Because she knows that the world caters to her and not the other way around, the bold Queen Bey quietly dropped a brand new album directly on iTunes Thursday night, without much announcement. Titled "Beyoncé" (because "Beyoncé Beyoncé: Beyoncé"), the visual album contains 14 new songs and 18 videos, some of which are available for preview on her YouTube channel.
Notable collaborations include Drake, Frank Ocean, husband Jay Z, their toddler Blue Ivy (yes) and Orange-Prize winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
The track that features Adichie, "***Flawless," samples quotes from Adichie's TED talk, "We should all be feminists," on issues of marriage and sexuality reports The Guardian:
"Because I am a female, I am expected to aspire to marriage," Adichie says. "I am expected to make my choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be... a source of joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don't teach boys the same?"
Another section sampled on ***Flawless argues that girls are raised "to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or accomplishments which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men".
Beyoncé has also used lines from a part of the speech where Adichie queries parents' attitudes towards young people's sexuality:
"We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about our sons' girlfriends, but our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid. But of course when the time is right we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband.
The pop diva quotes Adichie's definition of a feminist as "a person who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes".
You can download the album here.
Shares