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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. A reduction of shondaland

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Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio music kind of

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Speaker 1: comes and goes piggy pop music. Yeah, and so she's

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Speaker 1: turned that whole turned everything on its head. As a creator,

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Speaker 1: I don't even know what the right word for artist creator.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what to call her anymore, because she's

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Speaker 1: just beyond the labels. She's beyond, beyond, beyond Beyonce. Hi,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. When you

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Speaker 1: think about why Beyonce Jazelle knows Carter means so much

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Speaker 1: to me, I think about the your Destiny's Child's first

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Speaker 1: album came out. It was a self titled album. It

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Speaker 1: came out that was the year that I started by

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Speaker 1: medical transition. And so as long as I have publicly

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Speaker 1: identified as a woman, Destiny's Child and Beyonce have kind

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Speaker 1: of been in my life. And I feel like I've

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Speaker 1: sort of grown up with Beyonce in a way. I

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Speaker 1: just saw so much of myself, and she's obviously influenced

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Speaker 1: a lot of my aesthetic choices. She's just given me

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Speaker 1: a lot of permission over the years to explore different

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Speaker 1: parts of myself through her music and through her performances.

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Speaker 1: So I am insanely excited about today's conversation. What I

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Speaker 1: knew I was going to be doing a podcast and

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Speaker 1: knew I wanted to have an episode about Beyonce. I

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Speaker 1: just don't want to have an episode where I'm just

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Speaker 1: like fanning out over Beyonce, although that would be perfectly legitimate.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to sort of know Honor the depth of

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Speaker 1: her work. And I was like, who can we bring

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Speaker 1: on and have a conversation about Beyonce? And I thought

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Speaker 1: about Kevin Alred, So a little bit about Kevin. Kevin

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Speaker 1: Already is an award winning author, speaker, educator, and musician

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Speaker 1: who says he loves Beyonce above all else and two

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Speaker 1: thousand and ten, he created a college curriculum Politicizing Beyonce,

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Speaker 1: which paired Beyonce music with black feminist literature to interrogate

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Speaker 1: American race, gender, and sexual politics. He is the author

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Speaker 1: of Ain't Idiva, Beyonce and the Power of Pop Culture

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Speaker 1: pedagog We go there and it's so fun, it's so awesome.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait for you to hear this. Please enjoy

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Speaker 1: my conversation with Kevin Alread. Hello, Kevin, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: How are you. I I'm good, as good as anyone

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Speaker 1: can be during these times. But you know, I do know,

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Speaker 1: I do know. So I I am really nervous and

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Speaker 1: excited about having this conversation with you. And what was

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Speaker 1: interesting preparing for this was reading of a book and

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Speaker 1: realizing that it's not just in homage to Beyonce, that

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Speaker 1: it's also in a celebration of black feminist writers and thinkers.

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Speaker 1: And then I would put on music and then I

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Speaker 1: would start dancing and have all of my feelings and say, sthetic.

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Speaker 1: I have such a complicated relationship to Beyonce, and it

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Speaker 1: sounds like you do as well. In your book, you

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Speaker 1: say that bed A was sort of your indoctrination into

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Speaker 1: the bee Hive. Why was Beatata moment for you as

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Speaker 1: opposed to you know, Dangerously in Love or Destiny's Child.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it just was like a feeling for me.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, like that album hit me different. Of course,

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Speaker 1: I've been a fan of hers, like you can't not be.

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Speaker 1: Some people try not to be, but you have to

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Speaker 1: try hard not to be a fan of Beyonce. Just

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Speaker 1: the music and the fun and you know everything. But

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Speaker 1: I just distinctly remember like sitting at the desk I

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Speaker 1: had at the time, and like hearing Deja Vous Star

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Speaker 1: and like the bass rattle and this feeling of this

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Speaker 1: whole new sound. It was for me, I think, a

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Speaker 1: pivotal moment where she started to claim an independence that

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Speaker 1: we've now seen blossom. But it was that moment where

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Speaker 1: she went away from all the you know, the record

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Speaker 1: companies she had played Dina Jones and Dreamgirls, and she

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Speaker 1: was like powerless and she wanted to like hit back

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Speaker 1: really hard and I don't know, that's just like hit

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Speaker 1: me in a way that some of her other other

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Speaker 1: music hadn't. And I became like a fan times a

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Speaker 1: million at that point. I was just a fan before,

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Speaker 1: and then that just like pushed it into the stratosphere.

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Speaker 1: I guess. I think for me, I I was a

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Speaker 1: fan since Desse's Sheathon is No No. I remember seeing

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Speaker 1: them on tr L. I think was the first time

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Speaker 1: I became aware of Destiny's Child. Remember they did an

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Speaker 1: interview with that they didn't perform, and they talked and

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Speaker 1: I was like, who are these cute girls? You know?

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Speaker 1: And then I heard the song and I was, I

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Speaker 1: came obsessed, and then the writings on the wall like

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Speaker 1: solidified it from me. When and Bill's Builds Bills came out,

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Speaker 1: I was, I was all in and then say my

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Speaker 1: name and then jump and jumping in like you know

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Speaker 1: the chronology, but I think it was beat eight. But

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Speaker 1: it was also it happened like with the Beyonce Experience concert,

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Speaker 1: you know, was her first visual album, when I saw

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Speaker 1: the concert and understood that she was on a new

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Speaker 1: level as a live performer, Like I went to a

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Speaker 1: new level, and I think she gave me permission to

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Speaker 1: queen out in a way that I had not felt before.

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Speaker 1: Because and this is really interesting. I'm just I'm literally

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Speaker 1: having this aha moment right now. I'm like, I started

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Speaker 1: my medical transition in year that Desney Schell's first album

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Speaker 1: came out. But I was very much like at that

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Speaker 1: time in New York and I was in the club scene.

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Speaker 1: People wanted to sort of conflate my identity with being

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Speaker 1: drag and I needed to sort of divorce myself from like,

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Speaker 1: you know, gay clubs and gay culture because I'm like,

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Speaker 1: I'm a woman, I'm not a drag queen. And like,

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Speaker 1: I saw this this black woman who was beautiful and

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Speaker 1: may saying, who is embracing all this sort of over

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Speaker 1: the top drag queen esque obviously inspired movement, and it

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Speaker 1: just gave me permission to own that part of myself

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Speaker 1: channeling Josephine Baker too. Let's not forget I will never

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Speaker 1: forget the Deja video and those performances, like that's how

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Speaker 1: she kind of unveiled that era and it was like,

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Speaker 1: oh damn, this is something that we haven't seen from

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Speaker 1: her before. Yeah, you reference the Fashion Rocks live performance

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Speaker 1: which was dedicated to Josephine Baker, and she actually wore

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Speaker 1: the banana skirt and the movement is very much influenced

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Speaker 1: by Josephine Baker, who has been a huge influence for me.

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Speaker 1: But that Fashion Rocks performance for me, is still one

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Speaker 1: of my favorites. The wind she sounded so great, and

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Speaker 1: I love the Deja choreography so much, like I'm obsessed

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Speaker 1: with that coreo. That's very African dancing, it's very Josephine

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Speaker 1: Baker influenced. It seems like one of those first homage

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Speaker 1: moments to m black women of the past, black entertainers,

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Speaker 1: black feminist history even and it's nothing to say that

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Speaker 1: she does that now because she's you know, homecoming, she's

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Speaker 1: interspersed with with quotes and all of this stuff, and

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Speaker 1: she's kind of taken on the role of teacher herself

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Speaker 1: and she's like educating the masses about all this stuff.

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Speaker 1: But I think that was another moment that was impactful

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Speaker 1: because it was like, this isn't just a pop single,

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Speaker 1: this isn't just a song. She's like teaching us something too.

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Speaker 1: And that to me, obviously, because I was like going

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Speaker 1: into being a teacher, I was like, oh, cool, so

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Speaker 1: we can look to this as a teaching tool as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're referencing your book an article by Daphne Brooks from

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Speaker 1: The Nation magazine Sugar Mama Politicized. Yet Sugar Mama politicized.

