It’s Time We Talk About Beyoncé
If anyone asks you where you were the night Beyoncé changed the game, they’re only referring to one night. It’s not the night she first shut down the Super Bowl stage surrounded by dancers in Panther-esque berets. Nor is it the night she made history as the first African-American woman to headline Coachella: The night refers to December 13, 2013 — when the singer stopped the world with the surprise drop of her self-titled album, Beyoncé.
Two years after releasing 4, the Houston native’s fifth studio album managed to not only define part of the last decade but also change the music industry landscape and simultaneously shifted fan culture as a whole.
On a Thursday evening, as Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope said “it’s handled” during Scandal’s winter finale as if to foreshadow what was coming, Beyoncé went quietly into the night and transformed the universe. As midnight arrived, fans noticed that Queen Bey uploaded new music onto iTunes. If you were lucky, you saw The Read’s Crissle West, actress Francesca Ramsey, and Cannaclusive founder Mary Pryor emphatically reacting to the release in real-time on social media. Or you were studying for finals only to stop and watch, then rewatch the visuals that accompanied every single track on the album.
At that moment, the BeyHive arguably became the celebrity stan sphere’s most powerful and impressive fan club because listeners corralled around the new release earning the singer the number one spot on the US Billboard 200 chart just days before the holiday season. As of early November 2019, the project has spent 185 weeks on the charts.
“What Beyoncé managed to do is break the release cycle all music execs had been trained to abide by and fans have come to anticipate,” says Brandon Littlejohn, a digital marketing manager at Atlantic Records.
“Bey simply said, ‘here,’ then dropped the mic. That did in 24 hours what some artist’s entire album rollouts could never do. She managed to cut everyone’s ability to offer a critique about her body of work because we all got access to it at the same time.”
Adding, “Part of its power was in the visuals and the sheer shock and awe that she’d record and shoot all of this content and that the BeyHive, who stays ready for everything, was absolutely clueless. The audacity to dream of dropping a project like that – in complete mystery – is one thing but building the right team and keeping the right team is where the magic happens.”
Beyoncé was not the first artist to drop a surprise album. Radiohead did that with their 2007 album, In Rainbows. But the magnitude of Beyoncé, catapulted the trajectory of the songstress’ stardom to new heights while affirming the gospel that mothers have been preaching since birth — you really can do anything you put your mind to.
“I've always been a fan of Beyoncé because I was a huge Destiny's Child fan,” says Jasmyn Lawson, a dedicated BeyHive member and Netflix’s Strong Black Lead Editorial Manager. “[But] when she went solo, I don't think anyone, including she, could even dream of the megastar she would become.”
“I think about the New York Times, ‘Solo Beyoncé: She's No Ashanti,’ headline all the time but my fandom changed after [the] self-titled [album] dropped — the surprise [of it all] and the way she proclaimed her womanhood made me a full-on stan. I don't think I've slept the same since December 13th, 2013. And I no longer argue with people about why she's the greatest entertainer alive.”
With four world tours, another visual album, a surprise joint project with her husband, JAY-Z, a live album, and a movie soundtrack, the 38-year-old has not missed a beat since that fateful night in 2013.
And neither have her fans. The kids might say, “the devil works hard but Kris Jenner works harder” — but dare I argue that Beyoncé and the BeyHive work the hardest.
The singer releases projects that are on the pulse of culture while her fiercely protective fans don’t stop until they know every song or dance move, are ready for each surprise announcement and study the deliberate intention of Queen Bey’s actions to gather any intel about what they think she might do when they least expect it. Her unexpected way of dropping projects has galvanized an entire generation of fans to not only stay ready but immerse themselves in her artform.
Three years after self-titled, Beyoncé dropped the lead single, “Formation” from her sixth album, Lemonade in February 2016. A mere hours later, as the songstress performed at the Super Bowl, fans recited lyrics word for word, had the choreo down pact, and flooded social media timelines with copycat looks because the impact was that major.
In April of that year, Lemonade was released exclusively on Tidal. On the three-year anniversary of the album’s drop, it was made available on Spotify and Apple Music — reintroducing it to the Billboard charts — giving more fans on-demand access to Yonce’s catalog.
Part of the magic behind her influence is that even when Beyoncé isn’t publicly visible, her fans galvanize around her work to keep it relevant.
The Twitter page, BeyLegion, has upwards of 300,000 followers waiting for all the latest news on the singer. Some 135 million people follow her on Instagram, where they get photos from days, weeks, and sometimes years after they were taken, and rarely without captions or context.
There have been college courses and a reading syllabus crafted to approach feminism through the lens of her artistry. A Beyoncé Mass worship service was created to foster an empowering conversation about Black women with her music and personal life as a guide. Dance classes are devoted to her most iconic choreography to songs like “Single Ladies” and “Love On Top.” After she remixed Maze featuring Frankie Beverly’s 1981 song, “Before I Let Go” for an entirely new generation of listeners, fans birthed a viral sensation with the #BeforeILetGoChallenge because, why not?
While the BeyHive attempts to decipher when her seventh solo studio album will arrive, one fact will remain. From the past decade, there is only one undisputable name and night that helped shape this decade of pop culture — and that moment belongs to Beyoncé.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
