BLACK IS KING’ REVEALS BEYONCE AS MEGA-ARTIST

 By Margaretta wa Gacheru (August 2020)

After watching Beyonce’s new film, ‘Black is King’, one can’t help feeling her musical performance in Disney’s ‘Lion King’ was a prelude to her own creation of this sumptuous cinematic show.

Taking a cue from the acclaimed coming-of-age classic that Disney just re-presented in 2019 following the film’s original animated success in 1994, this mother of three explores alternative avenues of upbringing that a new-born black child might take on his way to becoming a king.

In the process, Beyonce reimagines a whole range of extravagant artistic possibilities that she’d make available to her own black prince and future ‘king’ (played in BiB by her son, Sir Carter).

But don’t expect ‘Black is King’ to be a children’s film. The child serves as a metaphor for the new opportunities that Beyonce takes up as a black artist who feels absolutely entitled to explore on as vast a scale as she can find, including an ocean, open sky and expansive Tunisian sandscape.

Filmed in the same spirit as Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’, Beyonce is black, proud and inclined to prove her prowess as not simply a singer, but a filmmaker as well.

The African American entertainer who is also a choreographic queen actually scripted, starred in and co-produced her latest creation with one of the biggest entertainment firms in the world, Disney.

Creating far more than a glorified music video, the sheer beauty of the film’s cinematography quickly confirms that ‘Black is King’ has a deeper, more majestic message.

It’s complicated, colorful and almost cosmic at times. It’s also lyrical, steeped in African proverbs, wisdom and poetry, including verse by the Kenya-born Somali writer, Warsan Shire, (whose poetry also featured in Beyonce’s 2016 feature-length film ‘Lemonaid’).

Best of all, the music by both African and African American artists is diverse, unflagging and invariably accompanied by exquisitely attired and choreographed dancers often led by Beyonce herself.

In fact, ‘Black is King’ might alternately be re-named Black is Queen since it is the Queen B’s (as she is known to her most adoring fans) movie from start to end. Yet her message is not merely self-glory. Not by any means. For while her film confirms that ‘Black is beautiful’ in the most emphatic way, it also embodies the singular message that ‘black lives matter.’

But rather than the film finally making a political statement, one ultimately sees that Beyonce is also talking about family. For towards the end of the film, who should show up but her mega-music mogul husband and rapper J-Z. Not that he plays a major role in the film. He has one number with his wife, but he mostly hangs out with their three kids, including their twins.

But just as ‘Lemonade’ was ultimately a music video feature that proclaimed her independence from her cheating spouse, so ‘Black is King’ is implicitly about reconciliation and the joy of being Black and beautiful, and mattering as a family that is regal, righteous and richly gifted in many different ways.