overemphasizing
eastern african music and kind of
leaving western african music out of
the equation when even just by the
standards of like the modern charts
there were a lot of artists creating
songs that are making global waves from
western africa that she kind of missed.
You know, we're holding
her to at this point.
A rather impossible standard.
How could any one person capture an
entire continent's worth of music
in the modern day on one album?
Let alone ever But, it does at least
invite the conversation of if you're going
to do something, do it with its fullest
intentionality and comprehensiveness,
at least what's available to you.
It also came out that one of the reference
films that she used for the video for
Maybe it was a couple of the videos where
she, she and all of the dancers were
posed in like different jewel tone fabrics
and different natural environments that
either were in Africa, I don't know where
she filmed it, but it was like in desert
conditions and like savannah landscapes.
There was like blues and greens and
pinks and reds, was very much just lifted
from like an art house film and people
were posting like, that she didn't give
credit, it seemed, to that film, I can't
remember the name, um, or the creator,
this is definitely where, like, my art
limits lie, but the story started being
told of, like, you know, the more of
these, like, big stories that Beyoncé
wants to take on, the more risk there
is for her to not get it fully right
because number one, she hasn't lived it.
You know, she's from Houston.
She's from a certain level of affluence.
She's from, you know, a background
that was rather comfortable.
And yes, she's now a billionaire with
a lot of access to a lot of things.
In a way like it can feel like she's
just trampling upon the things that
she's trying to speak of And it
also invited kind of a retrospective
conversation about lemonade.
Lemonade came out the same year as
Solange's kind of like big tour de
force work Um, which was called a seat
at the table, which was a different
Um, take on kind of modern feminine
blackness in America, specifically,
really routed in like New Orleans
and southern gothic imagery.
Now she performed that and built
that entire body of work very
differently than Beyonce, but
they came out only months apart.
And it does kind of look like
Beyonce was like, I'm kind of
going to take my sister's thing
and like put my story in it.
So, you know, in reflecting on who
Beyonce is as an artist, because
she's not necessarily the, she's not
like putting her stock in just being
a writer, or just being a singer.
She's really the storyteller
and the performer.
Everyone knows that she can
perform the house down and that
she always will and always has.
No one questions that, least of all me.
But the bigger, broader, and more personal
and emotive the stories are that she
takes on, it seems like not only does she
take on greater risk of getting it wrong,
especially if it's not exactly her story,
but the stakes are higher for then, like,
if she does get it wrong and the folks
that are listening to her don't notice
that the story suffers a lot of erasure
and that there's parts of it missing
and what we don't want is an artist who
just has money, access, and power to
rewrite a history that They belong to,
but that they don't necessarily have the
authority to tell on their own right, or
in their own terms, if that makes sense.
And so, that sets up my concern
for Beyoncé kind of delving after
her house moment into country.
Now, Renaissance was a highly
reference filled album and
a highly referential album.
It was filled with samples, filled
with interpolations, just like teams
of writers, like it was a panoply of
names and collaborators and references.
And I think In a way, that kind of
moonshot approach of like, we have
to include anyone and everything, not
indiscriminately, but very mindfully,
and with a really, really broad net,
was correct, especially having come from
Black is King, when her criticism was that
the net was not wide enough, or that it
was not a representative enough sample,
if she's gonna step into that story.
So, Renaissance was not criticized, to
my knowledge or my understanding, as
much for those reasons as Black as King
was, but there does kind of still exist
the potential criticism that like, She
is speaking all of a sudden for like
a Black queer history that she's not
really spoken of in that way before.
Is that story rightfully hers to go over
to, sit in, build community in, build
performance in, and then move on from?
Like, is that not exactly
what the queer experience is?
Period.
People doing that, you
know, like taking things.
But, the same could be said
of the Black experience.
And I think that's her point.
She wants to perform back to us the
way that Black stories, Black bodies,
Black cultures have been colonized
and sold back to Black people, White
people, to all people, as if they
were never theirs to begin with.
So renaissance to me as a not black
person myself, but as a queer person
got a stronger more cohesive mix
of blackness, queerdom, femininity,
also like nouveau masculinity
routed in ballroom house and disco.
better than some of her other
referential projects had.
So, from that perspective, I should
have confidence in what's to come.
Now, I do not have the keys
to the country kingdom.
Like, I'm not gonna necessarily be able
to know how right she gets some of these
references, but country is as broad of
a genre as any, so You know, even just
in my joke of like how many pop stars
have gone West, I realized like, well,
West is like one version of it, you know?
Like, mid century American, like,
Western frontierism and like the sounds
that came out of it is one thing and
that's a complicated history, right?
It's like a robbing of native peoples
of their cultures and traditions.
and their music and their
aesthetics and their stories.
There's also the Southwest.
There's also the South.
