i don't know why y'all mad cause she'll do 2-3 lines, not do any promo, maybe appear on a red carpet and there's a small possibility that she'll release a new song. she won't be doing anything for this film and it won't affect anything else she would put out. i don't see the problem. this film is a non event for her career except it'll push get gross score up

Edited April 29, 20242 yr by Jon Snow

6 minutes ago, kimberly said:

this narrative again... so early in the year, too...

 

 

she gonna lose hard.

To me, based on the snippets its quite clearly Billie whos taking it home.

Her new album sounds great, shes clearly evolved, the acadamy and Grammys love her ans Finneas, shes way better at promoting.. like, its basically 90% Billies. I'd bet money on it

1 hour ago, ShouldersSideways said:

Eh I don't really care about the movie one way or another as long as the visuals come first. it'll be a slap in the face if they don't

The visuals aren't coming before this lol

those lions need to be euthanized

 

42 minutes ago, V$. said:

 

 

5 minutes ago, yonsé said:

The visuals aren't coming lol

 

1 hour ago, Cbreezy said:

I hear you and even agree to some degree, but I also think context is crucial. 

 

There is nothing "inaccessible" about The Gift sonically. If anything, it's a way more palatable, Americanized, yet still qualitative adaptation of a genre that was BOOMING at the time. Wizkid, Davido and co were all in the midst of huge breakout success that was being lapped up by the very people who were critiquing Bey. More on that in a sec.

 

Timing-wise and musically it actually was one of the most on-trend, savvy moves Bey has made...on paper.

 

IMO, climate and context are everything. And the easiest way for me to relay this is to look at it from two camps of chaos around her at the time.

 

1) The Disinterest / Frustration of Bey's Core Base

 

Bey was at her most inactive in 2019 and was kinda sorta consistently doing the opposite of what her die-hard Hive wanted. Coming off Coachella, we all had an appetite for a solo era. Instead, she gives us OTRII and EIL. Both ok, but chops in the grand scheme of things. 

 

The Lion King was a great move on paper, yet she did nothing to push the actual movie (thus created a certain sour taste with her own fandom wanting more from...her). We expected performances, interviews, visibility. Yet, sans Spirit and the premieres. It was pretty hands-off. 

 

The Gift, a whole side project we knew nothing about before it was announced, dropped sans the usual ostentatious rollout from (e.g. without visuals etc) and deffo without much push and thus underperformed. Automatically, like I said earlier, putting it in the category of releases fans CHOOSE to not associate with because it underperformed. 

 

BIK coming a whole year later was never going to be enough. Even if it was exceptional, like it was. Add the whole Disney+ being new at the time into the mix and yeah...it's all a bit of a nonstarter.

 

2) The Hating GP / Some Sections Of The Afro Diaspora

 

Imma say from the jump that I literally know people who fall into this category. Loud, wrong, and strong when it's easy to tug at Bey, yet the same ones doing the Cuff It Challenge on TikTok and writing Twitter think-pieces about the brilliance of Rennie when she's popular. Flip-floppers. 

 

In the absence of promo and visibility, together with the nothingness of the pandemic (remember BIK dropped 2020), I've clocked those are the windows it's easiest for people to successfully come for Bey. There's no visual to gag at, looks to fawn over, new music being promoted. If anything there's an air of irritation of how little she gave.

 

As someone of African heritage myself, I don't know if y'all know how pathetic the "Mama Africa" shade from others in the diaspora was. Same with the critiques from the Afro diaspora. I still get so riled up at the whole Gift/BIK discourse primarily because it was "presented" as this deep, theoretical, quality discourse when in reality it was dizzy, dense, and lacking in any depth. Here Bey was trying to lift up OUR culture and despite a lot of support from within some corners of the culture just seemed adamant to sink it. Ironically in ways they wouldn't if it were another act like a Rih. 

 

For the uninformed, mainstream Afrobeats literally is West African-led. More specifically Nigeran led. Like, any act you even "kinda sorta" know (Wizkid, Davido, Tiwa Savage, Ayra Star etc) are all Nigerian from a specific tribe at that. It is what it is. Yet, you literally had "African Twitter" foaming at the mouth to slam Bey with idiotic remarks like "why is there no East African music on the album"? "Where is so little North African representation". BECAUSE NO ONE EN MASSE LISTENS TO THAT! LOL. Hell, even the people IN those countries PRIMARILY listen to the version of Afrobeats Bey zoned in on and the artists she featured. 