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Speaker 1: You rite that Brooks imagined that Beyonce was reclaiming a

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Speaker 1: meticulously nuanced political image of black women with her work

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Speaker 1: participating in larger or a black feminist historical trajectory. Um,

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Speaker 1: can you talk to us a little bit about Brooks

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Speaker 1: is inspiring you to create the course curriculum politicizing Beyonce

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Speaker 1: that you did over eleven years ago. Yeah, that article again,

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Speaker 1: just like the B Day album was kind of like

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Speaker 1: a bombshell to me. That article was too, because I'd

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Speaker 1: been listening to Beyonce now in this new way, and

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Speaker 1: it was the first critical writing about Beyonce that I'd

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Speaker 1: ever come across. I mean, it may be the first

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Speaker 1: like critical analysis of Beyonce that exists, but it was

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Speaker 1: really an album review, but it got into all of

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Speaker 1: this stuff about the historical context of the release of

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Speaker 1: B Day, which is a year almost to the date

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Speaker 1: after Hurricane Katrina, has come through that same geography really

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Speaker 1: like she's because she's also bringing forth this Gulf Coast,

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Speaker 1: so much Gulf Coast imagery on that album, and it

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Speaker 1: just got the wheels in my head thinking about how

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Speaker 1: we could analyze other Beyonce stuff. So it like broke

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Speaker 1: open these floodgates of inquiry and questions and listening to

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Speaker 1: her in a different way that I didn't even know existed.

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Speaker 1: You know, people will right thirty two articles about analyzing

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Speaker 1: a Shakespeare play or whatever, and I was like, this

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Speaker 1: is the level Beyonce is on now. She's producing work

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Speaker 1: that can be taken so many different ways and analyzed

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Speaker 1: in so many directions. Once you dig into the evidence

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Speaker 1: she puts into the videos starting at B Day, you

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Speaker 1: see her grow in ways that have now born fruit.

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Speaker 1: And so that article by Daphne Brooks and a lot

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Speaker 1: of her other writing about music just kind of was

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Speaker 1: so inspirational to me that like you could look at

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Speaker 1: something that people just take his pop and go so

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Speaker 1: much deeper. Yeah, I I checked out Daphne Brooks's article

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Speaker 1: and it was It's really stunning and beautiful. And I'm

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Speaker 1: obsessed with Beyonce, but I've always the sort of overt

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Speaker 1: materialism is in the music. Right, Beyonce seemingly is very materialistic,

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Speaker 1: But the way that Brooke puts it is that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I guess in a capital society, money is sort of

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Speaker 1: synonymous with power and sort of the role reversal. And

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Speaker 1: the way she even talked about sugar Mama, it's so

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Speaker 1: interesting because I've been thinking about sugar Mama in a

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Speaker 1: very different way. I have no desire to be a

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Speaker 1: sugar mama. Right, We've seen like black women who are

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Speaker 1: who are the breadwinners, Sherry Shepherd, Wendy Williams, Melby, Mary J.

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Speaker 1: Blige or four black women and who I love all

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Speaker 1: of them I love dearly who had very public divorces

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Speaker 1: from men who are now getting crazy amounts of alimony

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Speaker 1: from them or got crazy settlements. And it felt very

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Speaker 1: particularly the Sherry Shepherd moment, where it just felt very

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Speaker 1: sort of exploitative and just felt very I just as

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Speaker 1: a black woman in my forties myself, I'm like, I

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Speaker 1: never want that situation. But then you know, I'm I've

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Speaker 1: recently started hanging out with the dude, and I was

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Speaker 1: just like, I literally had that. Then when she starts

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Speaker 1: the song Damn, that was so good, I think I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna buy him a short setter. I was like, I

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Speaker 1: get it, get like being so earned out that you

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Speaker 1: just like want to just you know, shake your purse

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Speaker 1: and just like come on boy. You know. So it's

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Speaker 1: really complicated, but I also think there's a piece of

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Speaker 1: like who has the power in relationships is what Brooks

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Speaker 1: seems to be sort of asking us to interrogate and

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Speaker 1: look at when we look at songs like Shocker Mama

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Speaker 1: and Upgrade you, what are your thoughts on the materialism

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Speaker 1: or the capitalism or well, the capitalism in her music

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Speaker 1: is like the toughest nut to crack. I guess you know, like,

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Speaker 1: and at one point I came to the conclusion that,

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Speaker 1: you know, she may very well be material like she

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Speaker 1: may not mean it to be commentary on anything else,

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Speaker 1: and she may be materialistic. That's fine, like whatever, but

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Speaker 1: it does open up spaces for conversation about materialism and capitalism.

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Speaker 1: And obviously Bell Hooks has taken her to task for

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Speaker 1: this a couple of times. To me, it's less important

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Speaker 1: whether it's it's her real like, she's not telling you

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Speaker 1: to go be materialistic like her, but rather, can we

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Speaker 1: have a conversation about how materialism equals power in this

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Speaker 1: society or can we talk about why a black woman

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Speaker 1: being materialistic might be somewhat different than a white man

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Speaker 1: being materialistic, because you know, Brooks talks about it in

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Speaker 1: relation to Hurricane Katrina again and like, we watched on

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Speaker 1: TV as black women's possessions were taken from them, everything

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Speaker 1: was taken from them. So what kind of a statement

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Speaker 1: is it for Beyonce to come out a year later

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Speaker 1: and be like, no, I own this, this is my ship,

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Speaker 1: this is what I have, you know, like to claim

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Speaker 1: her possession of things, And that to me is an

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Speaker 1: interesting you know, there's ways to find those kind of

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Speaker 1: twists and tweaks around that that to me, aren't just

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Speaker 1: about celebrating unfettered, no checks capitalism. And then in her

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Speaker 1: private life she also does get back a lot. You

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Speaker 1: can feed that into the narrative. I don't think she's

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Speaker 1: out here like going to create the socialist revolution as

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Speaker 1: she sings in front of all the expensive paintings and

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Speaker 1: the louver for ape ship. But in some ways her

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Speaker 1: more recent visuals around around that, like it's standing in

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Speaker 1: the louver to me have almost read comic like it's

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Speaker 1: almost a parody of why should someone have this much money?

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Speaker 1: Why should one person have this much money? The recent

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Speaker 1: stuff kind of makes me ask that question. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if she's meaning to ask it, but I think

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Speaker 1: it's a useful question to have a conversation around, and

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Speaker 1: that gets around some of the criticism. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: what's interesting for me about it just thinking about that

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Speaker 1: the element of the work is that her being so wealthy,

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Speaker 1: her being so you know, so successful in the context

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Speaker 1: of capitalistments given her a freedom that a lot of

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Speaker 1: other artists don't have, right that she can go and

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Speaker 1: you know, make a movie like Lemonade or Black It's

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Speaker 1: King and do these visuals because there's so much money

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Speaker 1: there and then there is power there, and it's think,

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Speaker 1: you know, the master's tools will never dismantle the masters,

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Speaker 1: how but there's something and we're all sort of living

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Speaker 1: in contradictions, you know, which is something belt Hooks even,

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Speaker 1: you know, says that we that is the reality being

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Speaker 1: poor and capitalism is certainly not ideal. And I've been

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Speaker 1: there and it's it's quite awful. But I just I

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Speaker 1: love complicating that those questions in the work. There's another

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Speaker 1: moment in your book where you almost talk about her

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Speaker 1: character of Sasha Fears. It's sort of this drag persona

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Speaker 1: and then it becomes this simular locker room of a simulacroom,

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Speaker 1: you know, in a way that like Sasha Fears is

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Speaker 1: this drag persona. It's it's really interesting. And I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about, you know, sort of politicizing Beyonce, and you

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Speaker 1: were like, well, Beyonce was always sort of politicized, And

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Speaker 1: I wonder if she's if queering Beyonce word thing isn't

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Speaker 1: she is she always already queer is well, not in

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Speaker 1: terms of her sexuality, but in terms of queer as

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Speaker 1: a verb. I think of queer. I don't identify personally

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Speaker 1: as queer, but like I think they're queer is something

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Speaker 1: that you can do, and um, yeah, I think I

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Speaker 1: like to think of it as a ver to queering

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Speaker 1: the ideas around gender. And that chapter where I'm like

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Speaker 1: trying to think about Sasha Fiars, because there was something

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Speaker 1: so over the top and overblown and over just overly

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Speaker 1: done about Sasha Fears. And even that album was like

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Speaker 1: a binary in that it's two discs. This is for

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Speaker 1: like the older folks that remember when you like bought

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Speaker 1: the CD as a disk that you put in your player,

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Speaker 1: but like you know, you go out to the store

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Speaker 1: and you bought this double album which didn't need to

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Speaker 1: be a double album, but you had to switch between

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Speaker 1: the disks to get the I Am side and the

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Speaker 1: Sasha Fiar side, and the Sasha Fear side was all

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Speaker 1: these like more like club tracks, dance tracks. The subject

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Speaker 1: matter wasn't necessarily about love, love love, love will save

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Speaker 1: the Day like all that kind of stuff, whereas the