There's also the Midwest like,
and there's in some parts like the
Northwest, like these all occupy country
folk and storytelling genres that
use like guitars and certain canons
of song craftsmanship differently.
How and what she will embody.
and what she'll choose to embody, like
we will see, but it will be interesting
because now the judges of her success
of having done this will very much
be the white country establishment.
They will be white people.
And she's already lived to prove
the point that like, they hold
that gate locked and closed.
They do not let people in very easily.
And country, I think, is a particularly
stratified Um, musical organization
in the world now more than ever.
I mean, even a white woman, Maren Morris,
if y'all know her, who came up in country,
you know, set her, or like, put her
roots down, her musical foundations in
Nashville, which is like the country music
capital of the country, if not, Austin,
I think Nashville is still number one.
She has like made a big stank in a
way out of like, I'm leaving country
because country is so still anti
woman, anti feminist, anti queer that
I don't belong here because I want
those people to know that I represent
them and they do not feel represented
by this country music establishment,
so nor do I, so I'm leaving.
I wonder what she has to say about a
Beyoncé being like, I've never I've
tried one time to belong and I already
was like boxed out, but now I'm going
to go in harder because I'm richer,
bigger and more powerful than ever.
And I have a story to tell.
I wonder what Marin would say.
And if she's going to be
like, good luck, girl.
Like people are going to say things,
write stories, criticize you in
ways like you've never thought of.
And maybe that's the point.
And that's really intense.
Like to imagine the record coming out, the
criticisms that will inevitably come out.
Purely because someone that looks
like, sounds like, and performs like
Beyonce is performing country music
with no other context than that.
Like, that's intense, and no one should
have to suffer that level of like, racist,
anti female, anti queer gatekeeping.
Is there still a reasonable, critical
eye that we should have on her of like,
how correct does she get her references?
To me, I think Her collaborators,
if she chooses to collaborate,
I like hope she does.
I think that's gonna be one key to this.
She didn't really Collaborate with
a lot of people on Renaissance.
She referenced a lot I think this would
be the album to collaborate, to actually
bring the other Storytellers who have
lived this a little bit more than her
Into not just the creation but the
performance and give them the credit
like put them in the artist line with
her I think that's one way to do it.
I think another way will just be To
do it differently and maybe she has
her intentions set on that my initial
reluctance and fear was just like it's
easy to put a hat on and to put a costume
on and to like Play country, you know and
like in a way that can also be its own
performance like in like a drag or camp
way To show a genre that like y'all it's
not that hard We can all put the costume
on and like do si do and line dance and
like do the shit that y'all are over there
gatekeeping Needlessly by the way from
the people that created this genre That's
actually an interesting performance,
but it's also really surface and doesn't
go to where I know that Beyoncé, at
this level of her career, wants to go.
But my hope is that she will get into
some of the, I mean, she's explored New
Orleans almost in like a fetishizing way
at this point, and there's a lot to be
told of country music, of blues music,
of pre jazz, jazz music in New Orleans,
where so much Like gospel, blues, jazz,
and country all came together to form
new genres and like all of it was black.
There's so much to be told there and
I wonder if and what former musicians
she will involve in her song making,
what current musicians she will, and I
hope she will also use this opportunity
to like push the space open for more.
Um, because that maybe
was something I don't.
Renaissance did, she didn't need to,
but it, Renaissance felt like, house
is fun, I have a connection to this
because I, I mean, she has a very
real connection through her, like,
gay uncle who I believe Died of AIDS.
Please fact check me if I'm wrong.
I think she has said that on the record.
Like, she, she had a personal
connection to House and Ballroom.
But she is just kind of
like, leaving it now.
I don't know if that's gonna set the stage
for it to like, thrive better as a more
inclusive and visible genre in a way.
And I don't know if that's her point.
Like, now I'm kind of talking in circles.
Like, How much can we
actually expect of someone?
But, I think my last point, the reason I'm
like, getting to this like, heavily nodded
point or set of points is because like
Sometimes it just comes back to like this
woman is a billionaire You know, there's
we have a lot of billionaires on earth now
um Not all of them control culture the way
that beyonce does and the way that taylor
swift does in a way like beyonce is using
this opportunity weaponizing her power
for good hopefully to Teach us something.
Whereas, like, I think Taylor is trying
to use her power to explore internal
monologues on the biggest scale possible.
Now, that's, like, maybe over
reductive, but that's, like, what I see.
You know, Taylor is taking her singer
songwriter thing to its vertical zenith.
and Beyonce is casting
the net horizontally.
Those are two different approaches
and I think it's admirable to do,
I hope, what Beyonce wants to do.
It's also really cool the rumors now are
that she will do her third chapter, uh, in
the rock vein to reclaim yet a third genre
that was like Black owned and operated,
Black founded, co opted by white people,
sold back to, you know, the masses as
if white people had been there first.