This is way longer than intended, but I say all of this to say, we have to be careful to not always conflate the quality of the music or value of exploring a musical lane with the context-laden BS of yesteryear. 

 

Like others have said, Bey has boomed on streaming in the time since, actually has a team different to the team during The Gift / BIK, and generally has more good grace/momentum now musically than back then. I also trust that lessons have been learned from before. So, anything she releases (including more Afrobeats) stands to do better than before iMO. 

You essentially proved my point with this post. Haters are going to hate: they did not like this era from her. It doesn't matter if the idea to do afrobeats was smart, they did not like her approach. Even some of the artists she worked with *on the album* threw shade her way. And we as hive have to deal with the blowback and discourse. It's tiring.

 

 

34 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

i don't know why y'all mad cause she'll do 2-3 lines, not do any promo, maybe appear on a red carpet and there's a small possibility that she'll release a new song. she won't be doing anything for this film and it won't affect anything else she would put out. i don't see the problem. this film is a non event for her career except it'll push get gross score up

I don't get this sentiment from everyone. She was barely in the first film and still put out a whole separate companion record. She had *one* song in the movie and it wasn't even a solo, despite the fact that Nala gets a solo in the broadway show. Her original song is shoehorned into the film for 30 seconds.

 

Her not being that involved doesn't mean she isn't working on afrobeats music, especially when there were reports in February of her working on afrobeats music in London. 

Edited April 29, 20242 yr by yonsé

5 minutes ago, Lovett said:

 

would be 3 billion if she deleted Spirit from existence and pushed BIGGER instead

 

but still an accomplishment 

2 hours ago, swissman said:

I can find ways to improve it but think that it did a good job doing the story in its own way. That it dragged out some parts of the original story or glossed over others seems fine considering it's its own thing, a visual representation of music that was an audio interpretation of the film. Asking that it have the same focuses as the original story seems like an unfair assessment when it's not trying to be a literal interpretation of it at all.

 

As mentioned, I think specifically what they achieved with the "mother" character at the beginning who comes back at the end to have her story revealed is beautiful and special, and something that absolutely does not appear in the The Lion King story whatsoever. It's these added elements that shifts the story to Beyoncé's gaze and her use of the story.

 

Black is King was able to achieve a lot at once, I think. It spoke about, honoured and celebrated the immense beautify of African culture, it told the story of the Lion King in its own way by expanding on the theme of the circle of life and used it as a philosophical reference point to give us a story that was not linear but circular and even hard to understand. And I think that's part of its genius. It's layered use of past, present, future as well as traditional storytelling and added elements can be confusing and overstimulating, but I think that's part of the intention.

 

imo it's her greatest visual album.

 

she is rafiki. its not that crazy or avant-garde lol...she watches over simba through the whole movie just like rafiki, who is played by a woman in the broadway show.

 

that information doesn't change that the story is VERY well known (it is Hamlet, after all), so doing an interpretation of it is going to bring about criticism if it isn't executed properly. and it wasn't. im not afraid to say that. i love the find your way back and my power videos. it has some of her best visual work ever. but it isn't her best visual album as a whole.

 

i would quickly watch lemonade before black is king. it feels more cinematic and less like a collage of shots. and that's not to say black is king didn't do some things right. it is visually a bonanza. the styling was amazing. Zerina did her big one. but it does not hold together as a singular product. i skip in between to the music videos when i watch it. i don't care to listen to her poems, wheras in Lemonade, the poems HEIGHTEN the impact of the songs. that just does not happen here. 

Edited April 29, 20242 yr by yonsé

1 hour ago, cloudbusting said:

would be 3 billion if she deleted Spirit from existence and pushed BIGGER instead

 

but still an accomplishment 

The Spirit rollout was so weird. The way they were hiding the title as some super secret information that only Tom Cruise could find  

8 minutes ago, yonsé said:

she is rafiki. its not that crazy or avant-garde lol...she watches over simba through the whole movie just like rafiki, who is played by a woman in the broadway show.

 

that information doesn't change that the story is VERY well known (it is Hamlet, after all), so doing an interpretation of it is going to bring about criticism if it isn't executed properly. and it wasn't. im not afraid to say that. i love the find your way back and my power videos. it has some of her best visual work ever. but it isn't her best visual album as a whole.

