¨The Gift¨ was an album that Beyoncé described would be her gift to Africa, and after hearing it we can understand why.
The new Beyoncé soundtrack album inspired but The Lion King was released the 19th of July, in this album Beyoncé herself was executive producer so there was a lot of hype regarding the final result.
It features a lot of American mainstream artists such as Pharrell Williams, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Z and others, but it also features a lot of African artist from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Azalea and more. And its not just in the vocals department but also in the composition, production and lyrics department. With this action it is clear she wanted to bring light on all the powerful and rich musical culture that Africa has to offer, and it definitely fulfilled its purpose.
The album overall has an afro-beat style and uses complex rhythm patterns characteristic of the African musical culture, in songs such as ¨Other Side¨ we can hear the background vocals singing in Yoruba which is a very popular language spoken in West Africa.
¨Brown Skin Girl¨ starts off with Blue Ivy singing and later joined by Wiz Kid and Saint Jhn, this song is a message to brown girls around the globe to be proud of their color and to feel beautiful with lyrics such as “Pose like a trophy when Naomis walk in, She need an Oscar for that pretty dark skin, Pretty like Lupita when the cameras close in, Drip broke the levee when my Kellys roll in.”
It is very noticeable how Beyoncé didn't care about always having the role of protagonist and a lot of times gave other artist a lot more time and importance than just her such as in ¨JA ARA E¨ which translates to ¨Set yourself free¨, the song is entirely sang by Burna Boy another Nigerian artist and it was produced by Beyoncé and PJ2.
The album seems to be getting a lot of love specially from the African culture because they truly feel like it reflects the richness of African music culture, although it of course fusion with modern and more electronic styles, the commitment Beyoncé showed by getting all this African artist to collaborate in her project in all the different levels and areas that exist when creating an album.
Listen to full album:
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