I mean, like, the Elvis Presley syndrome
of it all, like, as if he was, like, the
ultimate rock star, whereas, like, his
songwriters were all Black, you know, etc.
Like, that's a super
interesting story to be told.
It just will kind of always beg the
question, is it her story to be told?
Does it matter, you know, if the story
is being told by someone who is being
as careful, cautious, and thoughtful
as possible, and belongs to one of
the communities or multiple of the
communities of which she is speaking?
Maybe it doesn't matter
that it's not her story.
I guess I just have trouble being,
like, following a billionaire,
you know, into the sunset.
Because at the end of the day,
She is just like selling us stuff
and she is controlling culture.
She is using the super bowl to like put
out an ad, you know, like at the very
surface, it is like some eye rolly stuff.
Whereas like, I don't know what
the alternative would be just like
go enjoy your life and your money.
I don't necessarily think that's
better or like of higher integrity
or like moral superiority, but I
think it's reasonable to criticize
or to scrutinize billionaires.
At this level like I'm sorry, I think
if you have that much money And if you
have that much control and you have
that much power, we're gonna look at you
sideways Literally for the rest of your
life, and I think that's reasonable.
I don't think that's a bad thing, because
there's so few of them, and their choices
should be looked at under a microscope.
Like, I know in Taylor's world, she's
getting, like, her airplane's being
tracked, or one of her airplanes is being
tracked right now, and like, obviously
that puts her in some imminent danger,
but like, the person has a point!
Like, this woman is like, her carbon
footprint is like, exponentially
bigger than any one of ours, and like,
we're the ones bearing the brunt of
the The effects, you know, and like
she's not like those kind of things.
I think are reasonable It really is of our
generation and the generations following
to be like, but like, but what do we do?
We can't handcuff everyone that
might get to that status to do
nothing for the rest of their lives
because we'll find Error in that too.
I guess just me in my heart of hearts
as someone that loves music more than
anything in the world I am more reluctant
to follow the most popular person in
the world than I am the person that no
one knows about who's doing something
just for the joy of it that they love.
You know, I always like finding an
artist on their first or second albums
when they're just doing it because
they don't know what else to do and
that's just what they were born to
do and there's just no question.
Like, and in a way their story doesn't
deserve to be held by the shoulders
and shaken for its seriousness or its
integrity or its comprehensiveness this
much because Usually they're young, they
only know so much, we can only expect
them to know so much, and like, maybe
that's like the, the great conundrum of
youth, like, they don't know what they
have, you know, like, they are, in a
way, like, they can't bear the brunt of
criticism because they only know what
they know, and they're doing what they
know how to do, and as soon as that line
is crossed of being too wealthy, too
powerful, too able to know more, Uh,
we then, our standards shift, and it's
interesting to really think, like, I don't
know when that happens, I don't know if
it's a dollar amount, I don't know if
it's, like, a measurable piece of, like,
how we can measure their power, but I do
think it's reasonable, you know, I think
it's reasonable for Beyonce and Taylor
to be scrutinized at this level, not to
be made unsafe, but to be scrutinized,
because their stories are being told
10 million, or let's just say 1 billion
times louder, So, if they're going to
step out of their stories and tell bigger
stories, we deserve to scrutinize those
a billion times more than any individual
that, like, doesn't have that power.
You know?
So, whoo!
Y'all, I was really going
there for quite a while.
Um, Those are the reasons that I
think I had a hard time at the surface
with being like, she's putting on the
country costume and like, saddling up.
But, there is so much potential here
and there is so much learning for her
to help us all do, including herself,
you know, and I hope that that's the
thesis statement of this next project.
And, y'all, honestly, Daddy
Lessons was such a serve.
Like, she embodies the genre well.
It'll be totally kick ass if, like, she
can not only own it and make beautiful
music, and it looks like she's gonna
release some visuals this time, but to
also, like, really kick some of the doors
in on the country music establishment
that have stood an unreasonable test of
time, um, as, like, keeping people out.
You know, like, that'll
be really cool, too.
So, anyway, y'all, you know, I guess
at the end of the day, we can now Add
Beyonce to the great canon of pop stars
that go through a country chapter.
What do y'all think?
Uh, did y'all hear resonant
points that you agree with?
Did you hear things you
really don't agree with?
Please let me know It's rare to
have someone on earth like Beyonce
that can spark this level of
conversation So like let's have it.
I think that's the best part of all this.
Um, thanks for tuning in y'all and
Uh, please, you know Support me and
be encouraging on my little journey
doing this because it is an act of
vulnerability and I am not a billionaire
I am not a millionaire Uh, and it's
just me talking to a camera trying to
Feel life in my veins just the same.
So thank you for the support
so far and uh, help me up level
You know nudge me in the right
directions, but be nice about it.
Okay Uh, i'll see you next time.
Thanks for tuning into the vocal