She sits on top of a half sunken New Orleans police car in her Givenchy dress. She is surrounded by half flooded homes, and scenes of modern day New Orleans flashes across the screen. As the video progress, she sings about illuminate, black hair and features, and her roots. Images of the rich New Orleans culture is periodically featured. She surrounds herself with all female dancers, sometimes in top 1800’s women couture. The scene of a little black boy b-boy dancing with riot police officers raising their hands in the background comes on, followed by the full sinking of the police car at the end. This all happened Saturday February 8th, 2016, by Sunday night, February 8th, she would perform this very song live during the biggest televised
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From the very beginning of the video, Beyoncé is very much trying to keep the remembrance of hurricane Katrina and the spirit of a very well-known and outspoken NOLA resident alive. In the middle of a flooded city and on top of a police car she starts the song with her famous first line “all haters corny with that illuminati mess.” The scene with the hooded-boy dancing in front of riot police with the words “Stop Shooting Us” in the background sparked many conversations on the ongoing issue of police brutality in America. The scene was a direct response to the killing of innocent black people by the hands of police.
Reactions to her performance were so immense that “Saturday Night Live” created a skit to portray fans, mostly white America, reacting to this video. In a perfect satire of actual events, the skit showed America in an apocalyptic state as white fans seemed to just realize that Beyoncé is in fact black. So use to the feminist, pro-female independent and killer dance move Beyoncé, white America was not prepared to see Beyoncé be so loud and clear about her black culture. In actuality, even black America was shocked by the sudden blackness or acknowledgement of the black movement happening in America by
From the very beginning of the video, Beyoncé is very much trying to keep the remembrance of hurricane Katrina and the spirit of a very well-known and outspoken NOLA resident alive. In the middle of a flooded city and on top of a police car she starts the song with her famous first line “all haters corny with that illuminati mess.” The scene with the hooded-boy dancing in front of riot police with the words “Stop Shooting Us” in the background sparked many conversations on the ongoing issue of police brutality in America. The scene was a direct response to the killing of innocent black people by the hands of police.
Reactions to her performance were so immense that “Saturday Night Live” created a skit to portray fans, mostly white America, reacting to this video. In a perfect satire of actual events, the skit showed America in an apocalyptic state as white fans seemed to just realize that Beyoncé is in fact black. So use to the feminist, pro-female independent and killer dance move Beyoncé, white America was not prepared to see Beyoncé be so loud and clear about her black culture. In actuality, even black America was shocked by the sudden blackness or acknowledgement of the black movement happening in America by