Hours after launching a new campaign to promote black-owned companies, Beyoncé launched a surprise new album, Black Parade. The album features strong lyrics about black culture, police brutality and demonstrations against George Floyd.
"Put your hands in the air and demonstrate black love," the star sings. "Need my people's peace and recompense." The song was released on Juneteenth, a holiday which marks the official end of US slavery.
The holiday began in Beyoncé 's Texas home state but is now recognized in the US annually on 19 June, with different degrees of formal status, often under the names of Emancipation Day or Black Independence Day.
Black Parade is Beyoncé's first solo release since Homecoming last year, a live album and documentary documenting her unforgettable performance at Coachella in 2018; and The Lion King: The Gift that accompanied Disney's live action adaptation of her classic animation. "I 'm moving back to the South, where my roots have not diluted," she sings as the song opens up.
The lyrics continue to refer to the pandemic of Covid-19 ("Fly on the runway in my hazmat"), police brutality ("Rubber bullets bouncing off me"), and Tamika Mallory, a prominent activist in the movements of Women's March and Black Lives Matter. Soon after the star launched Black Parade Route, an online database of black-owned businesses selling everything from fashion and beauty products to home decor and coffee, the track appeared on streaming services.
"Being Black is your advocacy. Black excellence is a form of protest. Black joy is your right," the singer wrote on her website with a catchphrase. Beyoncé has been outspoken in the the anti-racism demonstrations ignited in May by the death of George Floyd.
In a video on her Instagram, she said she felt "broken and humiliated" and requested justice for Mr Floyd, who died after a police officer knelt on his back for almost nine minutes.
"No more senseless murders of human beings," she said. "No more people of color are seen as being less than human. We can not look away anymore." "Continue to pray for our country for harmony and justice, and restoration.
Nice one
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