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Beyoncé · S7 E4
Formation
New Orleans, Black Lives Matter, the Super Bowl performance — and the backlash that followed
A link appears on Beyonce's website on February 6, 2016, with zero warning. Twenty-four hours later she performs "Formation" at the Super Bowl halftime show, and by Monday morning every police union in America has an opinion.
Beyonce and Bruno Mars join Coldplay for the Super Bowl 50 halftime show (February 7, 2016). What starts as a shared stage turns into a dance-off, and then Beyonce's dancers form an X on the field in black berets.
Formation (2016)
"Formation" operates on two levels simultaneously. On the surface, it is a swaggering anthem: "I got hot sauce in my bag, swag." Underneath, every image is loaded. A sinking police car in New Orleans floodwater. A young Black boy dancing in front of a line of riot police. The word "Negro" reclaimed as a term of pride. Mike WiLL Made-It's production keeps the beat sparse and confrontational, leaving space for Beyonce's delivery to shift between Houston drawl, defiant declaration, and whispered intimacy.
TAP TO REVEAL: What is the sinking police car about?
The Aftermath
Police unions threatened boycotts, SNL ran a sketch called "The Day Beyonce Turned Black," and conservative commentators called it anti-police. They missed the point: "Formation" is not an anti-police song, it is a pro-Black song. Beyonce never attacks anyone in the lyrics. She celebrates where she comes from.
Which New Orleans bounce artist's voice opens "Formation" with "I did not come to play with you"?
Freedom (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
"Freedom" is "Formation" pushed to its absolute limit, stripping away all irony to deliver its political statements as a battle cry. Kendrick Lamar's verse matches Beyonce's intensity note for note, and the gospel-influenced production makes it feel more like a sermon than a pop track.
Lemonade was not just an album with music videos. It was a sixty-five-minute film held together by the poetry of a twenty-seven-year-old Somali-British writer. Next: the film itself, and the poet whose words turned twelve songs into one story.
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