#BeyoncéHomecoming

It's the late-night hashtag that rang around the world. While we all knew that the Queen Mother would bless us with a documentary about her Coachella performance, we DIDN'T know (or at least, I didn't know), that there would be an album dropping too! I've seen the documentary at this point, which YOU should watch on Beyflix too, but it's the music that I hopped on first. 

Like I said in my last blog post, I wasn't pushed toward going to an HBCU because I wasn't surrounded by college graduates. I fully believe that the systems that made me a first generation college graduate are the same ones that try and quell the existence and validity of HBCUs, all while keeping the young, gifted, and black at PWIs. While I'm grateful for where my collegiate and professional paths have led me, I can't help but to wonder what my life would have looked like if I DID go to an HBCU. With Beyonce's help, people like me don't have to wonder so much anymore.

At the tail end of my air shift I downloaded HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM, and began to take a listen. To my surprise, the principal sound of the album is the HBCU-styled band! I'd already watched the Coachella performance, but for some reason I wasn't expecting it to show up on this album. Wow - what a listening experience that was for me. Coming up through music school, the sound of blackness in the form of a marching band is commonly seen as less than - the movie Drumline explores exactly what I went through in my college marching band. This very specific art form doesn't need validation from anyone in my opinion, but having Beyonce's stamp of approval on it will open up people's minds to loud, blaring tubas, beautifully synced drummers, and of course, the dancers me and all other black gays have imitated at some point. My mom was a high school majorette now that I think about it - shout out to her and all of the other band dancers out there. 

I didn't have that much to say today, other than I'm a forever Beyonce stan (and hoping that Blue Ivy will hire me for whatever she wants one day). Mrs. Carter's music makes me feel proud to be a musician, proud to come from where I come from, and most importantly, proud to be black. Long live Queen Bey. 

Beyonce, the TSU Ocean of Soul, and the group, Crucial Conflict, get my shout-outs this week. Check those out, here.