Nigerian author Chimamanda featured in new Beyoncé album
Chimamanda is featured in Beyoncé's new album. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
- “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls you can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man,” says Chimamanda in the sampled speech.
- The bit ends with Chimamanda defining what it means to be a feminist.
- Being featured in the video opens the author to a new market, a global population curious to know who she is for her to be featured in Beyoncé’s work.
US songbird Beyoncé shocked the world by releasing a complete album on iTunes without the usual marketing gimmick that goes with the release of new works.
But also surprising is the sampling of Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in one of the songs.
‘‘Flawless’’ is an empowering song that samples works by the award-winning Nigerian-born author Chimamanda who was in Kenya last month, for TedxEuston talk she gave titled “We Should All be Feminists.”
It was a powerful talk on feminism and Beyoncé samples different parts of the speech. Though she does not appear in the music video, which is shot in black and white, Chimamanda’s voice, laced with her Nigerian accent, can be heard clearly.
It is a strong message of how society socialises women across the world to look at marriage as the end game. Positioning women for the homestead as opposed to bringing them, up to be equal players with their male counterparts.
'WE TEACH GIRLS TO SHRINK THEMSELVES'
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls you can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful otherwise you will threaten the man,” says Chimamanda in the sampled speech.
“Because I am female I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life’s choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important.”
The bit ends with Chimamanda defining what it means to be a feminist.
Being featured in the video opens the author to a new market, a global population curious to know who she is for her to be featured in Beyoncé’s work.
This comes on the back of a movie based on her award-winning book ‘Half of a yellow sun’ which is set to be launched in September.
The surprise move to launch all 14 songs and 17 videos online caught the world by surprise and saw the winning musician record sales of 600,000 albums in the first three days.
The album also features collaborations with Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Miguel, Timbaland, Pharrell and Frank Ocean. Kenyans can buy it off iTunes or wait for the disc.
This article first appeared in the Business Daily
