![]() That inspired me to do a lot of things musically that no-one else is doing."Īnd thus, Beyoncé's rendition of 'If I Were A Boy' came to fruition.ģ. "I remember Aretha Franklin said a great singer can sing anything and make it her own," she recalled in an interview with Essence magazine. However, after being inspired by the likes of Aretha Franklin and Etta James while starring in the film Cadillac Records, she decided to give it a go. While Beyoncé's then manager, her father Mathew Knowles, felt that the song was a hit, the singer herself felt trepidatious about recording it. "It started off as a simple therapeutic writing session and it turned into the best thing that ever happened to me." "Having someone like Beyoncé record your song about an ex-boyfriend, kinda makes it the best break-up ever," she said to AOL. Ultimately, a deal was brokered between Camp Bey and BC Jean, with the latter accepting that she hadn't quite understood how publishing rights worked. ![]() You can hear the original version on my myspace site." Taking to MySpace, she wrote candidly that, "I have been reading some of these comments and to set the record straight from the horse's mouth – IF I WERE A BOY is my song YES, I wrote this song It is my story a painful one, and the song is very dear to me. Initially, Beyoncé apparently stealing one of her songs perturbed Jean. It's an amazing compliment, but I was like, 'That's great, but it's going to be on my album!'" ![]() "I had always written for myself and was trying to get signed and do the whole artist thing as well. "At first I was confused, because I never thought of myself as writing songs for other people," Jean explained to the Hartford Courant. It came as a bit of a shock when it ended up on Beyoncé's album. However, after losing out on a record deal, it seems that her co-writer had other plans for the track. Initially, Jean - who was a struggling artist trying to get signed at the time - thought that the song was going to be for her debut album. I remember Toby looking at me and going, 'We just wrote a smash.' I thought he was crazy. We recorded it that day it was so simple. It’s the very act of using body politics and fashion as resistance, and by doing so, Beyonce placed Black women at the center of it all.The pair rushed to a recording studio to lay down the track, as Jean recalls: " had a guitar part. It recalls the stereotypes of Black women that have so often precluded us from being considered worthy of deification. All of the symbolism and imagery linked through Beyoncé’s Lemonade era seem to speak to the importance of the feminine divine. None of this is accidental, because everything Beyonce does feels like it comes with intention. Putting pregnancy on full display feels like a political statement in a culture that’s still grappling with motherhood - seeing as paid maternity leave is still a privilege rather than a guaranteed right. Instead, she allowed her protruding pregnant belly to become her most important accessory. It wasn’t simply a daring fashion choice for her to grace the stage cloaked in a gold headdress, bangles, and little else. Together, all of the styling choices and imagery seem to tie back into Beyoncé’s exaltation of motherhood, especially for Black women. Larry Busacca/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
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