It is a reminder!
Simply 3 weeks in the past, Beyoncé stopped the world once more together with her newest album Renaissance; an ode to and reclaiming of deep home music, Black LGBTQ Ballroom tradition, and her pricey Uncle Johnny.
Renaissance is a really feel good album created to make us dance, escape a number of the societal turmoil we’ve needed to endure over the previous 2 and a half years, and to remind us to be pleased with who we’re and the totally different marks we are going to all go away on this world.
Beyoncé shouldn’t be new to creating girls’s empowerment anthems (I imply, she’s been writing them for the reason that age of 16!) neither is she new to producing music that facilities Black folks and our varied marginalized voices. She has been utilizing her music to precise her political ideas and stances for the previous few years. Her new hit, Cozy, isn’t any totally different.
Cozy is an Affirmation
Whereas listening to Renaissance for what might be my a hundredth time, I got here to the belief that this album is just an audible assortment of affirmations; a candy word to your self to like your self regardless of what society, naysayers, and doubters attempt to inform you about your self.
Cozy has shortly turn out to be the stand out observe amongst fats constructive influencers and plus measurement content material creators as you see them reveling within the lyrics whereas scrolling Instagram and TikTok.
Beyoncé kicks off Cozy by proclaiming, “It is a reminder!” She units us as much as take word and heed to what’s to return and follows up her warning with, “Rattling I like the dagger from the burning of the phrases that you just say, Kiss my scars as a result of I like what they made.” Bey is making an announcement about her put up child physique and never solely honoring her physique for what it’s carried out but additionally bigging herself up in a manner that’s the right mixture of braggadocious and horny.
Let’s Breakdown Cozy’s Function
Featured on this track to solidify the message of physique liberation in all types, is plus measurement Black trans lady, media & cultural sensation, TS Madison. Beyoncé samples TS Madison’s YouTube video speech, “Bitch I’m Black” the place TS explicitly shares her pleasure in being a Black individual and the way vital it’s to her, all whereas naming all the opposite identities she holds and the way a lot oppression she is compounded with.
TS particulars are exhausted from being a Black, huge bodied, transwoman, and having her Blackness erased resulting from her transness. Madison makes use of this second to call that she is “fats and juicy” and uninterested in being hidden within the shadows by males who love her solely within the darkness and by no means within the gentle.
Within the Shadows
“I’m cozy. I like me. I’m juicy. You hate me cuz you need me.” It’s pivotal right here that we uplift the other ways fats girls, trans girls, and different marginalized those that Bey is penning this self-love letter to, to expertise romantic love.
It’s vital as a result of very similar to TS Madison, we all know what it means to be hidden as fats Black girls and what it means for society and people sexually drawn to you to wish to hurt you, not simply since you look the way in which you look, however as a result of they secretly love the way in which you look.
As a fats Black lady, I do know what it seems to be and seems like for a romantic accomplice or love curiosity to solely take you out on late dates, to solely obtain invitations to somebody’s residence, however by no means inventive or enjoyable outings.
Cozy is greater than an anthem for fats Black girls; it’s a rallying cry and declaration for people who find themselves othered in society, to take middle stage.
It’s a track with deeper layers that reminds us to bop in entrance of the mirror bare whereas hugging all of the components of us that the world round us rejects. It’s the mandatory step we want in direction of true physique liberation. All of us need to be snug in our pores and skin.
Thanks for the reminder, Bey.
P.S. Take a look at these plus measurement influencers getting cozy! @Chrissybstyles, @MsKristine, @Thenitadanielle, @StillGlitter, @Victoria_Yetunde, @SydneyBell, @Oyamabotha!