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Speaker 1: other side was more ballads, traditional composition, but they both

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Speaker 1: kind of messed with gender in the ways they played

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Speaker 1: off of one another. And then single Ladies She Comes

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Speaker 1: out and shows her wedding ring for the first time,

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Speaker 1: which is a contradiction. And so then I'm saying, like, well,

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Speaker 1: then maybe she wants us to think about contradiction. Who

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Speaker 1: are the ladies? Who is single? What is being a

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Speaker 1: lady mean? Over time, lady has been you know, white

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Speaker 1: womanhood has been the like space for ladies and all

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Speaker 1: of this stuff. And I use not to complate drag

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Speaker 1: at all with trans identity, but I used Janet mocks

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Speaker 1: book about Redefining Realness, which is all about and Ladyship

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Speaker 1: Lee actually use some of Ladyship Blie her autobiography to

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Speaker 1: talk about the ways gender can never be contained in

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Speaker 1: those binaries, even if it's a trans story, it just

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Speaker 1: like can't be contained. And so that's what, in some

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Speaker 1: ways I think is a really cool analysis of Sasha

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Speaker 1: Fierce as a character who then she kills right and

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Speaker 1: then maybe brings back at later times, like I kind

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Speaker 1: of see Sasha Fierce in other places is in her work,

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Speaker 1: But she publicly stated that she murdered her at one

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Speaker 1: point after she kind of got this concept out. I

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Speaker 1: saw that she said she didn't need Sasha Fierce anymore

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Speaker 1: because Fierce was because she's just historically very shy. Beyonce

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Speaker 1: is very shy, and so she needs to sort of

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Speaker 1: take on this persona to be this suit of wild

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Speaker 1: woman on stage, if you will. And so it became

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Speaker 1: something that she needed and she said she didn't need

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Speaker 1: Sasha Fierce anymore. Yeah, exactly after she had kind of

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Speaker 1: exposed all these things about the limits of gender in

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Speaker 1: a binary sense, then she's like, Okay, next project, Let's

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Speaker 1: move on to the next thing. Yeah. One thing I

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Speaker 1: wanted to say before about when we were talking about

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Speaker 1: class and capitalism, that I was thinking about this with

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Speaker 1: black is King, that there isn't a desire in so

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Speaker 1: much of her work to elevate beauty and blackness and

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Speaker 1: and duart expectations of what blackness is um in that

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Speaker 1: kind of imagery, you know, thinking about the Mafi Coast

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Speaker 1: and you know, all of the through things what was

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Speaker 1: on Piqua, nipples in your necktie, Ermi's briefcase, cardier top, clips,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, all these upper class you know sort of

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Speaker 1: things that like, we can have access to this too,

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Speaker 1: and certainly, you know, we can be critical about that,

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Speaker 1: but I think there's a desire to have a kind

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Speaker 1: of blackness exist in this and I would say high

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Speaker 1: not just a high art space, but this in this

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Speaker 1: space of couture and this this moneyed space that it's

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Speaker 1: that's really about celebrating blackness in a diverse way. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's there's a real deep desire to create culture that

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Speaker 1: celebrates blackness and its beauty in a way that is

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Speaker 1: I would say, linked to something that feels more sort

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Speaker 1: of upper class, but then it is deeply grounded and

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Speaker 1: being you know that girl from the block that like,

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Speaker 1: you know, third Ward kind of vibe and like a

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Speaker 1: Houston and the beats and and and and hip hop. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: and then the flip side of that makes me think

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Speaker 1: of the No Angel video where she's doing the opposite

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Speaker 1: and like elevating these common everyday things too. Question our

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Speaker 1: judgments over what counts as high class, low class, wealthy poor.

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Speaker 1: You know, just because you don't have money doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: you can't create nice things or find nice things. And

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Speaker 1: just because I do have money doesn't mean my nice

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Speaker 1: things are going to give me what I need. So

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Speaker 1: she kind of has both ends of the spectrum. There

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Speaker 1: is complicated and she in the work, and we can

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Speaker 1: speculate about her personal life, but I think in the

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Speaker 1: work what I love. One of the things I love

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Speaker 1: about her so much is that she refused to be

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Speaker 1: placed in any box. She always insists on being really complicated,

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Speaker 1: and I think too with No Angel, there's sort of

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Speaker 1: an homage to strippers and sex workers and that feels

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Speaker 1: very liberating and super sex positive and sex positivity in

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Speaker 1: her work tipulally on the self titled album, it just

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Speaker 1: sort of came fruition, but it was really always there.

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Speaker 1: And one of the duos of videos I love breaking

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Speaker 1: down the most in class or with people talking, or

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Speaker 1: just talking about it to anyone who will listen to me,

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Speaker 1: is like Partition and Jealous as a two part story

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Speaker 1: where it's very sex positive, but it's also taking into

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Speaker 1: account the hyper sexualized stereotypes of black women. If you

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Speaker 1: take them both as a story, I think it does

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Speaker 1: this because they run into each other. The track changes

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Speaker 1: into Jealous before Partition is over and the visual part

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Speaker 1: of the album, and then Jealous is all about her

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Speaker 1: kind of like covering up because people are looking and watching,

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Speaker 1: and she does this stuff with the camera placement where

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Speaker 1: the audience is always placed watching her as the other

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Speaker 1: side of the camera, like at that dinner table where

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Speaker 1: she SIPs her tea and trying to get attention, and

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Speaker 1: so this double edged sword of her being not as

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Speaker 1: Beyonce the black woman personally with jay Z and all

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Speaker 1: of that stuff, but as a kind of representation of

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Speaker 1: of black women that want attention and want to be

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Speaker 1: able to express sexuality, but also have to deal with

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Speaker 1: already being stereotyped as too sexual. I think in those

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Speaker 1: two videos she offers some interesting commentary that points back

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Speaker 1: at the people watching, being like, you're the ones doing

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Speaker 1: this to me. It's not anything I do, and the

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Speaker 1: audience should take more. I think she's indicting the audience

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Speaker 1: a lot. Is one thing I love about her, and

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Speaker 1: forcing the audience, especially if you're not a Black woman,

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Speaker 1: to ask questions about how you're looking at her and

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Speaker 1: why you're thinking a certain thing about her, Because even

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Speaker 1: when she expresses sexuality a lot in videos, she's very

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Speaker 1: distanced from other people in the frame. It's usually her

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Speaker 1: by herself, unless she's in a frame with jay Z,

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Speaker 1: which then we can draw the personal connection in right,

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Speaker 1: But other than that, it's very like, so why do

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Speaker 1: people look at her this way? And so It brings

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Speaker 1: up a million interesting questions to me as as the

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Speaker 1: non black woman audience has to ask themselves about how

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Speaker 1: they're treating not just on screen and watching her, but

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Speaker 1: then how do you interact with people in your everyday

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Speaker 1: life as well. I just was thinking about the fact

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Speaker 1: that Brittney Spirits and Beyonce are about the same age

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Speaker 1: and came out around the same time, and how Brittany

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Speaker 1: was so sort of you know, my loneliness is killing

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Speaker 1: me a baby one more time, kind of very sort

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Speaker 1: of virginal Catholic school girl, playing with that kind of

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Speaker 1: Catholic schoolgirl image. And certainly when Destiny's Child came at,

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Speaker 1: they were very young girls. And I feel like Beyonce

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Speaker 1: was never sort of given that space to sort of

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Speaker 1: be a young woman, be splaced in this sort of innocent,

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Speaker 1: virginal space, even though she very much was from the

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Speaker 1: beginning of her career. And I was just thinking about that,

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Speaker 1: and you know, white womanhood and Black womanhood, you know,

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Speaker 1: they really, I mean, the kind of are contemporaries, but

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Speaker 1: they were doing in a very different world, right. It's

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Speaker 1: a very very something, very different going on with them.

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Speaker 1: Obviously artistically, she's thinking about that, and so when Beyonce

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Speaker 1: and when I when not a Girl comes out, for example,

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Speaker 1: even when Crazy and Love comes out, and like it's

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Speaker 1: her first solo single and she's sexy, Like she's so

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Speaker 1: sexy in it, but it's always very elegant and elevated

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Speaker 1: with her. I remember having a conversation with Frank Gatson,

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Speaker 1: who was her creative director and choreographer for many years.

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Speaker 1: He said he would hire ballet dancers to do all

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Speaker 1: the the oh dance, you know, so that it would

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Speaker 1: be it would never feel how wish too. You know.

