Good stuff, indeed. Ashé!
I'm not even in the Beyhive, yet I was stung by a royal and poignant literary note that forever would change me. And I must thank Beyoncé and her self-titled album for such thing.
"We raise girls to see each other as competitors/ Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I/think can be a good thing/ But for the attention of men," firmly enunciates Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Beyoncé's "Flawless", one of my favorite tracks in "Beyoncé", the self-titled album that was dropped on December 13th, 2013. According to the Western calendar, it was a Friday and the whole music industry got hyper excited for this huge unexpected album releasing.
I honestly don't even remember what I was doing or what was I even into in 2013, particularly on December 13th. No, I Didn't get to feel the rush, the frenziness, nor the global excitment that apparently every pop culture consumer experienced that day, at least in the United States. Spotify was not a thing at all on my smartphone (did I even have a smartphone back then?). itunes and YouTube were my only portals to worlds and cultures that seemed to unreachable to me. It's not like I lived under a rock, I knew who Beyoncé was, but majority of the people around me at the time couldn't care less about anything remotely Black when it came to music, movies, and art. In 2013 I was still stuck at "B'Day" with an honorable mention of "Single Ladies" (from "I AM ... SASHA FIERCE", which dropped in 2008).
The reason was simple: not many BIPOC friends in Florence, but lots of Black family members in Brazil. In fact, I was in Brazil in 2007, a year after "B'Day", and family members and friends of my age would sing along with me in our broken English to the songs we could grasp via the Internet at any local cybercafe' or the super slow computer that was shared with at least ten other relatives. But by the next time I was in Brazil again the year was 2014 and my cousins and I were in awe of Nicki Minaj's "Pinkprint." No more Beyoncé, just Nicki and Ariana Grande on our radar.
In both middle school and high school I was learning English through Adele, Ariana Grande, Taylore Swift, and Lana Del Rey, and of course some hints of Nicki Minaj, whose beats charmed me, but made me feel lost any time I'd attempt to translate AAVE and the producers' tags or adlibs (which I was certain were real words to be used anywhere and anytime in casual conversations). Back home in Italy I was instructed that "that kind of English" wasn't good for me to learn if I wanted to go to college to America. So from 2013 (2009, to be precise) to 2016 anything that involved or was presented outside of the traditional English canons... wasn't really encouraged to be digested or appreciated. I still was happy and content to learn and enjoy pop culture through Gossip Girl, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe, but I knew I was missing lots that I knew I could have enjoyed given a more diverse crowd around me.
Fast forward to 2016 - 2020 (my formative years in college), I received an intense pop culture crash course in less than a year during my time at Hofstra University. As my English was getting better and I wasn't around anyone telling me that there was just one correct form of English, Literature, music, and journalism became my platforms to both consume and publish content. Eventually all of thi sled me to fashion and my current academic work.
"Feminist, a person who/ believes in the social, political/And economic equality of the/ sexes," concludes Ngozi in "Flawless". I can't pinpoint the exact calendar I listened to this song, but I know I was in my dorm room catching up all music videos that I hadn't watched of Beyoncé. It was at night, curled up in my pajamas. I had no idea who Ngozi was nor what feminist meant: all I knew was at the time that even though I was late in catching up with lots of music Beyoncé had put out, that didn't discourage myself from not being curious, pick up a dictionary, and let lyrics and visuals speak to me without anyone telling me how untraditional and subhersive that content cold be in a matter of weeks I found myself reading Ngozi's work, yet never ever having the time to fully engage in her work. There was always a class I had to prioritize, a chore to do, a worry to be preoccupied with.
This year I finally could get my hands on Ngozi's work and start reading her novels. By now my writing evolved and the content gets more explicit and analytical, leaving space to the feminist and intersectional mindset I've agreed, disagreed, and interpreted over the years.
If it wasn't for "Beyoncé" I would have never known of Ngozi. Indeed, today I woke up and felt grateful for my not so flawless journey in coming across, having access, and falling in love with Africana literature.