
Overnights
Overnights on HYFIN: Monday - Friday, 12 am - 6 am
closeHYFIN Connecting The Culture
Rhythm Lab Radio Redefining the Urban Sound
Discovering her past: Element uncovers her roots through African Ancestry DNA testing Tarik Moody
Beyoncé’s new album ‘Renaissance’ pays homage to Black queer music history NPR
Transcript :
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
All summer long, we’ve been hearing about how she’s fallen in love and quit her job and needs new motivation and is building up her new foundation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BREAK MY SOUL”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh, baby, baby, you won’t break my soul. You won’t break my soul. You won’t break my soul. You won’t break my soul.
SUMMERS: And today, we get to hear what Beyonce was talking about in that ubiquitous single. She has just released her new album, “Renaissance.” And music journalist Danyel Smith joins us. She is the author of the book “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History Of Black Women In Pop.” Thanks for being here, Danyel.
DANYEL SMITH: Thank you for having me, Juana. It’s so great to talk to you.
SUMMERS: You, too. All right. So that single, “Break My Soul,” and its samples and production – it had us all predicting that this new album would be dominated by dance music sounds, which it is, right?
SMITH: It really is. And it’s so actually just very wonderful. I think we’re living in a time of so much uncertainty right now. So many things can seem so scary. And I think Beyonce is giving us permission to say, but I can still sort of shake my groove thing; I can still claim my joy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BREAK MY SOUL”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Everybody, everybody, everybody.
SUMMERS: This dance music from disco to house and all kinds of techno was often pioneered by Black, queer artists.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BREAK MY SOUL”)
BIG FREEDIA: (Rapping) Release the love. Forget the rest.
SUMMERS: Beyonce is so clearly shouting out to that history. I mean, it’s not even just the beats. If you look at the liner notes, there is Big Freedia. There is T.S. Madison. There is Honey Dijon. It is expansive.
SMITH: It’s expansive. And I think she’s just really making such a point of acknowledging people’s contributions. She’s saying to the Black, queer community, I see you. I feel you. I want to dance with you. I want to party with you. But most of all, I want the world to know more about you.
SUMMERS: This seems like something that for her is also quite personal. In the liner notes, she shouts out her godmother, Uncle Jonny, as well as her queer fanbase.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HEATED”)
BEYONCE: (Rapping) Uncle Jonny made my dress. That cheap spandex – she looks a mess.
SMITH: One of the reasons that we love her so much is because she does give us this authentic part of herself. People can say, oh, that’s just Beyonce being Beyonce. And the thing is that is Beyonce sharing herself with us in a way that we can all relate to. I love to see it. I love to feel it.
SUMMERS: Yeah. You know, this album is also a little physically explicit. It certainly – it’s a little uninhibited about bodies. She talks about her bodies, flaunting bodies, sex. It’s all in the first person. She’s saying, like, I want this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CHURCH GIRL”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Nobody can judge me but me.
SUMMERS: From my first listen, one of my favorite songs is the song “Church Girl.” Where does all of this come from? Let’s talk about it.
SMITH: First of all, “Church Girl” is, like, my second favorite song on the album. I love it so much. The energy is just very like, yes, we all have to dress up and play nice a lot of the time, but hey; come Saturday night, come Thursday night, let’s shake it. Let’s talk about our bodies. When she talks about, like, the fullness of breasts and thighs and just, hey – just letting loose, yes, it is explicit. But let’s be honest. She was explicit in “Drunk In Love.” So Beyonce…
SUMMERS: Yeah.
SMITH: …Does know how to go there.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CHURCH GIRL”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) She gone shake them thighs and them pretty tig ol’ bitties (ph). So get your racks up. Word. Get your math up. I’ma (ph) back it up, back it, back it up.
SUMMERS: All right. So I want to talk about a song I know you and I both love. And it’s the last song. It is “Summer Renaissance,” and in it, Beyonce samples and interpolating Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” And it is this incredible, electric moment. Let’s listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUMMER RENAISSANCE”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh, it’s so good. It’s so good. It’s so good. It’s so good. It’s so good.
SUMMERS: I can hear you snapping over there. This moment blew my mind. What did you make of it?
SMITH: I’m seriously going between snapping my fingers and wiping away tears. It is – like, I’m serious when I say that the erasure of Donna Summer’s legacy is culturally criminal when you think about how she put an entire genre of music on her back. And we don’t talk about Donna Summer enough. We don’t listen to her music enough. So to hear Beyonce singing like her, sampling her – and I feel like this is a song on the album, too, where – we all look for that one or two songs on a Beyonce album where you want to say, oh, that’s the song that she’s really singing on.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
SMITH: Like, she’s really singing. Like, she’s really singing on “Summer Renaissance.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUMMER RENAISSANCE”)
BEYONCE: (Singing) I want your love. I want your spirit. The more I want, the more I need it. The more I want, the more I need it, need it, need it.