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Speaker 1: I'm saying quotes not that we you know, not the

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Speaker 1: same thing wrong with being ho wish um, but that

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Speaker 1: it was always sort of be elevated because of the

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Speaker 1: classical dance technique. I'm paraphrasing what he said. So he's

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Speaker 1: just thinking about how sexy she's always been, but it

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Speaker 1: wasn't the same sort of scandal that I'm when Christina

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Speaker 1: Aguilera her dirty video comes out, and it's just this

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Speaker 1: whole thing, you know, I was thinking about that relationship

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Speaker 1: between like what you just said about how black women

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Speaker 1: are sort of presented is overly sexualized, and so it's

427
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,359
Speaker 1: and I definitely have this tension as a as a

428
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: black woman myself trying to sort of being a space

429
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: of ownership of my sexuality among their trend and we're

430
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: definitely overly sexualized, but being in space of owning my

431
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:10,919
Speaker 1: sexuality but not being overly defined by it and beyond

432
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 1: it gives us a great template for that. Yeah, so

433
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: inspiring and that in that realm, and it's a really

434
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: complicated like dance that she I mean, no pun but

435
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: dance that she has to do around it. Once you

436
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: start kind of analyzing each video, like you said, even

437
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,679
Speaker 1: crazy and love going back to Destiny's Child too, to

438
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: see how she's had to give just enough but not enough,

439
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: and I think that's what comes out in partition and jealous.

440
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: She's finally kind of speaking about it, like, look, this

441
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,640
Speaker 1: is what it's always been, like, you've never given me

442
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 1: a chance, or even in the song grown woman, like

443
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 1: I'm a grown woman, but she's mixing it with young

444
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: footage of her, so she's like mixing that kind of

445
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: this idea that black women never get to be girls.

446
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 1: They're always seen as older, over sexualized, all of these things,

447
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 1: and where's the space. I mean, it's obviously because the

448
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: society is organized around principles of white supremacy. That this

449
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: is true, and she's like calling that out in little

450
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: subtle ways that I think are really interesting too. Then

451
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: pull out and get people to talk about Now it

452
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 1: feels like a great time for a short break. We'll

453
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: be right back. Now we are back, and we're ready

454
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: to pick up where we left off. I have to

455
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: say I was very pleasantly surprised to see that my

456
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: name was mentioned in the context of of you talking

457
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: about the Journal Truth and I woman, and then the

458
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,400
Speaker 1: title of your book is Ain't I a Diva? Can

459
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the title the Diva

460
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 1: video and that that relationship with the Journal Truth. I

461
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: think some people have misunderstood since the book come out

462
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to refer to myself as a diva,

463
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: which is not the case like it was meant to be.

464
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 1: Ain't she a Diva? I didn't think that. I never know. Yeah,

465
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of people come up to me

466
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I know, I would never,

467
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: Like I would never. The whole point is to not

468
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: insert myself in that way in all of this work.

469
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just kind of this blending of antire

470
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: woman so Journal truths speech because if you don't know,

471
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: I should I should. I feel like I should let

472
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: to let people know that we're referring to the Journal Truth.

473
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 1: And I want a speech that she allegedly gave at

474
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,439
Speaker 1: the Ohio Women's Convention in eighteen fifty one, that released

475
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: twelve years later, that it became the speech that we've

476
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: come to know, but well alleged speech, right, because we

477
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: don't know the real people are saying this more and more,

478
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: but I still think it doesn't get spread around enough.

479
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: We don't know what Sojourner Truth said in that speech

480
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: because she didn't read or write, so she never wrote

481
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: it down. There's two different accounts, and I go into

482
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: all of that and you can like google this. It's

483
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: all over the place. There's two different accounts. One that

484
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: came up pretty soon after the conference where she gives

485
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: this famed speech. She also grew up speaking Dutch, so

486
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: the inflections, which are very contemporary African American vernacular English,

487
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: would not have been part of her speaking patterns. But

488
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: I think it is still an important like text that

489
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: we see as a performance. And so I I was

490
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: trying to like, make this connection between Sojourner Truth and Beyonce,

491
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: both as performers and maybe even performance artists. So Journer

492
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,160
Speaker 1: Truth was known for singing a lot, she traveled around.

493
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: She was this truth teller, right, and Beyonce tours She's

494
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,360
Speaker 1: not seen in that same way. But I just wondered

495
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,919
Speaker 1: what what comes out of seeing them connected in that way? Right? Her?

496
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: The lyrics of her song Diva Beyonce song mirror in

497
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 1: some ways some of the things that were said to

498
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: have been said in so journal Truth speech. And regardless

499
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: however it was spoken and however it was delivered, the

500
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: point was she was fighting for this intersectional look at

501
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: like I'm am I not a woman and I'm a

502
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: black because I'm black? Does that make me not a woman? Right?

503
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: And I reference you're speaking tour as well, which you

504
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: add these different intersections onto. And I thought of Beyonce's

505
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: song It's Diva, Isn't that somewhat She's going into this

506
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: I am I not? You know, she talks about being

507
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: fifteen in my Stilettos. I've been again age and gender

508
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: and sexuality and class in some ways, and she's performing

509
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: it as Sasha fear So again we have the layer

510
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: of this kind of gender drag, and she's standing up

511
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: and making these statements similar to what so journal Truth said,

512
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: and like, how how could they inform one another? And

513
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: how might we think about Beyonce if she's connected back

514
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: that far? Like I think so journal Truth is the

515
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: earliest person I referenced in the in the book, and

516
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: so it's kind of setting this span of history that

517
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: I'm trying to relate to Beyonce and also like show

518
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: echoes of them, echoes of all these women through Beyonce's music. Yeah. Absolutely,

519
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: And I think what I might always love about thinking

520
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: about the history of black feminine feminism specifically is there

521
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: was always intersectional because it had to be, because it's

522
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: just the way that Sojourna saw the world. It's like, well, wait, wait,

523
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: what hold on? All these conversations about race are about

524
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: black men, and all these conversations about gender equality are

525
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 1: about white women. Hey, and I a woman. It's just

526
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: it's kind of really simple when you think about it,

527
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: but it was this Black women were just erased in

528
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: all of those discussions. And and I love how much

529
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: you reference Kimberly Crenshaw as well, who coined the term intersectionality,

530
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: which is such an important concept to think about in

531
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: relationship to Beyonce and then just the women's gender studies

532
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: that you really are doing with Beyonce. And I think

533
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: I have to talk a little bit about this, but

534
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: I discovered when I was shooting Disclosure through Susan Striker,

535
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: Professor Striker who's interviewed and Disclosure, a person named Polly Murray,

536
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: which you probably know Poly Murray, and I had not

537
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: heard of poly Murray before. And Paully Murray came up

538
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: with this term Jane Crow to sort of talk about,

539
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: like Jim Crow, it's like wait, hold on, and again

540
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: it was this intersectional analysis of like, but wait, I'm

541
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: experiencing racial oppression and gender oppression at the same time.

542
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: And that's a very specific thing. That's Jane Crow. Um.

543
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:46,479
Speaker 1: I always like to remind people that they're good. Marshall

544
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: said that Polly Murray's thesis, you know, graduate thesis with

545
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: the Bible for Brown versus Board of Education, right, And

546
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: Paully Murray it's this person who was assigned female at birth,

547
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: but who struggled with their gender throughout their lives, struggled

548
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: with their sexuality throughout out their life and both thought,

549
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: you know, to um receive testosterone. It just several different

550
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: moments in Polly's life. So maybe Paully's on the spectrum

551
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: of being trans and the fact that this person, you

552
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: know who who Crnshaw credits as being the sort of

553
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: main influence for her coming up with the term intersectionality

554
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: is poly Murray. I think it's just a really interesting

555
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: historical fact that we should be aware of and acknowledge,

556
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: and just like like say, Polly Murray's name in this

557
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: context of talking about intersectionality and black feminism. Absolutely, and

558
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: that's really you know, the whole class came about because

559
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 1: I was teaching intro to feminism, intro to women's studies.

560
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: It could be called like intro to intersectionality, but feminism

561
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: is always taught through these white women's stories and you know,

562
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony, and not that these people didn't do

563
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: important things and sometimes also some kind of bad things

564
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,479
Speaker 1: or things we wouldn't want to recreate. But you know,

565
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get us Beyonce's music, to get

566
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: all of these names in people's heads if they hadn't

567
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: already heard of them, and so that they could then

568
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: go read more um and learn more about the history

569
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: of just like the history of the United States through

570
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: the lens of black women is more instructive kind of

571
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: changing things going forward than anything else that I could

572
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: think of. So it was kind of at first it

573
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: was yes, I love Beyonce. I'm the Huges Beyonce fan.

