Everyone lost their shit when Beyoncé© secretly dropped her fifth album Beyoncé© in 2013, and it damn near broke the internet (Sorry, Kim, but she got you there). Earlier this year, we all collectively lost our shit”again”when she dropped Lemonade: an incredible album filled with such a mix of girl power anthems, politically charged songs, breakup tracks and romantic ballads that it threw you onto an emotional roller coaster and blew your mind in a mere 12 songs.
Today, Beyoncé©‘s younger sister Solange released A Seat at the Table, and while our collective shit still seems to be in our possession, we definitely need to sit up and pay attention.
Solange’s sound is soft, but her message is loud and clear. She recently took to Twitter and said that A Seat At The Table, her third album since 2008, is meant to provoke healing & journey of self improvement. Each of the 21 melodic songs is a reflection of the outcries in the streets of Ferguson, Charlotte, Chicago, New York, Baltimore and the rest of world, respectively, about the injustices that seem to have affixed themselves on black communities, as well as Knowles’ own reflection on what it means to be a woman and what it means to be black in our world today.
She is honest about her feelings, and this ebb and flow of messages on her album show us what there is to be angry about, but also how to heal ourselves and the world around us. And that’s the magic of A Seat At The Table”it lulls you into peaceful meditation with its melodies, but energizes you with Solange’s powerful lyrics.
It’s doubtful that anyone will be getting in formation, so to speak, to this album at the club, but the trick here is to eliminate comparisons between the Knowles’ and just appreciate that both sisters have given us the gift of woke-ness with both of their most recent albums. Both artists are spreading the word in their own way, and that’s a good thing.
A Seat At The Table is available now on iTunes.
