A SUBVERSÃO DE PAPÉIS DE PESSOAS NEGRAS EM CANÇÕES DE THE GIFT, DE BEYONCÉ

Abstract

Beyoncé is an American artist well-known for her career as a singer. In the last few years, her work has developed projects in which her talent has the chance to be attached to her will to fight for social causes, as she did in ‘The Gift’ (2020). This research analyzes the connection between the lyrics of three songs of this album and the subversion of roles of black people in society. Through the research, it was possible to identify how the songs ‘Bigger’, ‘Brown Skin Girl’ and ‘My Power’ have a connection to the life of black people in the United States of America, with the goal to describe how this social group surpassed racist oppression processes and are still building their way to empowerment. By doing so, this work argues that the writing of this songs had the power to denunciate white supremacy; but also, the ability to enlighten the relationship between music and literature. The research carried out was bibliographical and considered the contributions of Black Feminist writers, primarily the reflections raised by Patricia Hill Collins (2019), bell hooks (2019), Alice Walker (1984), Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), Joice Berth (2018), and theoreticians that study the Literary Theory, such as Ezra Pound (2006) and Robert Scholes et al. (1991), among others. In conclusion, the songs built a picture in which black people are not part of a narrative that oppresses them, there they are protagonists of their own stories. The lyrics put a light on hidden social issues that are a result of racism and, to emphasize its critic, its intersectional perspective adds gender as a topic of its discussions.