574
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it all the time. But

575
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: also I want to sneak in all of this stuff,

576
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: all of these women's names, so that you whether you

577
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: do the reading or whatever, you'll still have them on

578
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: the syllabus and you'll still know them at some point

579
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: and maybe you'll you'll hear it and it'll click in

580
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: your head and you'll say, oh, yeah, I heard about

581
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: her and that Beyonce class. Let me go see what

582
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: she was up to, or you know. I think what

583
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: I also love is that you're very cognizant that you are,

584
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: that you're white, and that you are male identified, and

585
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: that through out your course and throughout the book, it's

586
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: really you want you center the voices of of black women,

587
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: and you see in the book that, like you know,

588
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: everyone is obviously not a black woman, but that we

589
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: can many of us can benefit from the work and

590
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 1: that they lived experiences in the scholarship of black women.

591
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: Can you can you talk about just you know, the

592
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: subtitle of your book, Beyonce and the Power of Pop

593
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: Culture Pedagogy that like the space of sort of being

594
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: a teacher, being a pedagogue in the classroom. The nature

595
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: of the classroom setting for you and for for many

596
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:36,239
Speaker 1: feminists was also a site of like how do we

597
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: do this differently? And it sounds like you're very much

598
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: influenced by a feminist sort of ways of teaching and

599
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: doing pedagogy in the ways in which you've taught Politicize

600
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: and Beyonce, Can you talk some more about that? Bell

601
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: Hooks Teaching to Transgress It is like my teaching Bible.

602
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: She has some other volumes too, but it's that first

603
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: one that just really still going back to it. It's like, yes,

604
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: this over and over. You're just shouting yes when you're

605
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: reading it as a teacher, because that's all I wanted

606
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: to like, I don't want to teach you what to think.

607
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: I want to teach you how to think about things

608
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: going forward. I want to teach you how to take

609
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: something from history, Like how do you take two sources

610
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:20,399
Speaker 1: and use them to talk to each other, influence each other.

611
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: Obviously there's it's this is within the scope of black

612
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: women's history in the US. So I just want people

613
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: to learn reading black women for me growing up was

614
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: one of the most foundational things, like it taught me

615
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: more about the world than anything else. Of course, I

616
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: grew up in a small town in Utah, very religious

617
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:47,479
Speaker 1: Mormon and coming out as you raise Mormon, yeah yeah,

618
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: I was um and coming out as a teenager coming

619
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 1: out as gay, I obviously looked for gay voice things

620
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: to read, you know, gay literature, which I had to

621
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: go to the library at that time to have the

622
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: Internet yet it was coming very close, but we weren't

623
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: at the internet stage yet. And one of the other

624
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: things I discovered as I was searching through stacks of

625
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: books was like poetry by black women and the language

626
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: the experiences learning about something that wasn't immediately around me

627
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: because I didn't know black people in my town really

628
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: hit me, like broaden my scope of the world and

629
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: taught me more about myself. Not that the experiences are similar,

630
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: but just taught me more about being who I am

631
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 1: in the world by learning about other people's experiences. And

632
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: so it always just had a really special place for me,

633
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: and I was like, more people need to learn about

634
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: history through black women. More people need to be reading

635
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: black women, because that's the way we really figure out

636
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: how power is functioning in this society. That nexus of

637
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: race and gender is really essential to learn about how

638
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: to shift the America we want to live in for

639
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 1: the future. So that was like kind of my thinking

640
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:09,439
Speaker 1: trying to create this intro to women's studies that would

641
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:14,839
Speaker 1: focus on black women's voices. Amazing, amazing, and your analysis

642
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 1: of Lemonade, you talk about America's sort of broken promise.

643
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: You know, I always say that, you know, it's about

644
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: eighteen years in her career when she got into Formation,

645
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that, like I think you

646
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: referenced this in the book a week after the super Bowl,

647
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: So the Formation I think dropped on Friday, and then

648
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: she performed the super Bowl and maybe has been dropped

649
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 1: on Saturday, and they performed the super Bowl the next

650
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: day and then people were like sort of outraged, people

651
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: like lost their minds, and Saturday Night Live did a

652
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:43,439
Speaker 1: skit that you talked about in your book that where

653
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:46,360
Speaker 1: people were like Beyonce's black the suggestion was the sumber

654
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: four white Pants was sort of in denial about being

655
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: a black woman or something, which is kind of interesting.

656
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: But Lemonade information specifically was when the moment when she

657
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: really became overtly political in a way that she had

658
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: not before. And you talk about this broken promise of Americans,

659
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: what what are some of your thoughts around formation and

660
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: Lemonate in this era, and Beyonce's yeah, well, since I

661
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: had been teaching in this class since and then Lemonade

662
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: comes out, I'm like, well, now she said it, Now

663
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: we're done. She said it. Okay, trying to tell y'all

664
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: six years, Yeah, it all comes full circle. And she

665
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: is very explicit about the politics. I mean, Lemonade is

666
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: also a super super personal story. But one of the

667
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 1: things that I mentioned it in the book is that

668
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: that's not what I do in the class. Like her

669
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: personal life, she's gone to great links. She's like the

670
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: only star of her magnitude that can keep so much private,

671
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: and so yes, we can kind of like maybe she's

672
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: having trouble with jay Z, But I don't want to

673
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: assume anything that she doesn't say explicitly about her personal life.

674
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: So I thought, Okay, back up, how do we like,

675
00:37:56,160 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: look at Lemonade. It's this cheating story. It's this heart rake.

676
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: You know, I came to this idea. It's a broken promise,

677
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: which is what cheating is, an infidelity. You two had

678
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: a promise with one another. But what if the two

679
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: ends of the conversation are black women in America? Right?

680
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: So I read it as more of a representational story

681
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 1: about what do you do when you've been lied to

682
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,839
Speaker 1: over and over and over and and not just black

683
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 1: women in America, a lot of marginalized groups are lied

684
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: to over and over and over by promises of what

685
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: the government will do of Oh, here's freedom, but we're

686
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: not going to give you anything. You know, there's nothing

687
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: with it. You're equal now. But we'll see how that goes.

688
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: Like I think about I think about the Malcolm X

689
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: quote Inliminating, and I kept thinking about the promissory note

690
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: speech from MLK. Yeah, So, I mean, so I just

691
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 1: was I thought it was this. I mean, it is

692
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: like a magnum opus of visuals lyrics that the songs

693
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: that flow into one another, they're the damn near one

694
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: song of every genre is on that album. She really

695
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: covers this kind of huge scope. And one thing I

696
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: love this is kind of unrelated, but one thing I

697
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: love about Lemonade is the way so she doesn't usually

698
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:18,479
Speaker 1: do features much, but she had features from white men

699
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: on Lemonade, her blackest album, but they were only heard

700
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,359
Speaker 1: and never seen. They're never seen in Lemonade, So she's

701
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: kind of flipping in interesting. I'm thinking about Jack White

702
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: and who are the other James Blake, James Blake, even

703
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: the country vibe of Daddy Lessons. Don't get me started

704
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: on the Dixie Chicks and and Daddy Lessons. That was

705
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: amazing when they did it all together. You write beautifully

706
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: about that moment in the book This country Music Awards

707
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: yet and country just country music in general, is this

708
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,439
Speaker 1: like it was created by black artist, but we think

709
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: of it now as a super white space in music.

710
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: And so she's kind of reclaiming all these things and

711
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,320
Speaker 1: doing to the white artists what has been done to

712
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: black women all along, which is like maybe you'r heard

713
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: but not seen, like your influences here, but it's not

714
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: spoken of by name and so, and you don't get

715
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: to benefit and you don't creative. Yes, and so she

716
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: does that and she takes it and it's like, Okay,

717
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: this is now my version of the story. I've been

718
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 1: lied to, the promises are broken. Now I'm going to

719
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 1: tell you what we need to do to move forward.

720
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 1: And it's the same as the cheating story, but if

721
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: you zoom out on it, I think it's really powerful.

722
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: Even that bowl that I talked about, the bowl a

723
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 1: whole lot the more freedom I mean, the song Freedom,

724
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 1: The song Freedom is so explicitly that for me, it's

725
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: it's my favorite song from Lemonade, And it's so Freedom

726
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: is so many different things. It's so complicated and what's

727
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 1: so powerful about music. I was rewatching Homecoming this morning

728
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 1: to prepare and Freedom is just such a powerful song

729
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,320
Speaker 1: in live. It's just with all the horns and Homecoming.