 

i would quickly watch lemonade before black is king. it feels more cinematic and less like a collage of shots. and that's not to say black is king didn't do some things right. it is visually a bonanza. the styling was amazing. Zerina did her big one. but it does not hold together as a singular product. i skip in between to the music videos when i watch it. i don't care to listen to her poems, wheras in Lemonade, the poems HEIGHTEN the impact of the songs. that just does not happen here. 

you hit the nail on the head.

 

I've only ever watched BIK in its entirety once in 2020. a few months ago I watched it again, but had to watch it in parts because it's kind of... boring?

 

as beautifully shot and edited these music videos are, there is no real reason for anyone to sit down and watch an hour+ of them in a row.

12 minutes ago, Blue Rose said:

The Spirit rollout was so weird. The way they were hiding the title as some super secret information that only Tom Cruise could find  

Everything bey related has been weird and to her detriment. 

Cecred if it is successful is what will get her a billion dollar company

14 minutes ago, yonsé said:

You essentially proved my point with this post. Haters are going to hate: they did not like this era from her. It doesn't matter if the idea to do afrobeats was smart, they did not like her approach. Even some of the artists she worked with *on the album* threw shade her way. And we as hive have to deal with the blowback and discourse. It's tiring.

 

 

Fair and I agree that it IS tiring that she receives such blowback when her output is so on point. 

 

But I still maintain that that it's all about pre-release setup and the resulting optics. 

 

Take Lemonade and CC for example. They had way more blowback from Middle America and the Country community respectively (compared to The Gift) and yet that blowback didn't sink those projects in the way it did The Gift. 

 

IMO, Lem and CC had the "proper Beyonce" album setups with a clear lead/focus single and broader campaign that was "worked" traditionally and thus established a foundation to withstand that blowback. The Gift, in being worked as a side project with insufficient push from Bey herself, didn't really stand a chance in that regard. 

 

The haters were lashing the "Bey goes Country" narrative while all it took was the little earworm called Texas Hold Em to fend that off and establish an unshakable foundation for the rest of the album. Lemonade had the haters in a tizzy, but Formation was smashing in the clubs, visually, and beyond. 

 

The Gift had none of that. 

 

I verbatim witnessed people in deep hateful dialogue about her "going Afrobeats" while admitting to having never listened to the music. It was illogical boredom fuelled by a lack of pre-release source material to engage with. Come the tim of BIK a year later, it was cool to drag Bey's Afrobeats venture and there was no reviving.

 

To me, that's not an insurmountable issue. Especially as Bey's core base is Black and she is actually popular in regions like Africa. It's simply a strategy, positioning, marketing mishap rather than an inherent disdain for her Afrobeats efforts from her core audience or the Afro diaspora. 

 

For example, had The Gift been preceded with any of the following videos (as they are) the narrative would have been very different IMO: Already, My Power, Water, Find Your Way Back. The girls would have gagged and in this fickle social media era, the discourse would be rooted in surface things like the looks, choreo, her body etc. 

 

Setup is...everything. 

 

Like, for as much as I love CC, I will not be convinced that the average Hive member would naturally gravitate to the material on that album than over the much more Urban-leaving Gift if played them back to back prior to their releases (without any success or flop narratives attached). 

 

That said, one thing you seemed to be getting at that I do kinda align on is that, regardless of anything I just wrote lol, on paper Bey's foray into Afrobeats was factually a commercial underperformance. Outside of coming with an undeniable set bops that are setup to smash, it wouldn't be anything fresh, new, or even stunt-y from her. The latter of which are the exact type of things that have helped hr projects propel to the top of the charts.

I'd love it if we get a new song for Lion King since she's already doing it and her voice acting gives me nothing. Another The Gift would be overdoing it tho.

2 hours ago, Devin said:

ima keep my ugly ass opinion to myself

Keep it civil sis, don't want you to get any more warning points. 

6 minutes ago, Draper. said:

I'd love it if we get a new song for Lion King since she's already doing it and her voice acting gives me nothing. Another The Gift would be overdoing it tho.

 

anyways how is 2 most wanted doing, surely the visualizer boosted streams?

I would love for B to be apart of a big action movie in the future  Dune part 3  or  a John Wick movie

Mufasa trailer having 41k dislikes vs 45k likes

 

50 minutes ago, Lovett said:

 

This whole mystery **** is SO ANNOYING

i hate this era and no one's going to see Mustinky or stream any Beyoncé songs related to it