A Big Week for Bounce?

If you didn't know Beyoncé released a new single this past week, then you probably live in some internet-less underground mole people civilization and aren't reading this blog post, so...we all know BEYONCE RELEASED A NEW SINGLE THIS PAST WEEK.

Behold "Formation" (*Trigger warning: Hurricane Katrina/flood images)

Like any good Beyoncé fan (or human being - seriously who doesn't love Beyoncé??!!), I rejoiced at Queen Bey's latest banger. I applauded her assertion of black self-love and pride. As a New Orleanian, I initially was ecstatic that Beyoncé had made my hometown the setting and a major focus of her music video. Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance decried police brutality and along with the song itself delivered a powerful pro-Black message.

The Katrina imagery in the video seemed to similarly decry the handling of the disaster of the levees breaking and the mass flooding that primarily affected poor, black neighborhoods. I could get down with that message. Kanye may have beat her to it, but it's never too late to call out something like that, so I could get down with it.

But on second thought and after reading Maris Jones' wonderful piece for Black Girl Dangerous (which I highly recommend everyone read), I felt differently. I grew up in one of the more privileged areas of Uptown New Orleans, an area on higher ground that did not flood during Hurricane Katrina, and while my experience was difficult in its own way, I didn't have the experience that requires the trigger warning I included for Beyoncé's video. For many New Orleanians, Katrina meant the loss of everything they knew and loved and is a traumatizing part of their past. Jones perfectly expresses the pain and disappointment New Orleans natives felt upon seeing Beyoncé use the tragedy that was Katrina to provide provocative imagery for her video.

However, bounce superstar Big Freedia, who can be heard speaking about halfway through the track, has expressed nothing but gratitude and excitement about "Formation" and her feature on it. The Queen Dive of bounce has said that she loves that Beyoncé is paying tribute to her southern roots. The feature has garnered a lot of attention for Freedia this past week.

Interestingly enough, despite the political message of "Formation," Big Freedia declined to comment on the anti-police brutality message of the song when talking to The Fader.

Whether "Formation" is a win or lose for the bounce community is unclear and, yet again, we land on the question of nationwide attention being a positive because it means success for artists like Big Freedia or a negative because it often results in appropriation or bounce and New Orleans culture, in this case the city's Katrina stories, being fetishized and turned into a commodity. There's a lot that's positive about "Formation" but the Katrina imagery presents a grey area (leaning toward negative for me). How we can strike a balance in these situations and find a way to mix popularity and understand is a question we are still trying to answer.