Prologue
April 8th, 1988
The Summit
Houston, Texas, USA
The Bad Tour
The air was electric. Stage lights slightly illuminated the stage in the pitch-black arena. The tension was tangible as 17,000 people screamed when the ambient music began to build in the background. The spotlight slowly revealed 5 performers at centerstage. Standing in the middle of the performers was the cause of the commotion.
Michael Jackson remained composed as he was showered with hysteric adulation. He wore black and silver with zippers haphazardly adorning his pants and jacket. The band couldn’t wait any longer. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " fired from the instruments and Michael danced as if connected to each note played.
For two hours straight he mesmerized the sold-out crowd with choreography so flawless they forgot to sing along when “Smooth Criminal” came on.
16,999 people were in the presence of the greatest performer in history that night. They weren’t on stage though. At the time they weren’t even in 3rd grade yet.
There she was, deep in the crowd sitting on her daddy’s shoulders. It was her first concert. It was also the first fallen domino in a series of others that would one day lead to a Renaissance.
The music ended. Joyous tears fell from superfans. That experience would live in the fondest memories of all in attendance.
All but one.
Something superseded fondness in the little girl’s mind.
Inspiration.
This was the Genesis of Beyonce.
The Beginning.
I can hear the protesting and gnashing of teeth from all of my readers over 45 years old. Mike was the king. And so was James Brown before him.
Primacy bias has no place here. The student must pass the teacher eventually.
In The Culture music and sports have always gone hand in hand. From serious events like Malcolm X and Kareem Abdul Jabbar attending speaking engagements together to unserious things like Kobe and Shaq showing us why basketball players shouldn’t rap.
No seriously. Kobe needed to stay away from a microphone like he needed to stay out of hotels in Denver.
Beyonce is the biggest star in the world so there are no comparisons that can be made.
Well. There may be one I can think of. Who else is compared to the ghost of greatness past?
Who else is unfairly compared to a clearly less talented Mike?
The boy who would be the King of Akron.
LeBron James.
On the surface the only comparison would be melanin and wealth.
Not true. They are more alike than you may think. Let’s see if we can sort this Venn diagram out together.
GREATNESS
Both have reached uncanny levels of mastery of their craft and unparalleled success in their field.
Beyonce isn’t a pop star. She is a curator of experiences. Her performances are a wonderland of bops, slaps, bangers, weave pats, wrapped in 3 pairs of leggings, and an astonishing amount of glitter.
Her last 3 tours have reimagined what a star could do with a blank check, hard work, immense talent and zero fucks to give.
That’s her now. Back in the early 2000’s when she separates herself from Destiny’s child the same way Mike left his brothers in Gary to chase the crown, Beyonce’s breakout album “Dangerously in Love” came out on 06/23/2003. On that summer day in Akron, Ohio a 17 year old Lebron was preparing for biggest night of his life.
Like Beyonce, Lebron had stardom young. He was chased by recruiters since he was 13 years old. Just 3 days after Beyonce’s solo debut Lebron was drafted to his Hometown team.
They took their meteoric rise and dominated their respective fields for over two decades in industries where artists and athletes age like milk.
Narratives
“Shut up and dribble!”
said Laura Ingraham.
Lebron’s response was simple.
“No”
Black Culture is tough to navigate. Its inception was born of the great human tragedy.
Its infancy was a catastrophe of making unforgiving fields of cotton less horrific by singing please to God for deliverance.
It’s adolescence began with a balancing act of striving to be Cliff and Claire Huxtable but living like Florida and James Evans.
The sounds of crack vials clinking together before shattering lives and making young men hood rich before their prison bids was the ending.
The Cultures’s young adulthood had the dilemma of survivor's remorse.
Lebron felt this deeply, so he attempted to speak on topics of racial injustice and the perceptions that come with that.
Critics despise a wealthy complainer.
But they’re wrong. When Lebron says “It’s hard to be a black man”, he is speaking for a specific subsection of us who are judged prematurely. Not all of us.
When Beyonce straps bullets of rebellion on her chest before her performance at the Superbowl it isn’t a statement of anti-whiteness.
It’s a piece of Black history that’s demonized for disagreeing with the status quo.
And before you scoff at that, let’s play a game. If Kid Rock decided to dress up like Sam Adams from the beer bottle, in reverence to the Boston Tea Party you wouldn’t call him a terrorist would you? Nope. Also, I’d rather listen to Kobe rap than Kid Rock anyway.
Beyonce had dancers with leather, bullets, and afros in the Super Bowl and no one could do a damn thing about it. Why?
She owns her masters. Lebron owns Adam Silver. Perhaps they both own masters then.
When you have POWER. You write the NARRATIVES.
LEGACY
Lebron and Beyonce mean different things to different people.
To the casuals they are mere top dogs in a prestigious kennel, whose sole purpose is to serve our entertainment needs.
To The Culture?