SMITH: It’s beautiful. You know, you want to wish that Donna Summer was alive to hear it. Man, it’s just Beyonce claiming the woman that came before her. Why does it take Beyonce to make us have conversations about Donna Summer, these women who changed pop culture? I try to talk about it as much as I can in “Shine Bright,” but I want all of us to be talking about these women all of the time.
SUMMERS: That is Danyel Smith, the author of “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History Of Black Women In Pop” and host of the podcast “Black Girl Songbook.” Danyel, thank you so much for being here.
SMITH: Juana, thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SUMMER RENAISSANCE”)
BEYONCE: (Vocalizing). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Written by: NPR
Event Type
All
Community Event
Concert
DJ event
Fashion
Theater
Event Location
All
5 Points Art Gallery + Studios
cactus club
Insomniac Studios
Lupi & Iris
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre
Radio Milwaukee
Shank Hall
Thalia Hall
The Back Room at Colectivo
The Cactus Club
The Salt Shed
The Sugar Maple
Turner Hall Ballroom
Unfinished Legacy
Wantable Cafe
14jun8:00 pmCupcakKe at Cactus ClubZed Kenzo • bdwthr • DJ DR!PSweat
Elizabeth Eden Harris, known professionally as Cupcakke, is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois. She is known for her hypersexualised, brazen, and often comical persona
Elizabeth Eden Harris, known professionally as Cupcakke, is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois. She is known for her hypersexualised, brazen, and often comical persona and music although she has also made songs with themes supporting LGBTQ rights, female empowerment, and autism awareness.
(Wednesday) 8:00 pm
cactus club
15jun7:00 pmMeshell Ndegeocello at Turner Hall Ballroom
Acclaimed GRAMMY-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello makes her Blue Note Records debut with the June 16 release of The Omnichord Real Book, a visionary
Acclaimed GRAMMY-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello makes her Blue Note Records debut with the June 16 release of The Omnichord Real Book, a visionary and deeply jazz-influenced album that marks the start of a new chapter in her trailblazing career. Following her 2018 covers album Ventriloquism, Meshell returns with an album of new original material that taps into a broad spectrum of her musical roots. The Omnichord Real Book was produced by Josh Johnson and features a wide range of guest artists including Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Joel Ross, Jeff Parker, Brandee Younger, Julius Rodriguez, Mark Guiliana, Cory Henry, Joan As Police Woman, Thandiswa, and others.
The Omnichord Real Book is introduced today by the expansive lead single “Virgo,” the mind-altering 8-minute centerpiece of the album which features Meshell on vocals, key bass, and keyboards, Younger on harp, Rodriguez on Farfisa organ, Chris Bruce on guitar, Jebin Bruni on keyboards, drums by Abe Rounds, Deantoni Parks, and Andrya Ambro, and additional vocals by Kenita Miller and Marsha DeBoe. The Omnichord Real Book is available for pre-order now on Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and digital.
“It’s a little bit of all of me, my travels, my life,” says Meshell. “My first record I made at 22, and it’s over 30 years from then, so I have a lot of stored information to share.” Reflecting on the impact that the forced stillness of the pandemic lockdown had on her, she says “I must admit it was a beautiful time for me. I got to really sit and reacquaint myself with music. Music is a gift.”
“This album is about the way we see old things in new ways,” Meshell explains. “Everything moved so quickly when my parents died. Changed my view of everything and myself in the blink of an eye. As I sifted through the remains of their life together, I found my first Real Book, the one my father gave me. I took their records, the ones I grew up hearing, learning, remembering. My mother gifted me with her ache, I carry the melancholy that defined her experience and, in turn, my experience of this thing called life calls me to disappear into my imagination and to hear the music.”
more
(Thursday) 7:00 pm
Turner Hall Ballroom
1040 Ve. R. Phillips Ave.
Overnights on HYFIN: Monday - Friday, 12 am - 6 am
closeHYFIN is a media movement from Radio Milwaukee.
Milwaukee’s only Urban Alternative radio station features the full spectrum of Black music beyond R&B and Hip-Hop plus Milwaukee music. HYFIN connects the culture with the latest Black culture news, podcasts and more. Listen to best hip hop & R&B, dance, Afrobeats and more!