Beyonce in her song ”Formation” expresses how proud she is for being a black women. She mentions her family background or black history, styles or things that represent black people. She flaunts her power and status while touching on some serious topics in her song. The song may seem more personal but it also expresses police brutality on black people, a movement for black lives matter. Furthermore, it’s also about women empowerment. Black women have to face sexist and racist remarks so she’s telling her listeners specifically black women to unite, be strong, bold and hardworking. Matsoukas helped her convey black and women empowerment by building a set that shows black history like slavery for example, blackify the houses, sunk the police car to show the police brutality or how the police are racist and not protecting them. She expressed those serious topics in an artful way. In her song, she says “Y’all haters corny with that illuminati mess paparazzi…” Throughout the song, we can see her answering her haters and rumors while flexing and being bold which can be dysphemism or emotive language. There’s emotive language throughout as well, we can feel the positive emotive language when she’s mentions how she likes and is proud of her black background, “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros…earned all this money but they never take the country out me.” The use of these devices help the listeners know her story and feelings. The police took the song and the video as an ”anti-police” when it wasn’t. She cleared herself on that, racism and brutality is true and is prevalent that’s why it became controversial as it provoked serious topics.
