Sam Jay: Taking Aim - Metro Weekly, August 6, 2020

Music
PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT
Royal Treatment
Beyoncé’s visual album, Black is King, is a majestic love letter
to Black communities past and present. By Sean Maunier
A
FEW YEARS AGO IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FAIR TO CALL BEYONCÉ THE
queen of pop, but with her unmatched ability to push boundaries and set the
tone of conversations, she likely deserves a bigger crown than that. Even so, her
latest project is an ambitious one, even for her. She noted on her Instagram that the
making of Black is King (HHHHH) was a “labor of love,” an undertaking that aimed to
do no less than tell the story of millennia of Black history and to discover “what it truly
means to find your self-identity and build a legacy.” More than a year in the making and
filmed on three continents, it is a massive, sprawling effort, one that Beyoncé and her
long list of collaborators have clearly poured their hearts and souls into.
Beyoncé is of course all but synonymous with the visual album, having established
herself as a master of the genre with Lemonade. Each scene is markedly distinct from
the one preceding it, both visually and in tone, but together they
tell a cohesive story of a young African king cast out from his family
who must find his way back, guided by his childhood love and his
ancestors. Conceived as a companion piece to The Lion King: The
Gift, it reimagines and reinterprets the story for a 2020 audience. The
project incorporates audio from the live-action remake of The Lion King, as in the first
interlude, when a voiceover of James Earl Jones as Mufasa plays over images of African
families as well as celestial bodies.
Black is King is awash with immediately recognizable symbolism. Beyoncé and her
co-director Kwasi Fordjour incorporate pan-African as well as biblical and Christian
imagery, with Beyoncé herself cast as guide, narrator, and both literal and figurative
Click Here to
Watch the Trailer
Black is King is available to stream exclusively on Disney+.
mother. She may be at the center of the
story, larger than life as she so often is, but
this time she is more its storyteller than its
subject. As she puts it in the opening track,
“I’ll be the roots, you be the tree.” The
project acts as a corrective to the sweeping
narratives of human history and culture
that have been handed down to us and
have all too often actively marginalized,
forgotten and scrubbed out the stories
and contributions of Black individuals and
communities. Images from classical western
art are reimagined accordingly, with
Beyoncé appearing in the likeness of the
Madonna and child.
As much as she deserves praise as the
driving force behind it, Black is King is
bigger than Beyoncé, a fact which is not
lost on her. Driving the point home, the
film ends with a dedication to her son
Sir, right before the credits
play over an extended
version of “Black Parade,”
the song she released a few
weeks ago to coincide with
Juneteenth. Setting the already powerfully
resonant songs over the gorgeous, inspired
visuals elevates them and their storytelling
power, elements that weave together
beautifully to tell a complex, timely and
necessary story.
AUGUST 6, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
37