The Hard-To-See Feminism in Beyoncé's Newest Song

So about two weeks ago, Beyoncé Queen Of Mortals released a new single entitled "Bow Down / I Been On" on her Soundcloud. If you haven't heard it, it's worth checking out:

It's a really interesting song, and it has been the target of much criticism both for its style and its substance. Old-guard Queen Bey fans have struggled to connect to a song that falls, in a musical sense, well outside the scope of what we've come to expect Beyoncé's recorded music to sound like. Lyrically it is a self-promotional, anti-hater anthem that subordinates her female audience with one simple command: "bow down, bitches." Feminists, fellow musicians, and even Rush Limbaugh (although for entirely different, and entirely offensive reasons) have come down hard upon this track and its purveyor for publishing a song that so directly and bluntly counteracts Beyoncé's canon of pro-woman, pro-feminist music. And on the surface these critiques hold up: saying "bow down, bitches" to your female audience seems to work against a movement of empowerment and independence for women. But the song is more complex than that. Much more complex.

Let's start with the first half of the song, "Bow Down." She's commanding the respect of her audience, which is in this case, specifically women. There's nothing else to it. The complexity lies not in what she says but in what we hear, which is a woman putting down other women in vanity and self-involvement. We condemn Beyoncé for tarnishing her good name by throwing down a viciously selfish track, but manage to forget that in the world of hip hop music, this is the norm. It is standard practice to command the respect of your audience and your competitors, whomever they may be, by demanding that they "bow down" to you. The culture of hip hop music sets a precedent for tracks like this, or at least tracks like this from male artists. That Beyoncé can so cleanly follow the pattern of self-glorification in hip hop and face such outcry for doing so indicates where the anti-woman sentiment really lies. It's not with Beyoncé, it's with the audience that can't allow her to use her own voice to speak as loudly and fiercely as the men do, and with a rabid entertainment culture that sits poised to tear down any woman in showbiz who doesn't speak, think, and act like a polite porcelain doll. Beyoncé has every right to shout down her critics, and to quote this awesome piece posted at Feministing*, "no, she didn’t have to say it in a 'nice' way."

*The Feministing piece is great, and it's where I got the groundwork for the above discussion. It's pretty short, so check it out.

Okay, on to the second half of the song, which is the most interesting (and yet under-discussed) part of the track. The "I Been On" half of the song begins with a breakdown of the beat, followed by a deep male voice rapping about— well, about the things you'd expect to hear a deep male voice rapping about over a quasi-ratchet beat. "I been on / Tell me who gone take me off." "I heard your boo was talking lip / I told my crew to smack that trick." "Didn’t do your girl but your sister was alright, damn / In ya homeboy’s Caddy last night." It's more self-glorifying, anti-hater, ostensibly anti-woman rhetoric. But there's a catch. And it's a pretty huge catch.

That voice is actually Beyoncé.

I don't think this is necessarily a big secret, but it's something that just goes right over many listeners heads. It went over my head until the third time I listened to the song. And to prove that I'm not just a conspiracy theorist, I hastily chopped the relevant portion of the track and threw it in Logic to pitch it up seven semitones. Listen to this (the beginning is in the original key, you'll hear it slide up about fifteen seconds in):

Crude, but there's no doubt that it's her voice being modulated to sound masculine. The point is not necessarily that no one know that Beyoncé is really the one rapping, but more that the quality of the performer's voice dictates our understanding what is appropriate behavior for that performer. The first half of the song invites condemnation from irascible listeners, while the second half is just "business as usual." The two halves are, broadly speaking, approaching the same task with the same technique: eradicate the haters and the nonbelievers with an ode to the self. That we lend vastly differential treatment to the two halves is deeply revealing. This track is something of a social experiment. Controlling for all other variables, Beyoncé was able to test whether we'd react to "Bow Down" differently than we'd react to "I Been On" based on nothing but the timbre of the voices and the speaker we imagined to go with each. She's on to us. Beyoncé knows where the misogyny remains, and she knows where the stereotypes are upheld, and she knows exactly where to point the spotlight to make thoughtful listeners realize what's up.

"Bow Down / I Been On" is potent commentary on hip hop (and more broadly, entertainment) culture. It's a massive track that gets in the listener's face, and in their head. It's strong and unapologetic. And it's feminist in a way that many modern musical works simply can not be. Beyoncé hasn't left her throne, she's gilded it. She has used her dual position of personal celebrity and historical social marginalization to tell her audience exactly what they need to do if they want to have any hope of keeping up with the times: "bow down, bitches."

A note: while my ego wants everyone to know that I sleuthed out the "secret" (that the "I Been On" bit of the song is also sung by Beyoncé) ALL BY MYSELF (I'm very proud of my detective work), and that all of this analysis came from my head, I found (in my post-writing search for any final info) this other awesome piece from The Root which has a lot of the same ideas that I have, but with more context. You should read this if you are interested in further discussion of the song/its background.