Bump Beyoncé’s “Formation,” I read in a late night text message from my cousin. Look up VV Brown’s “Sacrifice.” This is the IDGAF anthem and video we were waiting for!
When I first listened to Beyoncé’s latest single, “Formation,” I didn’t have an opinion on it one way or the other. I thought it was catchy, a continuation of the success from her last album, but the lyrics didn’t say much. Then she performed the song on the biggest stage in the world: the Super Bowl. The world erupted in conversation. While some praised her for embracing black beauty and taking a stance against systemic racism and injustice, others accused her of attacking the police and race-baiting—they even talked of boycotting her.
While I agree that her music video is a work of art, and I love that her back up dancers at the Super Bowl were dressed in black berets and afros, paying homage to the original Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on its 50th anniversary, the song itself is severely lacking. The majority of it is about materialism, (“I’m so reckless in my Givenchy dress.”), sex (“When he fuck me good, I take his ass to red lobster.”), and being better than everyone else (“Slay trick or you get eliminated.”). The only lines I truly liked in the whole song were about Blue Ivy and Jay-Z: “I like my baby heir, with baby hair and afros / I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.” Then she lost me at hot sauce.
Sorry, Black Twitter, but Beyoncé was “unapologetically black” for all of fifteen seconds.
As I’ve gotten older, my desire to listen to music that is culturally and socially aware has only increased. In a time when a mass shooting occurs every day, when the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police is primetime news, when children in Flint, Michigan are poisoned daily by the one thing they need to survive because of the corrupt negligence of their government, the last thing I want to hear is another electric pop love song, another rap song about drugs and sex, or another song with a hot beat but zero lyrical value. I want to hear music that makes me angry, music that makes me want to fight back, music that makes me scream front the roof tops that I will not be ignored, that my voice will not be silenced—an “IDGAF anthem,” as my cousin put it.
So, I looked up VV Brown’s “Sacrifice” and nearly broke down into tears. This song—released around the same time as “Formation” and unfortunately overshadowed—is everything I wanted “Formation” to be.
The video opens with an excerpt from an infamous speech by Malcolm X in which he says, “Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race you belong to?” As this speech continues, along with other speeches concerning Civil Rights from John F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the camera widens to reveal VV Brown in a blonde wig, wearing blue contacts, and donning whiteface—not to be confused with the more derogatory blackface, a method in which white actors darkened their faces and mimicked blacks in very animated and stereotypical performances. Whiteface, on the other hand, is a psychological state in which blacks put on a “white mask” to try to fit into the dominant white society.
As the video progresses, Brown proceeds to take off her mask as clips of past and current events in our racial history (slavery, the doll test, church bombings, police brutality, the KKK, etc.) play in the background. At the song’s conclusion, she scrubs off her white face, takes off her wig, and reveals that she is a black woman. A powerful statement that she will not hide her blackness for anyone, no matter how uncomfortable they may feel. And unlike “Formation,” the lyrics are just as powerful as the video. She asks are you willing to sacrifice who you are (“Change your nigger roots”), sell your soul to the devil (“I got my contract back from the devil”), just to be accepted?
I don’t know about you, but my black is too beautiful to sacrifice.