730
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: It's just such a statement that like it's it's a

731
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: cheating story, but it's very much a story of black women,

732
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: right that you can't watch listen to Lemonade and not

733
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: understand that she's telling so many black women's stories. And

734
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: what's so beautiful about the specificity of it is how

735
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: it becomes universal. The specific becomes universal. How many women

736
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: of all races, how many people of all genders, have

737
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: connected deeply to the work and to the music, and

738
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: I still I was thinking about Adele at the Grammates,

739
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: like in shock that she won Album by the Year

740
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 1: and just like how did this happen? And why beyont

741
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 1: not standing here? I just will never forget that moment.

742
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: I still Lemonate was Alum of the Year that year. Anyway,

743
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: that's a little stand moment. Not this whole podcast is

744
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: in a stand moment. I'm trying to be somewhat objective.

745
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: I'm trying to have some kind of critical distance here,

746
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: but like I mean, come on, like, Lemonade change the

747
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: whole music industry, and I love how beautifully you talk

748
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,280
Speaker 1: about there was self titled album changing the music industry.

749
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how game changing

750
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: this self titled album was too, because it's just girl

751
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: m Yeah, it's I mean it was two th thirteen,

752
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: which isn't that many years ago, but it's almost like

753
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: I don't remember what before was. But like I think

754
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 1: back to my childhood, and I used to love Tuesdays

755
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: because that was the day new albums came out and

756
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: you would go to the record store and by the

757
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 1: album you'd saved up for or you know whatever, and

758
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: so like Tuesday. It was always my favorite day. Beyonce

759
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 1: just upended that completely with this surprise midnight end of Thursday,

760
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: back when everyone was watching Scandal. You know, Scandal was over.

761
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: We're going to bed. Oh my god, that's right, work Kevin, Yes,

762
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: take us back back. It was, you know, one of

763
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: the Scandal. I think it was the fall finale of Scandal.

764
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: Even so, people are like, well, what's gonna get us through?

765
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: What's going to get us through? And Beyonce is at

766
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: midnight surprise, not knowing anything, Like it's hard to not know. Oh,

767
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: this album is working on material, or this artist is

768
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 1: working on material. This artist is got a single coming

769
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,359
Speaker 1: out Friday, like she just she was on tour, but

770
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: no one expected first of all, an album and then

771
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: also an album that had a video for every song,

772
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: with these huge, lavish productions that everyone had to have

773
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: signed three D nondisclosures for that we didn't know it

774
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: was coming out. To have that many people involved with

775
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: something and to keep it completely silent is another move

776
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: that shows just how powerful she is now. And then

777
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: immediately music was released on Fridays instead of Tuesdays. Part

778
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: of it has to do with the switch to digital stuff,

779
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: but that had happened a little earlier, and so now

780
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,040
Speaker 1: people are like, oh Friday for new music, but that

781
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: is because of Beyonce, and it's worldwide, like sanked worldwide

782
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: because Beyonce sank her release worldwide for that. None of

783
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: that existed before December. So that's all hail to Beyonce

784
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:22,440
Speaker 1: for that. Like major shift in in the music industry itself. Absolutely,

785
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: and I think just the visual the visual album is now.

786
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: Some artists have attempted them and with varying degrees of success,

787
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: but it almost just become this requisite thing. It's like

788
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: where where the visuals? And I just just the undertaking

789
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: of it. It's like, how do you I mean just

790
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: the budgets. Most record companies don't even have the kind

791
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 1: of budget to like make a video for every song.

792
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: So well, music videos, you know, music videos used to

793
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: be events too, So she brought that back. I don't

794
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: know exactly when they kind of died off, but I

795
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: mean in the eighties, Janet Jackson premiering a music video

796
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: was an event, like a prime time if that we're

797
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, the marrying events Madonna. Madonna's expressed

798
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: yourself and just for my love being like band and

799
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:09,720
Speaker 1: I'm like that old I remember all that, Like videos

800
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: were like a huge thing. I think it really was

801
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: when CDs dropped off and everything became digital and budgets

802
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: got cut. It was you know, it's all of really

803
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: about things becoming digitized and but just becoming cut. At

804
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: that there's just no money that labels had anymore to

805
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: put into videos. But Beyonce was at a certain level

806
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: where she could invest and and it's in that visual

807
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: experience is so integral to helping tell the story of

808
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: what it is she wants us to understand about herself,

809
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: the world, or what she wants to say at any

810
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: given moment. Now, when your book was published, everything Everything

811
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 1: Is Love was just coming out, I think, And then

812
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: so Homecoming hadn't happened, Black Is King hadn't happened, So

813
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: you didn't write about those in the book. Do you

814
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: what do you want to say to us those? You know,

815
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: there's stick a lot to say about but every Thing

816
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: is Love, Homecoming, Black It's came. What do you think

817
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 1: about these very distinct eras of Beyonce? Yeah, I was

818
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: able to draw the Homecoming hadn't come out, but the

819
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: Coachella had happened, so I was able to drop a

820
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: couple because obviously I stayed up until, you know, yes,

821
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: six am, to watch it on my computer on the

822
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: East Coast, so I was able to dry. I was

823
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: there opening weekend. I was at Coachella on the first weekend,

824
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: my first time, last time at Coachell. I haven't been back.

825
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: My first time at Coachella, and Kevin it must have been.

826
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: I always want to cry thinking about it. I swear

827
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: to you it was. It was a religious experience. I

828
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: always feel like it's church when I go to Beyonce concert,

829
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 1: but Bachella was. I just I still can't believe that

830
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,439
Speaker 1: it happened. And it's just you had to be there.

831
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I watched Homecoming a lot, and it's a

832
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: great memory and it's a great document of her process. Wow,

833
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: blown away by that. But just to be there with

834
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: like all those hundreds of people on stage in the

835
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: marching band, and I was like, Okay, you think the

836
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: marching bands is going to be there for the first

837
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: little few songs, and they're there the whole time. And

838
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,319
Speaker 1: of course it took four months to come up with

839
00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: those musical arrangements. With marching bands. It's so intricated. It's

840
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: just just the musicality of it. It's something that I think.

841
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: I think it's the best concert that probably has ever happened. Um,

842
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: and I don't think it can be will be top

843
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: for at least ten twenty years if ever. I'm just

844
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: going on record. I think that's what I always say

845
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: about Beyonce. But then somehow she finds a way. Yeah. Honestly,

846
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: after a ball I was like, Okay, she can retire.

847
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: She like, no one's going to ever top. That makes

848
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: sad maybe her, But but what are your thoughts. I'm

849
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 1: kind of glad my book came out when it did, because,

850
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: like I was saying with Lemonade, she's kind of started

851
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:51,240
Speaker 1: doing like my whole point was to analyze her music

852
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: in this way that I didn't didn't see a lot

853
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: of especially and more and more came out, and now

854
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,359
Speaker 1: she's kind of taken on the mantel and so it's

855
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: like she's adding the sources to the Homecoming film with

856
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 1: all those quotes you know, Audrey Lord, Alice Walker. I'm like, well,

857
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 1: some of these were on my syllabus, and she's everything

858
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: is love. I I liked people gave a kind of

859
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: a you know response. I thought it was great as

860
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: a kind of epilogue to the Lemonade era, as a

861
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: you know, whoever the other side of this relationship that

862
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: you're imagining she's talking about in Lemonade must have done

863
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: their work, because now we've got this happy, little short

864
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: not EP, but you know, short album that is just

865
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 1: all about fun and celebration and all of that. There's

866
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: the materialism stuff, but we can put that over in

867
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: the corner to have conversations about. I didn't know if

868
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: we put it in the corner. I think it. It

869
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: does feel integral and it's very but it's very hip hop, right,

870
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: I think right, it's something that that the materialism is

871
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: very sort of hip hop. And you know, materialism isn't

872
00:48:57,320 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: gonna save anybody, I don't think, but like I think

873
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: it is, it becomes part of hip hop. It's part

874
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 1: of a certain kind of musical flex. I think we

875
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: can sort of enjoy the aesthetic of that without you know,

876
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 1: sort of embracing that ideology or way of being. And

877
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 1: it's nice to see that focus on love the two

878
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: of them. You know. The happiness of it, I guess

879
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: is just a nice epilogue as a closure moment for

880
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: the Lemonade era, right, and then her going forward into Homecoming,

881
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 1: Bicella Homecoming, She's really starting to incorporate more and Black

882
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: is King as well, incorporating these diverse influences and sources

883
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: and musical inspirations and all from all black and being

884
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: explicit about all the different blacks, so from you know,

885
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: the Josephine Baker homage and b Day, to all of

886
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: these African artists that she uses on. It makes sense

887
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:59,359
Speaker 1: to me. It's just a trajectory. It makes sense all

888
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: of these different influences come in. And I was thinking

889
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: about the question of cultural appropriation and like what that,

890
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: what that is, and what that means. And I think

891
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: that like everyone's influence, I think, and I think in

892
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: a multicultural world, everyone is ultimately going to be inspired

893
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: and be influenced by things that are probably from another culture.