Lebron is the blueprint to what an athlete should aspire to. He makes the right play EVERY-TIME. On the court he has no ego. He shows the young players how to lead, be someone worth following, and live a life worth emulating.
Beyonce takes things several steps further. Beyonce isn’t trying to be an aspiration. Her philosophy is that black women should aspire to be themselves. To be comfortable in their skin.
To boldly take their seat at the table regardless of the awkward stares, whether real or imagined.
They took their benchmarks and placed them on Mount Everest, but told no one where they put them for fear that it would stop others from scaling their own mountains.
A mountain undiscovered. One where blacks folks didn’t have to stumble through broken needles, shell casings, civil unrest and caution tape.
Instead the new generation may waltz through their hike up their mountain of choice with only the sounds of sneakers on wood, balls bouncing, rhythm, blues, catchy hooks and choreography that would make Tina Turner form a rainbow down here.
The point?
Take them as an example.
The example to work for more.
Dream of more.
Live for more.
FIN…….well not quite actually.
Angel Food Cake
A couple years back there was a raging debate in the streets of twitter that turned family members into enemies. Who was better? Taylor Swift or Beyonce Knowles?
Let’s talk about it.
The differences are staggeringly obvious and art is subjective so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
The similarities first.
Both are extremely popular, are heavy on women empowerment, sell out stadiums, set trends, and are worth a solid billy at this point.
Differences?
Taylor is stuck in 2007. No, not her sound, style or even age.
Her content. She writes from the perspective of a heartbroken high-school senior, devoid of a prom date and unsure of what college she’ll attend.
The hymns of heartbreak are catchy and compelling but have the depth of Kim K’s law degree.
Don’t get me wrong. She is talented. But she’s…..well……SAFE.
You know what’s not safe? Making an album about your husband getting caught cheating publicly and having your sister try to land a Mortal Kombat fatality on him in a heavily surveilled elevator.
4 projects separate her for me.
Lemonade dealt with recovering from betrayal and healing a marriage. She had a mystique of being a demigod before then so seeing real vulnerability changed the game.
Black is King cosplayed as a soundtrack for the Lion King, but it was really a love letter to The Culture.
It had a simple but poignant point.
It said
“Your blackness is not a curse.”
The imagery and title was a response to every off-color comment about 4c hair, every insult on caramel to ebony skin tones, every snide remark about the masculinity of our women, the cannibalism of our men, for the assumed lack of intellect, the denial of humanity in the past and for the exploitation of the Sarah Baartmans among us.
Renaissance. When Beyonce is inspired, she shows more than she tells.
Instead of applauding her Queer fans, she made an entire album inspired by them.
Lastly is Cowboy Carter. This is a pure passion project. It’s an incredible country-inspired album that could’ve easily tainted her legacy with a poorly criticized mockery. Instead she took a chance and it paid off.
Artists take chances, push boundaries, and make statements.
Taylor is great, but shallow.
Sort of like angel food cake. Culturally accepted everywhere. No will turn it down if it’s around. It’s versatile. It goes with most occasions. You can find it anywhere actually.
Angel cake need not struggle for relevance due to its bland malleability. Add a little frosting and BOOM! The party is complete.
But The Culture?
Well. We like a good angel cake. But we LOVE a good pound cake.
You see, pound cake is filled with actual substance. A pound of flour. A pound of sugar.
A pound of butter.
Pound cake has more intrinsic value than angel cake due to its ingredients.
It matters not to the consumer. So long as the angel cake provides safe and familiar
experiences it will always sell more stadium seats than the thick and rich pound cake. I mean CAKES. It will sell more cakes.
Our grandmothers would bake a pound cake and have it sitting on a plate for all who entered her home seeking comfort. There was no occasion.
The pound cake wasn’t built on ceremony.
Just the recipes The Culture gave us and the pride we had for it.
FIN.
Epilogue
April 14th 2018
Empire Club
Indio, California USA
Coachella
The sound of gravel smashed from anxious feet was all that could be heard. The tension was palpable as the crowd awaited her arrival. The lights were cut. Pitch black. Except for stage-left. A single spotlight illuminated woman in marching band attire as she welcomed them proudly. She led her marching band to center stage where bright lights revealed a full band.
Dead center of it all was the headliner. The very first black woman to headline this show.
Beyonce stood completely still, soaking in the historic moment. The lights flared and“Crazy in Love’ played by an HBCU marching band completely stunned the crowd.
Almost 2 hours later the crowd began to disperse. They felt joy, shock, awe and amazement as they found their way home.
All but one.
The crowd felt that way. Not her. Deep in that desert stood a woman who came with her best friends. She never told them her true aspirations but tonight solidified it for her.
The awe was replaced by determination.
This is the genesis of—---
FIN…..Foreal this time
Great take
The way you connected all those dots was amazing! This was an entertaining read I’ll definitely be revisiting!