Time, Spirituality and Lineage: A re-watch of Black Is King
BY MORAYO Omogbenigun
Beyoncé’s Black Is King has started a lot of conversations about pro-Blackness, African representation on screen, and Black royalty, to name just a few. It’s clear that Bey is having her own little hotep moment, and I’m not completely mad about it. I’m going to be honest with you – I was never planning to watch Beyoncé’s Black Is King. On July 31st, I was still in Lagos, Nigeria with no access to Disney Plus, and I for sure wasn’t going to use a VPN to get a temporary subscription then forget about it and have Disney rob me of my money. Friends in the same predicament as me told me the accompaniment to The Gift album would be on MNet, so I recorded it and went about my business. When I did watch it, I found it slightly cringeworthy at points (the way Beyoncé does her little African shoulder jiggle is priceless) but heart-warming and important nevertheless. Upon re-watching the film, I experienced a certain warmth and comfort that came with seeing Black people exist in synergy with their environment on screen – they were perfectly situated amongst the sprawling landscape of the African continent.
“We have always been wonderful. I see us reflected in the world’s most heavenly things. Black is King. We were beauty before they knew what beauty was.” – Words by Yrsa Daley-Ward, whose poetry was featured throughout the film.
Watching Black Is King again this time, three themes stood out to me: time, spirituality and lineage. The Lion King, which Black Is King is based off of, has received criticisms for being the “colonist’s dream” – Africa without the Africans, in line with Disney’s tendency to turn Black characters into animals or other fantasy creatures, replacing us with “cuter”, marketable creatures for most of our limited screen-time. Black Is King is completely different to me because it grounds Black people within our Continent – this isn’t to say I didn’t have concerns over the African experience being homogenised. I am completely used to any representation of Africans in international media following one stereotype and failing to take into consideration the differences in our cultures (see: Coming To America). After all, my own Nigeria has over 300 languages, and that’s just one country, so to group all of the Continent together is a heinous crime. Ryan Coogler’s imagining of the fictional Wakanda in Black Panther was stunning, but still sent the message it was possible and okay to express the entire African experience as a monolith – after all, “it's still representation”. Effective representation? I’m unsure of that.
“History is your future”
Like many young Black people, I am critical of how Christianity ended up almost replacing African spirituality systems, like the one native to my tribe, Isese Ifá, and colonialism’s role in that. A Yoruba girl myself (Ekiti and Osun State, thank you!) I always associated Isese Ifá with old men dressed in red telling you to kill a goat in exchange for good fortune – this was heavily influenced by Nigerian films, with Olu Jacobs playing a stern patriarch, and Patience Ozokwor a cunning step-mother (she could teach Lynn Whitfield a lesson or two).
I have been doing a fair bit of research on Ifá, but what really interests me is how the understanding of time differs. Throughout Black Is King, we see various figures (both human and supernatural) challenge and aid the young boy (played wonderfully by Folajomi Akinmurele). Beyoncé pays homage to various Orisas (meaning “elevated head” in Yoruba – these are basically deities) including Esu, Sango and Obatala.
“Your orisas hold your hand through this journey that began before you were born”
Unlike Christianity which focuses on an end of time (i.e Jesus’ second coming, the definitive difference between BC and AD), I found that time in Black Is King didn’t exist. The individuals in the film are living at the same time as their ancestors – there is no end to life, no one vanishes forever. Multiple things can be true at the same time, just like multiple scenarios can be happening at the same time which all complement each other. Energy can’t be destroyed or created, only converted from one form to another. At the end, when the young boy is grown up and ascends to Heaven (Orun), he is reunited with his Egbe or soul-tribe, who we play with as children in Orun before we are reincarnated on Earth. This reminded me of how insidious colonialism was – by disconnecting us from the guidance of our Orisas, we miss vital information being fed to us. We are in the middle of a dimly lit corridor and cannot see the hand beckoning us towards the light switch.
