“The Past and the Future Merge to Meet Us Here:” Afrofuturism in Lemonade

A case study of how Beyoncé draws on Afrofuturist themes to re-imagine black womanhood and identity in America

With the use of multimedia art and literature, a recent surge of Black artists influences today’s popular culture with their own creative styles. Using their fame to produce art that reforms the representations of Blackness on a global scale, talented artists such as Kehinde Wiley, authors like Warsan Shire, and an empire of musical moguls, including Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Solange are collectively revolutionizing the image, sound, and meaning of modern art and literature. In her book, Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, science fiction and comic book author Ytasha Womack remarks on the importance of visual representation in our media: “With the power of technology and emerging freedoms, black artists have more control over their image than ever before” (24). Perhaps one of the most successful and influential musicians of our time, Beyoncé is one such artist who has continually reinvented and commanded her own image and narrative. The musical tycoon recently dazzled her international fan base, the “Beyhive,” with her latest powerhouse album Lemonade. Released along with an accompanying visual album, Lemonade ignited praise and criticism as fierce as the composition itself, and prompted her six-month international Formation Tour.

In response to Lemonade, celebrated intellectual and feminist theorist bell hooks offered her analysis “Moving Beyond Pain” on her blog post from the bell hooks Institute. Although she praises how Lemonade positively portrays the diversity of black women by normalizing and celebrating them in various, everyday representations, hooks concludes that the black women of Lemonade are still cast as the victims. Although the visual representation of black female bodies in Lemonade transcends preconceived notions of blackness, it fails to transcend some of the stereotypes repressing them. hooks asserts that Beyoncé’s representation as a commodity is not enough to counteract harmful stereotypes that are deeply embedded in society:

Even though Beyoncé and her creative collaborators make use of the powerful voice and words of Malcolm X to emphasize the lack of respect for black womanhood, simply showcasing beautiful black bodies does not create a just culture of optimal well being where black females can become fully self-actualized and be truly respected.

Hooks wisely acknowledges that depicting blackness as beautiful is not enough to liberate an entire demographic of people who are systematically oppressed by sexist and racist institutions. Although I agree with hooks, I would like to offer another framework with which we can understand Beyoncé’s latest album. In the following discussion, I argue that Lemonade does so much more than just “[showcase] beautiful black bodies.”

By utilizing Afrofuturist themes, Beyoncé presents her audience with visual elements that refashion both current and historical African American culture. While I cannot argue the intent of Beyoncé and her visual team, their final product can be read as a literary medium of Afrofuturism to empower black women, and to offer a critical framework to reimagine the past and present for black women in America. By intertwining a new narrative of history with a refreshing perspective of current events in America, Beyoncé reminds her audience that African American history is as relevant as ever in today’s society. Using a holistic approach to define the terms of Afrofuturism, I aim to analyze the visual means in which Beyoncé’s production is a successful Afrofuturist visual-literary piece that works to empower black women and Afrodiasporic cultures.

Cultural critic and author Mark Dery first coined the term Afrofuturism as an art of appropriation for African American significance in 1994, but forms of art with the same objective have existed since the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Among other things, Afrofuturism seeks to address how Black culture can survive and thrive in a present and future world that was built upon the systematic erasure of African diasporic history and culture. Afrofuturism therefore includes both a rebuilding of Black history, and a redefining of the future that includes Afrodiasporic cultures. In his interview with Dery, musician and author Greg Tate asserts, “’you can be backward-looking and forward-thinking at the same time’” (211).

Noting that there is power in recovering a history and culture, as well as constructing images of the future, Tate defines Afrofuturism as a sort of cultural recovery; a speculative retelling and blurring of the past, present, and future of African-American culture. Finally, as Womack suggests, Afrofuturism can occur in any artistic medium: so long as the author speculates a past, present, or future in which they can emancipate black culture in ways that were otherwise impossible. Afrofuturism is an aesthetic or literary device that offers a reading of the past through the present and the future, represented by all forms of literature and art, most often appropriations of white technology and wealth, and speculative depictions of time.