894
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 1: And I think the issue becomes around, like exploitation, issue

895
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: becomes around who can profit, who gets to profit. So

896
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: I think that, I mean, I think cultural appropriation is inevitable.

897
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,839
Speaker 1: And so I think that when people say, oh, that's

898
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: cultural appropriation in a dismissive way about anything I'm not

899
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: just this isn't about Beyonce. This is my sort of

900
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: cultural appropriation rant. But I think when we just say oh,

901
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: that's cultural appropriation, and then it becomes dismissive and then

902
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 1: always already problematic, it's like, well everyone's appropriating. It's really

903
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 1: about power. It's really about power and who gets to benefit,

904
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 1: you know, sort of all the white artists who stole

905
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: from the little Richards and the Chuck Berrys, you know,

906
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,880
Speaker 1: back in the day. The big issue with that is

907
00:50:56,920 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: that Chuck Berry and real Richard weren't getting the same

908
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: money in the same recognition for their work. So that

909
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 1: that's what added by callosal appropriation. And because I think

910
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:10,960
Speaker 1: we're all influence for sure, and the way she gathers

911
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 1: influences I think is really interesting. It's I like to

912
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: look analyze her now as as a teacher herself, like

913
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: she's creating her syllabus with the influences the artist she's

914
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: either samples or features, the visual references she makes because

915
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 1: she's always referencing paintings or films or you know, so

916
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 1: many things, and there's so many takes you can have

917
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: on it. There's not one right or wrong analysis of

918
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: a Beyonce video or film. And so to me, she's

919
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 1: creating these little she's creating work that will, believe will

920
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: be like analyzed a hundred years from that, Like she'll

921
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: be what some of these old hundred year old artists

922
00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 1: or writers are. And I think that's air in the

923
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: music world, like music kind of comes and goes piggy

924
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: pop music. Yeah, And so she's turned that whole turned

925
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: everything on its head. As a creator. I don't even

926
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 1: know what the right word for artist. Creator. I don't

927
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: know what to call her anymore, because she's just beyond

928
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: the labels. She's beyond She's beyond beyond Beyonce. It's time

929
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: for a short break when we come back more with

930
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:34,800
Speaker 1: our guest, and of course are what else is true segment?

931
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:58,399
Speaker 1: We're back without further ado. So, Kevin, if you could

932
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 1: ask Beyonce one question, okay, or maybe two, what would

933
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: the one or two questions be? After all these years

934
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: is steadying her and doing whole course days about books,

935
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: like a whole book. That's such a hard question because

936
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: she wants to be private and I respect that, Like

937
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: I don't think I would ask her anything personal about

938
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 1: her life. I might, you know, what would be a

939
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 1: good question. I would be like, okay, I do one

940
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:30,879
Speaker 1: of those desert island What five albums would you take

941
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 1: to a desert island or something like. I want to

942
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: know more about either her process or her inspiration, or

943
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: like what music has meant the most to her as

944
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: she's become this icon, this legend, because I can't imagine

945
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: asking or anything personal. It's it's it seems too I

946
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. I've met Beyonce once. Yeah,

947
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 1: you've met her. Yeah. I met Beyonce once at the

948
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: Grammates in t seventeen, and I just told her how

949
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 1: much I loved her, and she was like, I her teammate,

950
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,400
Speaker 1: and she's a video there are many videos, and so

951
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: I just was so because I always sort of fantasized

952
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: about meeting her, and when I was like thinking of

953
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: meeting Beyonce, it was always in tears. And when I

954
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 1: met her finally, I remember saying this to um Stephen Colbert,

955
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: that a sense of calm came over me. It's like

956
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 1: when you meet the Queen, a sense of calm comes

957
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: over you. And she was she was pregnant with the

958
00:54:24,680 --> 00:54:27,280
Speaker 1: twins at the time. At the Grammar's you can google

959
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 1: the pictures and it was just so it was so

960
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: funny because jay Z was sort of behind her and

961
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: he was smiling from ear to ear. It was just

962
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: like everybody like, no, it's like, how big this moment

963
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,399
Speaker 1: is for me? It was like jay Z, he's like her,

964
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: and everybody it's like her that like I am a

965
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 1: huge Beyonce fan and so like I'm meeting her and

966
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 1: everybody's like, Okay, LaVerne's meeting Beyonce. This is the thing.

967
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: That's what it felt like. Yeah, it's so funny because

968
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: I have no desire. I was thinking about this and

969
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 1: I as much as I love her, I have no

970
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 1: desire to necessarily be friends with her. Not that I

971
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:58,799
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be friends with her, but like I

972
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:03,399
Speaker 1: I love I love interacting with the work from a distance, Right,

973
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: she really enjoy that. I love that. I don't. And

974
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:08,399
Speaker 1: I've thought a lot about this, and I'm like, I'm

975
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: in Hollywood now, I'm like, why am I not hanging

976
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,479
Speaker 1: out with Beyonce. I've had these questions, ask myself these questions.

977
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what I tell me? To hang

978
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: out with Beyonce. She's given us so much through the

979
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,160
Speaker 1: music and through the visuals and the fashion and just

980
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 1: so much. And that for me is everything. And one

981
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:27,840
Speaker 1: other thing I want to you know, we've gone to

982
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: deeper meanings around intersectional feminism and her work, but just

983
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 1: the virtuosity of what she does musically vocally, She's a

984
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:40,800
Speaker 1: brilliant singer, She has an amazing vocal technique, she is

985
00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 1: an incredible dancer. Just the virtuosity of what she does.

986
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason Beyonce is Beyonce is

987
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: the live performances and that like, how few people have

988
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:54,280
Speaker 1: trained to physically be able to get up for two hours,

989
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: two and a half hours and just execute what she does.

990
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 1: That is just insane. It's so amazing. And it's just

991
00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 1: for anyone out there who's not a fan of Beyonce,

992
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: great thing is to go to our concert. The live

993
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: experience that Beyonce will give you, it's unparalleled. You can

994
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: start with Homecoming to the Homecoming Will Get You Together

995
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:18,319
Speaker 1: too on Netflix. Homecoming will Get You Girl, get you

996
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:21,959
Speaker 1: all the way together. And her ear for her ear

997
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 1: for harmonies always like knocks me down. So if you're

998
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: starting like listen to the backgrounds as well. Listen with

999
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: headphones and listen to the backgrounds like Lemonade, Pray you

1000
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:35,759
Speaker 1: Catch Me the Heart. She's singing like twelve part harmonies

1001
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:38,799
Speaker 1: or something, and it's just the layered and it's all her.

1002
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,400
Speaker 1: So just to be able to hear those and create

1003
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: those out of thin air is like magical to me. Yeah,

1004
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: And because she does so many things, people don't always

1005
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:50,920
Speaker 1: give her the credit for that. I think starting with

1006
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: a Destiny's Child and being in a girl group and

1007
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: how harmonizing like that was his great training ground for

1008
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:01,719
Speaker 1: that ear. That is just it's amazing. There's so much

1009
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 1: we can talk about Beyonce all day. Obviously, what what

1010
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:08,360
Speaker 1: is the biggest thing that though, that you want to

1011
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,879
Speaker 1: say about Beyonce and her body of work, your relationship

1012
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 1: to it. To sort of a conclusion, I just think

1013
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: that obviously it's fun and empowering for a whole host

1014
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: of different groups of people, and people are drawn for

1015
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:25,959
Speaker 1: for their own reasons, whether it's identity reasons, black women

1016
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:28,400
Speaker 1: are drawn to listening to another black woman, you know,

1017
00:57:29,160 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: whatever it maybe she brings together so many groups of people,

1018
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 1: you know, maybe some of the white fans. After that

1019
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 1: snl skit points out brilliantly. I think I think it's

1020
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: one of the best SNL skits ever done. You know,

1021
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 1: the day Beyonce turned black and they're they're like shocked

1022
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:50,880
Speaker 1: and horrified and don't know what to do because now

1023
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 1: the white people are like, how do I enjoy the music? Now?

