Things She Imagined

Black women make life better and add so much depth to everything they touch. Whether it be sonically, or with the way their bodies flow in tune with the Earth. When you think about how music shapes culture and how culture shapes music Black women created it all. The music industry is a male dominated space and we can thank patriarchy for that yet, ask yourself to ruminate on any significant period of music throughout history. A Black woman would more than likely be your first thought. The time, care and precision that a Black woman puts into her existence is what sets them apart and makes for much more of a breathtaking body of work. There are so many inspirational Black women in my life that this essay could be an entire book, but when I think about whose music made the most impact on me in my early adulthood, all the praise goes to Solange Knowles.

Solange has been around for what feels like my entire life, starting off as a dancer for Destiny’s Child and even gracing the screen in some of my favorite films such as: “Bring It On: All or Nothing” and “Johnson Family Vacation”. However, it was not until her 2016 album A Seat at the Table made its debut that I had really begun to pay my respects to her artistry in music. Her forthcoming studio album When I get home, is the obra de arte that absolutely blew my mind when it was released in 2019. Said to have created it to pay homage to her roots in Houston, Texas and to her roots as an African American woman. Much of the music we hear today is repetitious and commercialized to make it more palatable to a more mainstream audience. Solange took a risk and decided to make an album for herself and hoped that the world would listen to what she had to say. What she was able to accomplish was to put you smack dab in Houston, Texas and allowed you to journey through her body and experiences as if trying on her life through song. She created completely new sounds and was able to add her interludes encouraging and uplifting Black women. I can only imagine all the cute little Black girls that will hear this and allow this to nurture their sense of self. In many industries in America including music there is only room for Black women who are hypersexual in their approach. This is no shade to women who enjoy expressing their sexual preferences because we do not Slut shame in this house, but it is to say that when you are allowed to control your own narrative there is so much more to you than what society thinks you are or only chooses to pay attention to for its own benefit.

"I can’t be a singular expression of myself, there’s too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines, too many curves, too many troubles, too many journeys, too many mountains, too many rivers, so many..."

Solange even managed to fill my body with pride in being an African American from the South. To be Black is a wonderful feeling that I would not trade for anything, but Black encompasses so many identities within the diaspora and much of what is depicted about the South does not center my experiences of being a Black Southerner. When people picture life in the South the automatic assumption is the confederacy, racism and plain old ignorance, which is 100% truthful for some of my white counterparts, but that completely erases the Black folks whose roots on this soil began. At times, as Black folks we feel obligated to code switch in non Black spaces, even certain Black spaces. I often felt I had to diminish or water down my very essence for fear of being called out by my peers. This opens the doors to not only question our habits of code switching but to allow us to enjoy all things at once instead of trying to compartmentalize which “self” to be today. Specifically speaking to her features of Gucci Mane and Playboi Carti on the album.

In community we tend to navigate which behaviors, music, style of clothing and even which career path is most noble or admissible due to the history of assimilation.The internalized anti blackness causes many to belittle trap music/hip hop and see it as an illegitimate form of artistic expression. “Almeda” and “My Skin My Logo” do a marvelous job of debunking the myth that rap is too “ghetto”.

“Black, black braids, black waves, blacks days, black baes, black things

These are Black owned things. Still can’t be washed away, not even in that Florida water."

Solange talks about making this album for the representation she wishes she could have experienced growing up, when I hear it it does not feel like it was made for just little Solange, but for a Lawyer, an elder, a fast food worker, the LGBTQ+ community and all those in between the spectrum of labor that Black women encompass. In her music video “Almeda” shot in her hometown she shows snippets of Black cowboy culture, as well as the expressions of Black hair and nail accessories which are typically seen in the “hood”.

In a genre all her own, Solange manages to express her love for self and all of Black life in such a cool and collected manner that feels good to the soul. It is timeless, formless and genderless that will have meaning for generations to come. When talking about Black women in music we think of women of the past as if Black women today are not equally pushing the boundaries on what it means to be. Black women are here and now, Black women are loved and protected and Solange is a Black woman in music killing shit. Period.