Beyoncé uses her music videos to convey powerful messages about black history, pride, and empowerment. Her videos for "Formation" and "Lemonade" highlight issues like police brutality and black oppression. Songs like "Brown Skin Girl" celebrate black beauty and fight against unrealistic standards. Throughout her career, Beyoncé has brought attention to important aspects of black history and culture through her art in order to inspire and motivate black communities around the world.

1. HOW DOES BEYONCE USE HER MUSIC VIDEOS TO
CONVEY POWERFUL MESSAGES ?
ESSAY QUESTION

2. ABOUT BEYONCE
 Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter is an American singer and actress.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various
singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the
late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling
girl groups of all time
 “My main accomplishment is achieving peace and happiness,” explains
Beyonce in an Essence interview. “Sometimes you think it’s success,
and you think that it’s being a big star. But I want respect, and I want
friendship and love and laughter, and I want to grow.”
 One of her famous quotes; “Power is not given to you. You have to
take it.”
 No one asked Beyonce to be the biggest black pop star of our time. In
fact, lots of people probably preferred that she failed. She went out
and made a spot for herself, rather than sitting around and waiting for
the industry to invite her in. And despite never being celebrated by the
Academy, she keeps pushing and demanding that she’s a major voice
in pop music.

3. BEYONCE’S MUSIC VIDEO’S

4. FORMATION
 The music video for her newest song, "Formation," has become the most political message she's ever shared,
evoking powerful images of black cultural pride, oppression, wealth, tragedy, and resilience.
 the video dives deep into the issues that the black community is currently facing, from police brutality to unrealistic
standards of beauty. The timing is perfect, considering it was Black History Month.
 Police brutality has been an ongoing discussion in the black community long before it ever reached a national stage.
The conversation especially exploded after the fatal shootings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and too many other
lives lost in recent memory. A number of artists and icons have spoken out against the unfair and racist tactics from
(mostly white) police officers, and Beyoncé going on record to devote such a powerful image in her music video
wasn’t an unconscious choice. She filled the music video with images that ranged from graffiti that read "Stop
Shooting Us," to a wall of SWAT officers...and literally sunk a New Orleans Police Car into a body of water to let
everyone know where she stood on the issues at hand-resource- Teen Vogue
 If you know Beyoncé, you know that nothing she does is a coincidence. She’s got something to say, and she’s going
to make sure you hear her loud and clear.

5. LEMONADE
• Lemonade is Beyoncé’s sixth album: 12 tracks
• Main thought on Lemonade: It's about lifting up the experiences of black woman, who are largely
invisible in this country & the world
• Melina Matsoukas, the director of the "Formation" music video, said that Beyoncé explained to her the
concept behind Lemonade, stating: "She wanted to show the historical impact of slavery on black love,
and what it has done to the black family, and black men and women—how we're almost socialized not
to be together."
• Beyoncé's visual album Lemonade is a fearless story about infidelity and the inner lives of black
American women
• Lemonade is a painful personal transformation; the conjuring of "black girl magic"; a political
statement about racism, police violence and black motherhood.
• Women fear being seen as unlikable because the social and professional punishment is real. They
commonly experience imposter syndrome, wondering if they've truly earned success or will be
revealed as frauds. This is why Beyoncé is such a transformational figure for women. When she sings
on the Lemonade track "Sorry" about being the "baddest woman in the game," we can only imagine
what it takes to insist on her self-worth as black woman in an industry and culture steeped in racism.
• That's a lesson women can draw from Lemonade: Speak your truth even if society tells you to
stay silent.

6. ALREADY
• Already is a collaboration with Ghananian, Shatta Wale and Major Lazer, taken from the 2019 Album ‘the lion
king’; Gift
• Queen Beyonce has always been proud of being black and it shows
• The lyrics in the music video are truly inspiring and is definitely a homage to confidence and greatness within
the black community and especially black history.

7. BROWN SKIN GIRL
 Beyoncé's 'Brown Skin Girl' is controversial because of its inclusionary vision of female beauty
 The song, which features Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy, is a love letter to black girls and black
women everywhere, telling us that our natural selves are beautiful and worthy of being exalted.
 Assistant editor Mekishana Pierre echoed the same sentiment of appreciation for the song's
celebration of black girls. "It's a message reminding us that regardless of what anyone else says
or thinks, we are blessings," she said. "We are beautiful; we are made of the sun and the earth
and our skin is 'just like pearls.' By making this song, Beyoncé tells everyone that black women
are untouchable. In a world where people try to make brown skin something ugly, it reminds us
what the truth is: we are the realest magic there ever was!"

8. SOME FACTS ABOUT BLACK
HISTORY
 Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into
slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the
production of crops such as tobacco and cotton.
 The nation’s founders believed in white supremacy, and they were not ashamed to say so.
The first slaves arrived to America in 1619. Between 1619 and 1865, Virginia passed more than 130 slave
statutes to regulate the ownership of Black people. A 1662 law made all children of enslaved mothers slaves,
regardless of the father’s race or status, so that rape by white slave-masters couldn’t create a free child. A
1667 law codified that slaves who converted to Christianity were still slaves. A 1669 law allowed slaves to be
killed for resisting authority.
 Cornrows were given its name by slaves who thought the style resembled rows of corn in the field. Other
slaves, in Central and Southern America and the Caribbean call them cane rows because they resembled
sugarcane fields.[8] This hairstyle was useful for the livelihood of slaves. Braid patterned became symbols
for freedom. Different styles and patterns were used as guide to plantations, resembling roads and paths
to travel or avoid.
 The celebration of Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” which was created in 1926 by
Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator and publisher. It became a
month-long celebration in 1976. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

9. QUOTES FROM AFRICAN-AMERICANS
 “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women
together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the
men better let them.”
 “Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we
decide you are not a man.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
 “There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their
impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them.
And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people
have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they
understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable
reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover,
people find it very difficult to act on what they know.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad
luck in the world but whitefolks.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

10. SUMMARY
Beyonce’s lyrics and music video’s are always truly inspiring. Most of the time she creates ones that are
definitely a homage to confidence and greatness within the black community, especially black history. She
demonstrates the beauty of the nature and also of the culture of the African history which really strives to
motivate and inspire black men and woman to be who they really are and to remember where they come from
which is a very beautiful and royal image of kings and queens.
It definitely shows that throughout her video’s, the art, her costumes and also the history and the way she
styles her hair. This is why I think that her music video’s are really good because it becomes a really good
motivational video that shows young people and all people that African Americans and Africans in general do
come from a very long line of Kings and Queens with a beautiful history that deserves respect and needs to be
shown in the media on a regular basis.

11. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Magazine-Teenvogue
 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/29/beyonce-lemonade-jay-z-explaine
 http://www.lablackpost.com/beyonce-purpose-passion-growth/
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypfm8Ey438M
 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/african-americans