I had written in an earlier post that I called the Mulatta Madonnas, that such singers have an aggressive and sexual energy, from their personal lives to their public performances. Some of this was apparent in yesterday's Grammy Awards, where the most dominant and popular of them all, Beyonce started the evening off with a resounding number.
She entered the stage in a leather mini-skirt covered in studs. And following her were futuristic-type dancers, which commentators called her body guards, but to me they looked like an army of soldiers. Her song, titled "If I were a boy," was an interesting parody of a woman betrayed by a man, who tells him how she would be a better man than he.
I read more into the song. Often, many subliminal messages emerge in artists' works and they are often not aware of these messages right away. I think there is a subtle black supremacist sub-message occurring in many black artists' works these days, and I think Beyonce is feeding off that energy. Some are much more direct, as I quoted Alicia Keys deriving her energy from the Black Panthers's ideology. Beyonce is the least aggressive of them all, which perhaps explains her huge popularity. But, I find that her behavior at performance constantly at odds with her pleasant personality, and her pent-up energy is released in her sexually charged performances and aggressive style.
The far-end of the spectrum was represented by Pink, who sang a ballad while being pulled up in the air in a fetal position. One got the impression that she wanted nothing to do with the harsh realities down on earth, and rather than fight, would rather float carefree (although not as much as she would like to) above and away from all the turmoils of life.
