Beyoncé in Formation

Starred review from July 2, 2018
Tinsley (Ezili’s Mirrors), an African studies professor at the University of Texas at Austin, brings tremendous gusto to her critique of Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade. As “the most widely distributed black feminist of the current moment,” Tinsley argues, Lemonade “offers a spectacular entry point into black feminist conversations.” The album and its accompanying music videos lead to discussions of marriage, motherhood, reproductive justice, and queer and trans politics. In a chapter titled “Queen Bee Blues,” Tinsley connects the song “Don’t Hurt Yourself” with its sampling of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and depictions of “self-loving fierceness” to the careers of blues vocalists Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith, who “also sang about betrayal decked in furs, feathers, and pearls,” and the long tradition of Southern black women’s blues. Later she explicates the song “Sorry” and its “boy bye” chant, revealing an ode to “black femmes.” The book’s final chapter focuses on how New Orleans bounce artist Big Freedia’s role in “Formation” marked a turning point that allowed “trans* sisters to publicize their brilliant choreographies of gender and survival.” Not solely a love letter to Beyoncé or a defense of her feminism, this is an incisive, spiraling celebration of Southern black women.

September 15, 2018
A unique take on Beyonc�'s 2016 album and video "Lemonade" and its implications for 21st-century black feminism.Part academic study, part personal reflection on being black and queer, and part unabashed homage to Beyonc�, this essay collection is what Tinsley (African and African Diaspora Studies, Women's and Gender Studies/Univ. of Texas; Ezili's Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders, 2018, etc.) calls a "Femme-onade mixtape." The opening piece, "Queen Bee Blues," looks at Beyonc�'s musical relationship to female blues and country musicians such as Memphis Minnie and Loretta Lynn. Like the love-scorned woman Beyonc� portrays in her album and video, which critics saw as her response to husband Jay-Z's infidelity--Minnie knew how to turn "lemons into lemonade...and sex into power" while Lynn knew how to fight back against her husband's excesses and abuse. In "Love the Grind," Tinsley explores the many incarnations of powerful black womanhood that Beyonc� portrays--most notably, the African sorceress Oshun and the divine Afro-Brazilian whore, Pomba Gira. Not only do both represent the sex-positive black feminism "unafraid to say fuck me," but also black Southern "ratchet feminism," which is "unafraid to say fuck you to patriarchy's rules." The author also discusses the increasingly political nature of Beyonc�'s work. In "Freedom, Too," Tinsley points to Beyonc�'s inclusion of the "Mothers of the [Black Lives Matter] Movement" in videos and public appearances. Not only does their presence "[denounce] police brutality"; it also suggests the singer's commitment to creating a world where black people can find the peace and security that Tinsley (who is married to a black transgender man) has struggled to find for herself and her family. Sure to appeal to scholars and pop-culture enthusiasts alike, this provocative book works to blur the lines between straight and gay black feminism by arguing that "any ideal of black womanhood...doesn't have to carry the label 'queer' to be...related to black femme self-expression."Lively and intelligent reading.

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October 15, 2018
Who better to write about Beyonc�'s history-making, internet-breaking 2016 visual album Lemonade than professor Tinsley, who teaches the popular course Beyonc� Feminism, Rihanna Womanism at the University of Texas at Austin, where she's also associate director of the Center for Women's & Gender Studies. Tinsley presents this mash-up of rigorous pop-culture study and conversational memoir, which takes up Beyonc�'s ?invitation to consider the U.S. South as a fertile site for black women to reimagine gender, sexuality, and personhood. Of particular interest to Tinsley, who identifies as a queer femme, are presentations of femininity and historical connections in Beyonc�'s art, and how the public, media, and scholars respond to them. Divided into three sections that correspond to the album's songs, videos, and progression, the book seems to translate the visual and audio to another plane entirely, and will undoubtedly inspire much rewatching and relistening. Tinsley's many lenses, both academic and personal, make for a rich and exciting study of the modern masterpiece she calls (arguably) the most widely distributed black feminist text of the current moment. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)