Who is the Shakespeare of our time, if not Beyonce`?

Image taken from here

How can we compare this man ...

Image from Glamour.com

to this woman?

Before you think this is another post by a crazy Beyonce fan... it isn't. I am not particularly a fan of Beyonce. I am a fan of music. This may also sound like a hippie cliche` thing to say, but you're still reading so I suppose you have not lost respect for me enough to stop reading. 

So let's begin.

Beyonce recently released her album "Lemonade", which she has been self-promoting on social media for months. The BEYHIVE (her fan collective) have been talking about the album nonstop. I follow a few Beyonce extremists on Twitter and let me tell you I was this close (trust me it's very close) to blocking them. The famed album was released as a one hour video special. 

I have to admit that I was caught in the craze and at this point was a bit more than a little interested to watch it. However, it was being aired on HBO, a channel which is not included in my basic cable package (don't judge me for having a shitty package, ok? I hardly watch television), so I knew I would miss the live airing. I stayed away from Twitter just long enough for the movie (which it really was) not to be stale by the following morning. 

A friend of mine shared a link with  me and I watched what can only be described as an epic series of videos. Now, as a former Media and Communication student, I find the production value of that body of work was really off the chain. even without the song lyrics there was a clear message being communicated within each video clip. I loved it. I am not sure about the album itself, even though I downloaded it after another friend shared the Dropbox link with me (and I've listened to it twice while commuting to work). 

But anyway, we are really here to discuss the genius who is Beyonce. I think she is one of the most successful Black singers of our time and for that she deserves an accolade (even though she may have enough Grammys to fill my linen closet). She is also among a small group of (Black) women who have successfully transitioned to a solo career. 

We literally watched her grow from young girl, to young adult... to women...to wife.. to mother .... to QUEEN, leader of the BEYHIVE. To be honest, all this came to light to me after I watched the more than one hour long Lemonade video. For weeks she was putting up images of bees and lemons and photos of her drinking lemonade or under a lemon tree and the interwebs were abuzz with confusion and excitement ... For me it was mostly confusion.

The album, Lemonade, like her other albums - embodied just what her fan base, dare I say we, needed at the time. Her albums are always released with songs conveying a consciousness of the times - a realisation,  a message, a love story, a break-up story, a word of encouragement, approval. While we spent our days wondering whether Lemonade was really an album of her whole life finally revealed in song, it came to me (through reading a series of different tabloids) that she was literally singing what we needed to hear. Our black consciousness and our worth as women were waning, and as we sung about "Becky with the good hair", we were resigning to take pride in ourselves, our colour, and our femininity.

Beyonce gives us what we want to hear...nay, what we NEED to hear. At every point in her career she has been providing us with the tunes we needed at that very moment in our lives - from Cater To You to Single Ladies to If I Were A Boy to Who Run The World to Crazy In Love  to Sorry. If you think back you can recall that these songs were probably songs you rocked out to, because you could identify with them in some way (not just because they're catchy).

Now, Shakespeare was a man (based on what I've read) who was not understood by his fellow theatre colleagues; his ideas were seen as too big for him to accomplish, yet today he is the world's famous poet. His work is timeless and today we can still find  Shakespeare poem that expresses exactly how we feel about love; about how angry we are ... pretty much our whole range of emotions. His plays are still used in schools in English Literature classes (and in prep schools too - I did Shakespeare in Grade 6). His works have stood the test of time and have captured almost every range of human emotion. Such, is the work of Beyonce. The relevance of art.