“You find yourself in a room with all the people you lost”
Existential thoughts aside, I thought to highlight my favourite aspects of the film. Black Is King is what I call tasteful hotepry. The Afro-futuristic visuals for “Find Your Way Back” were reminiscent of Sun Ra and his Solar-Myth Arkestra, who played songs like “Space Is the Place” and dressed up in Egyptian outfits to lead 20 minute excursions into experimental jazz until Sun Ra’s death in 1993. Despite this, his Arkestra has kept going, even opening for Solange in 2017 and hosting their own Tiny Desk Concert in 2015.
The uniqueness of each set of visuals shows the importance of working with local, African creatives. Nuance is often missing when international artists “promote culture” and produce such ventures as Black Is King. Assumptions are made, often angering those whose cultures they’re trying to celebrate. Think Coldplay’s most recent album, Everyday Life which has been criticised for cultural appropriation even though it's supposed to be a sonic journey around the world. For example, the phrase “Don’t Jealous Me” was popularised by Hackney-born and raised Tolulope Ogunmefun on his YouTube channel in the early 2010s. These subtle references to Black culture in the diaspora are so important and fulfilling. It reminded me of Jamila Wood’s Popsicle (Interlude) in her 2017 album HEAVN:
“These Black women that I did not know, had met that day. And we like all knew how to play Popsicle together. And then like all of the people who weren't Black were just looking at us like"Did y'all go to elementary school together?" It was literally like the best inside secret that I felt like I had ever had. That's one of my favourite things about Blackness”
In the visuals for “KEYS TO THE KINGDOM”, I screamed when I saw The National Theatre in Lagos, Nigeria featured. I was even more overjoyed to see Youth Corpers dancing alongside magistrates, then in front of an ice cream stand.
The National Youth Service Corps was founded in 1973, and is a compulsory year-long graduate program for all Nigerians who wish to work in the country. Known for their uniforms, Youth Corpers are a distinctive piece of Nigerian culture, because at one point or the other, every Nigerian working in the country has done it. Even better, seeing the ice cream seller reminded me of being picked up from school by my grandma and begging her if I could have some money to buy Fan-Yogo to cool off after running around in the hot sun all day.
“ALREADY” and “BROWN SKIN GIRL” are probably my favourite visuals. In “BROWN SKIN GIRL”, Black women are afforded a vulnerability and elegance the world often strips us of – seeing Black women in beautiful debutante ball gowns reminds us that our ‘strength’ is not the only thing worth celebrating. More often than not, the responsibility of ‘uplifting the Black community’ falls on women, who experience a unique combination of racism and sexism that Moya Bailey coined as “misogynoir” in 2010. I was quite literally moved to tears watching these images of Black women giggling, surrounded by flowers in pastel dresses which beautifully complimented their skin tones. Brown skin girls are innocent in the world of Black is King, they are not expected to head political movements from an early age, or be responsible for the irresponsible actions of their entire community. Meanwhile, in “ALREADY”, there was something deeply spiritual about seeing Beyoncé gbese. Sadly, I already had my braids done while watching this, if not, like many other Black people, I’d be sending round photos of Bey’s hairstyles to various braiders with the pleading message “Is this something you could do?”.
“The coast belongs to our ancestors”
Black Is King is not without its shortcomings. While I understand it was a retelling of Lion King, I was still disappointed to see the power of Blackness situated in a heteropatriarchal structure through the title. The lack of obviously Black queer imagery was disappointing, especially when Black queer people are often ignored by the wider Black and LGBT communities despite being the ones on the frontlines of the Liberation movement. Moreover, when Black people tend to think about ways to uplift ourselves, we often turn to the well-meaning but dangerous “We were kings” rhetoric. While kingdoms like the Benin Empire or the success of Mansa Musa are histories to be proud of, we must not forget to critically access what exactly monarchy is – unelected, unaccountable figures doing whatever they please, often at the expense of their subjects. We can celebrate Blackness without tying it to getting to the top of exploitative systems like capitalism. It is true that Black Is King, but what about Kings is there to be truly proud of?
“It would burn me every time somebody talked about Black people climbing the ladder of success. Anytime you're talking about a ladder, you're talking about a top and a bottom, an upper class and a lower class, a rich class and a poor class. As long as you got a system with a top and bottom, Black people are always going to end up at the bottom because we're easiest to discriminate against.” – Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
This year’s FUZE is in aid of two charities: ArtRefuge and Black South West Network.