As a culmination of all the album’s music videos, Lemonade maps out a speculative timeline, switching between black historical representations, which are primarily shown in black and white, and present day visuals shown in vibrant color. Every so often, the use of color changes, and historical images are flooded with color, symbolizing how the past is still relevant, and very much a part of our present. By recovering a past and culture, as well as constructing images of today and tomorrow, this visual gives power to a collective history of Afrodiasporic cultures. As Ruth Mayer explains in Africa as an Alien Nation, “Black diasporic history, it seems, is a thing of the future, not of the past, a subject of fantasies, dreams and speculations . . . which is created in the process of its recuperation” (3). In the necessary restoration of the past, black artists can claim a future for their culture to exist in. In a “backward-looking and forward-thinking” analysis, Beyoncé and her visual team of artists examine the past through a present lens, and vice-versa.

There are multiple ways in which Lemonade offers a vision of a speculative past, but the most frequented scene reimagines the Makewood Plantation in Louisiana as a safe haven, governed solely by black women in traditional, colonial garb. This setting imagines a historical space where black women commune, relax, and perform together, free from the restrictive chains of slavery and white supremacy. The consistent return to this setting and the harmonious existence of the women reinforces the solidarity of sisterhood. Rather than showcasing the horrific consequences of slavery, Lemonade reimagines this negative setting to instead focus on a group of Black women who are together, empowered, and resolute. In recreating this setting, Beyoncé bases half of her videos in an alternate history — a speculative, restoration of the past.

Beyoncé. Lemonade.

This repurposed plantation becomes Beyoncé’s visual manifestation of a paradise lost. As Reynaldo Anderson illustrates: “’An Afrofuturist is not ignorant of history, but they don’t let history restrain their creative impulses either’” (Womack 16). While deeply rooted in the negative history of slavery, this image nonetheless reimagines the black women as free: thus, creating a paradise lost, in which the women are no longer labeled as slave, or other. By appropriating images of colonialism and slavery through land and costume, the imagery takes power away from the slave owners and bestows it on the black women. For example, the women are all shown wearing beautiful, delicate clothing, instead of rags and chains. Rather than serving the food, each woman has a seat at the table.

Beyoncé uses the same sense of solidarity as strength in another scene in which she leads nine other women into a calm sea. On the shore of a vast ocean, the women turn to face the water, and while holding hands, raise their arms and faces to the sea. The image of the women with their backs to the land is another nod to African American history: the Ibo Landing massacre. Although the story changes with each retelling, the Ibo Landing is a piece of history that has since become legend. By presenting the ghostly legend as a “moving ritual,” rather than a “tragic group suicide,” Carrie Mae Weem chronicles a mystical and empowering version of the Ibo Landing Massacre:

One midnight at high tide a

ship bringing in a cargo of Ebo (Ibo)

men landed at Dunbar Creek on the

Island of St. Simons. But the men refus-

ed to be sold into slavery; joining hands

together they turned back toward the

water, chanting ‘the water brought us,

the water will take us away.’ They all

drowned, but to this day when the

breeze sighs over the marshes and

through the trees, you can hear the

clank of chains and echo of

their chant at Ebo Landing (Mayer 559).

Other versions of the story have taken on mythical elements; some tell how the men flew back to Africa, while other versions depict the Ibo men as capable of walking on water. In the words of Ruth Mayer, many elements of African American history have become inherently mystical:

All narratives around the Middle Passage are invariably and necessarily speculative, and the more so today, over hundred years after the fact. And thus fantastic, mythic, or grotesque narratives seem so much more adequate to tackle the estrangement and angst erupting in its wake (556).

All versions of the story represent a final act of freedom: a choice that was otherwise completely unavailable to the Africans who were stolen from both their homes and identities and sold into a new world. I argue for a similar reading of this ocean scene in Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Here, she offers her own retelling of the legend; the women stand together along the shore, holding hands, turning away from the land. Although they do not fly away or walk on the water, their stance suggests that they, like the Ibo people, refuse the prospects of their futures. In turning away from the land, they choose to create a new future for themselves.

Beyoncé. Lemonade.

