Beyonce drops off a surprising new single, “Black Parade.”
The woman who ‘stopped the world’ with her surprise, self-titled release, is back again with the premiere of “Black Parade” amid Juneteenth celebrations. Most recently, Beyonce’s music serves as a touchpoint for complex and taboo subjects such as the sip of the relentless racial tensions and feminist interests we got on 2017’s Lemonade. Now in the wake of police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, Yoncé sent her addition to the new wave of protest songs and some encouragement for her fanbase. “Happy Juneteenth Weekend! I hope we continue to share joy and celebrate each other, even in the midst of struggle. Please continue to remember our beauty, strength, and power. ‘BLACK PARADE’ celebrates you, your voice and your joy and will benefit Black-owned small businesses,” the singer wrote on Instagram.
She’s been particularly vocal during this period of protest, speaking out on social media in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, calling on people to sign a petition demanding accountability and justice. “We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain,” she said in a solemn tone in her Instagram video. She went on to pen an open letter to Kentucky’s attorney general demanding criminal charges for the officers who killed Breonna Taylor, citing the unacceptably slow pace of the investigation.
“Black Parade” is the performer and philanthropist’s latest effort, and the song’s release comes in conjunction with Beyoncé’s “Black Parade Route,” a curated directory of Black-owned small businesses administered by the National Urban League. “Being Black is your activism. Black excellence is a form of protest. Black joy is your right,” she said of the endeavor on her website.
Honoring the ancestors, the “motherland” and African spirituality, the “Hold Up” crooner drops celebratory bars about ‘all black everything’: We got rhythm, we got pride, we birth kings, we birth tribes,” Beyoncé sings. It’s a track of both joy and pain, and Ms. get-in-Formation paints a probing picture of some very stark realities.
“Lay down, face down in the gravel, Woo, wearin’ all attire white to the funeral, Black love, we gon’ stay together, Curtis Mayfield on the speaker (Woo), Lil’ Malcolm, I miss ’em, momma Tina,” Beyonce sings.
Juneteeth, which started as a commemoration for freed African Americans in Beyonce’s Texas hometown, has seen increased urgency this year within the current racially charged climate.