1024
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: I don't know how to navigate this when she's actually

1025
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 1: you played it on and you enjoy it. He just

1026
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: put the music on. The music is amazing, right, and

1027
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: you like go out and learn and honor the you

1028
00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: know the history she's invoking, and you learn about it

1029
00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: and you tell someone else about it, and you expand

1030
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: your own worldview. That's what I love about. You can

1031
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 1: use Beyonce's music to just like expand people's views of

1032
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:28,240
Speaker 1: the world, and hopefully for good purposes that we all

1033
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 1: will people will fight for more equitable futures for everyone,

1034
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 1: because there's something in Beyonce's music that you can use

1035
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: to kind of talk about why those things are so important.

1036
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: So to me, she's like she's one of those figures.

1037
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: She doesn't give speech. She sometimes will give a speech,

1038
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 1: but she's very private, but her music does those things

1039
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:49,520
Speaker 1: and it's I don't want to compare her to other

1040
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:53,640
Speaker 1: musicians because they're so different. But I know she's very

1041
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 1: much inspired by Nina Simone. Ever since in Life Is

1042
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: but a Dream, she's been explicitly red and Singina Simone,

1043
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:07,600
Speaker 1: and I think she is like she's has that inspirational, motivational,

1044
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: educational quality about her that absolutely people dismisses just pop

1045
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:20,320
Speaker 1: music are really doing the disservice to themselves and everyone else. Yeah,

1046
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 1: I think though at this historical moment, she's been able

1047
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: to let everyone understand and know that it is more

1048
00:59:27,600 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: than bought music. And I think about Brown Skinned Girl,

1049
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: for example, and my Veni Simone and colorism and and

1050
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 1: the song Brown Skin Girl, and how necessary that song is.

1051
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: And I think how necessary is from from a light

1052
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: skinned black woman too, with all of the sort of

1053
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: violence of colorism, that it's still pervasive that you know,

1054
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: young girls out there, dark skinned girls can have this song,

1055
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 1: you know. And I think a lot of I don't

1056
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 1: like to get into beyonce espercial life either, but I

1057
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:57,200
Speaker 1: think of her as a mother now that is certainly

1058
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,400
Speaker 1: you know Blue is singing on that song, you know,

1059
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 1: is is such a beautiful moment in the in the

1060
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 1: video with Naomi and Kelly and all of these just

1061
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: beautiful brown skinned girls. I think it's just there's something

1062
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: so healing about that. I think because there's been historically

1063
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:18,800
Speaker 1: the ways in which white supremacy, you know, sort of

1064
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 1: perpetuates colorism and pits dark skinned women against light skinned

1065
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: women is just so deeply painful. It's really really painful,

1066
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:30,120
Speaker 1: and and Beyonce is just cognizant of that, and it

1067
01:00:30,160 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 1: just feels like this beautifully healing moment that doesn't even

1068
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard, it's just not even really fully

1069
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: words for it for me, for that that song, and

1070
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: there's just still there's a lot of fiance moments like that.

1071
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 1: I'm always going to cry. But I would love to

1072
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: wrap up with a quote from your book, You you

1073
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:47,919
Speaker 1: right towards the end of the book that we need

1074
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: to start over recenter Kimberly Crunshaw's original theorization of intersectionality

1075
01:00:54,520 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 1: as about exposing, challenging and dismantling intersecting systems up power

1076
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:07,320
Speaker 1: and oppression, not simply about representation or collaboration. Black women

1077
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:12,800
Speaker 1: laid the foundation, but everyone has a responsibility and stake

1078
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:17,480
Speaker 1: in creating a more just world. It's a really beautifully

1079
01:01:17,480 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: written book. Everyone out there, you should really check out

1080
01:01:19,920 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 1: Kevin All It Ain't a Diva, Beyonce and the Power

1081
01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 1: of Pop Culture Pedigoa to either other underlying moments that

1082
01:01:26,960 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 1: I have that we haven't gotten around to reading from today. Kevin,

1083
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:33,200
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. I like to

1084
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 1: end the podcast with this question, and the question is

1085
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: what else is true when it comes from my therapy,

1086
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: my therapeutic process that's based on the community resiliency model

1087
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: in this idea of both and And it's basically like,

1088
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 1: when things are really challenging in the world, and there

1089
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: are many things that are challenging in the world, and

1090
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: it's easy to focus on those challenging things, what are

1091
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 1: the things that get you through? What's the both? And

1092
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:58,720
Speaker 1: what else is true for you? What helps you to

1093
01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 1: get through? Right now? Kevin obviously Beyonce, right, But yeah,

1094
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: just music in general, I think, and I was a

1095
01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:12,200
Speaker 1: lot younger. I wrote music and played and you know,

1096
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: I played guitar and singing and write songs. And I've

1097
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:19,400
Speaker 1: been going back to that this year, like playing music,

1098
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 1: listening to music of all different genres, and just kind

1099
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 1: of studying, like diving into music, whether it's Beyonce or

1100
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: old music I used to listen to in high school,

1101
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: and it's like taking me back. Maybe it's because I'm

1102
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: getting older now and I'm like I need to reconnect

1103
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: with my younger self. But going back to all the

1104
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: you know, lesbian folk music I used to listen to

1105
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 1: in high school, and remember like what like who oh,

1106
01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:46,960
Speaker 1: you know, like Annie de Franco and the Indigo Girls

1107
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:50,080
Speaker 1: and all the it was the Lilith Fair to him

1108
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:52,240
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. Yeah, so I'm going back.

1109
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: I'm going back to the Lilith Fair inspirations and just

1110
01:02:56,280 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 1: like remembering how I felt back then, and it's kind

1111
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: of reminding me that we still have like dreams and

1112
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: power and like, don't let all of the stuff going

1113
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: on in the world just keep you down. I love that.

1114
01:03:15,400 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Everyone. Check out

1115
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:21,320
Speaker 1: Kevin Alread's book. Ain't I a Diva? Are you on

1116
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 1: social media? Do you want the kids to follow you down? Sure?

1117
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 1: I got kicked off my other Twitter account, So now

1118
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:33,000
Speaker 1: my Twitter is not Kevin already at not Kevin. You

1119
01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:36,120
Speaker 1: got kicked off your Twitter? Yeah, because I made a

1120
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,040
Speaker 1: joke about the president or I I pretended to be

1121
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:41,680
Speaker 1: the president and said I wasn't a very good president,

1122
01:03:41,720 --> 01:03:46,280
Speaker 1: and so they got me for impersonating. Oh gosh, yeah,

1123
01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:49,800
Speaker 1: to be very careful on social media these days, well,

1124
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: I guess all days not Kevin already are you are?

1125
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: It's Twitter? The only place you're on that's mostly and

1126
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: you can find me from on the other places from Twitter.

1127
01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: So awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Kevin, No,

1128
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:05,640
Speaker 1: thank you, it's my dream. Talking about Beyonce is good

1129
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:07,960
Speaker 1: any day, and then talking to you about her is

1130
01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: next level. So thank you. I appreciate that Beyonce is

1131
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:25,840
Speaker 1: undeniably great and over the years, her unwavering dedication to excellence,

1132
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 1: to to surpass what anyone has ever done before is

1133
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 1: so incredibly inspiring. And Beyonce just makes you want to

1134
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:38,840
Speaker 1: work harder. Beyonce makes you want to just jump higher

1135
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:42,080
Speaker 1: and sing higher, and and and just and just do

1136
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: it better. And so I'm just really excited that I

1137
01:04:46,160 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: got to dedicate a podcast to the Queen, and I

1138
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 1: hope you guys all enjoyed it. And guys is ginger

1139
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: neutral f y? I uh yeah, I love Beyonce. I

1140
01:04:59,280 --> 01:05:04,120
Speaker 1: love heavens take on her and I can't wait to

1141
01:05:04,160 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 1: see what the Queen has or is next. Thank you

1142
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:16,920
Speaker 1: for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If you like

1143
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,760
Speaker 1: what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe, and share with

1144
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:24,000
Speaker 1: everyone you know. You can find me on Instagram and

1145
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:27,400
Speaker 1: Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox

1146
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:30,920
Speaker 1: for Real. Join me next week with my guest and

1147
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:34,880
Speaker 1: author of The Color of Law, Richard Rosti. We'll be

1148
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 1: discussing legalized residential segregation in the twentieth century and the

1149
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 1: ongoing effects of these policies. You don't want to miss

1150
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 1: it until next time, Stay in the Law. The Laverne

1151
01:05:53,280 --> 01:05:56,400
Speaker 1: Cox Show is the production of Shondaland Audio in partnership

1152
01:05:56,400 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,

1153
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,760
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

1154
01:06:03,840 --> 01:06:05,240
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.