I contend that any mystical retelling of the Ibo Landing is a form of Afrofuturism because it is a hypothetical narrative that seeks to record elements of history that have been lost or erased. Beyoncé’s version, or tribute to it, is no exception. The image of the women facing the water reimagines both the historical and mystical aspects of the legend. In this scene, Beyoncé takes control of the media’s representation of Black women and their future. The women turning their backs on society are showcasing much more than just black feminine beauty and diversity; they represent agency and the freedom to form their own futures. In yet another display of solidarity, the women reclaim their history, and demonstrate how they refuse to be subjected to social oppressions and expectations.

Reimagining these historical settings as places of strength and solidarity, rather than pain and suffering, recreates a powerful history for African Americans. Alongside this historical retelling, Beyoncé presents another new narrative that focuses on current events and life in America. Her depiction of current American culture offers a refreshingly diverse and positive portrayal of black women. As bell hooks put it, “Portraits of ordinary everyday black women are spotlighted, poised as though they are royalty.” Costumes proudly embody diverse representations of blackness in Lemonade. By literally refashioning the status of black women in current and historical events, Beyoncé’s wardrobe becomes a form of Afrofuturist art that serves to reposition black women in American society. The black women appropriate white antebellum fashion to claim historical power and sophistication. The notorious black hoodie Beyoncé wears in the first few opening scenes, and the Black Panther uniforms the women sport in the closing scenes emphasize that uplifting claim to black pride. By wearing the Black Panther uniforms, Beyoncé draws attention to the prevalence of civil rights issues. The agenda of the Black Panther movement is still relevant and reflected by today’s Black Lives Matter movement. Each costume represents a diverse period of black history and identity, mingling them together with current African American fashion, serving as a reminder that although these movements differ in name, the agenda has always been the pursuit of equality for African Americans.

Lemonade rewrites African American history as one rooted in strength, freedom, and solidarity, thus reflecting a potential future with similar freedoms for black people. Lemonade also stages an image of the present day that turns the table on oppressive forces; the visual album powerfully echoes Malcolm X and the Black Panther movement alongside the mothers of the Black Lives Matter movement of today. The mothers of the BLM movement, who have lost sons to tragic instances of police brutality, are shown mourning with their heads held high, evoking a sympathetic response to their plight and strength. This brutality is alluded to in Lemonade, but not directly displayed. Instead, a young black boy breakdances in front of a menacing wall of SWAT team members, who raise their arms in a show of submission to him. Completely turning the narrative on its head and placing the young black child in a position of power and protection, Beyoncé and her creative team offer yet another powerful image of black people who are free and in control of their own bodies.

Beyoncé. Lemonade.

Offering a very different, representative version of today’s society, Lemonade defamiliarizes our present by demonstrating how the present is a dystopia for African Americans. The image of the SWAT team surrendering to the black child is quite polarized from the images circulating common news stories that propel the BLM movement. Appropriating the common image of police encounters with people of color, and reframing it for black purposes makes people consider the implications of police brutality against people of color. This image offers a speculative version of our society at present, in which people of color are protected by the justice system, rather than terrorized and killed by it. This image is made possible by the presentation of an alternate history that also ensured black people privilege and power. In rewriting the past and present to showcase blackness not only as beautiful, but also as protected and free, Lemonade alludes to a future where the movements of Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and Black Lives Matter are ultimately successful in equalizing the treatment of and uplifting African Americans in our society.

Beyoncé’s visual album does much more than showcase the diversity and beauty of blackness. The historical representations that treat black women as anything but other roots their identities in solidarity and freedom, as opposed to slavery. In turn, these alternate histories open up to alternate present days and potential futures. Lemonade creates new images that defy and transcend the oppressive stereotypes of black people.

In an Afrofuturist aesthetic and narrative, Lemonade challenges oppressive notions of blackness, the historical oppression of black women, and the oppression of black people today. By blurring these new narratives together, and presenting them side by side, Beyoncé offers a means of empowering black identities, an accessible method of understanding the systematic oppression of those identities and reflects a future of solidarity and freedom for Afrodiasporic communities.