“Beyonce's 'The Lion King: The Gift' Soundtrack Polishes Her Legacy - UPROXX” plus 1 more |
| Beyonce's 'The Lion King: The Gift' Soundtrack Polishes Her Legacy - UPROXX Posted: 22 Jul 2019 08:00 AM PDT  New music from Beyonce has become synonymous with a cultural moment, which is why the last two releases from the global star have been big news, even if neither qualified as an out-and-out album. If last year's joint album with her admonished-but-forgiven husband Jay-Z was an act of devotion to her marriage, this year's companion album to the remake of The Lion King is her first musical act of motherhood. Even if Blue Ivy didn't appear prominently in the double videos that Bey released to accompany two of her tracks for the film, "Spirit" and "Bigger" respectively, it's hard for me not to note that Blue is currently a seven-year-old, right around the age I was when the original film was released. The Lion King was the first movie I saw in a proper movie theater. At six, just the experience of finally going to a movie was overwhelming enough, but the movie itself became an instant favorite, too. I learned all the songs from the film, gleefully belting them out for days and weeks later, and looked for anything that might've come out in conjunction with the film. For me and plenty of other kids born into the oft-mocked millennial generation, it was one of those era-defining films: a window into the ecosystems of animals, into a different place than the one I lived in, into relationships and family dynamics, and into even the scariest subject of all — the death of a parent. Regardless of how the film fares critically, it covers a lot of ground that's important in the development of any kid, but takes on special meaning for one of the most prominent Black mothers in the world. Beyonce's decision to support a film that centers the Black experience and shines a light on the film's decidedly African story, a facet that was played down in the animated version, is another act that marries the personal and political. And even if there were blind spots in the album's production — no artists from the region highlighted in the film's fictional storyline were included, for instance — Beyonce's focus on legacy, and how her children will live in a world defined by her own is a throughline in the pan-African body of music she has created, curated, and executive produced.
Share This Video Opening up with a meditation on this subject, "Bigger," which coincides with the themes of the film — "I'll be the roots, you be the tree / Pass on the fruit that was given to me / Legacy, we're part of something way bigger" — the song also finds Beyonce in reflective mode, as though she's finally giving herself some room to breathe. |
| Album Review: Beyoncé’s ‘The Lion King: The Gift’ - Variety Posted: 19 Jul 2019 09:19 AM PDT Before touching down on what Beyoncé has called her "love letter to Africa," it's important to see what may have brought her to the mother of mankind, with its wide vistas and sonic planes, for "The Gift" in the first place — beyond, of course, voicing Nala in the film and whatever international marketing tie-ins are to come. Despite "The Lion King's" own Disney-fied trajectory from animated film to quasi-live-action travelogue, the journey that Bey has taken is one of her own design, with a little help from her family. "Lemonade" was Beyoncé's strutting, wrathful, Southern-inspired declaration of spite and self-worth in the face of a cheating man; "Homecoming," a nod to her Houston roots, marching anthems and healing; "Everything is Love," her and Jay-Z's continental breakfast free-for-all dedicated to reunion and spending sprees. After all that, "The Lion King: The Gift" is one for her kids, namely Blue Ivy Carter, who appears by mom's side in the "Spirit" video, as well as in this album's spaciously soulful and playfully celebratory "Brown Skin Girl." More Reviews But this dedication to youth — her children and the universal we — does not make her companion to the film's official sleek score and soundtrack from Hans Zimmer, Elton John and Tim Rice any sort of "kids" album. Far from it, when you let the dust settle on tracks such as Bey, Jay and Childish Gambino's "Mood 4 Eva," and take stock of how crankily egocentric a mood swing the threesome have conjured with surprise producer DJ Khaled at the helm. "The Lion King: The Gift" is Beyoncé's offering to the idea of bringing connection to those who never realized such was possible, maintaining heritage in the face of aborted and abbreviated histories. Bey's softer solo turn in "Bigger" makes its DNA-laced connection to pride known even through the plastic soul of AutoTune. "If you feel insignificant, you better think again / Better wake up because you're part of something way bigger / You're part of something way bigger / Not just a speck in the universe / Not just some words in a Bible verse," she sings. The album's warm production washes and anthemic musicality may not have the same avant-garde sway or weird rhythmic kink of its immediate aforementioned predecessors, but what "The Lion King: The Gift" misses in messiness, it makes up for in flavor, heart and grandeur without treacle. Well, not too much treacle; anything that starts with James Earl Jones' narration is bound to have its own blend of gravitas and sentimentalism. Besides, it's got the restless soul of Afrobeat — its liquid highlife guitars, its clunking mesmerizing pulses — and a handful of new school Nigerian rappers and singers bringing their temporary modernism and open-faced traditionalism to bare on this tribute to Africa-Disney. Which brings up another important point: that, back in 2009, Jay-Z, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith were first time co-producers for the Broadway musical "Fela!," based on the life of the late Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. A gorgeous and hypnotic blend of jazz, funk and Africana have surely been part of the Carter household ever since. The ever-ethnocentric Diplo plays on that mesmerism with his stop-and-start, Kenyan-meets-Venusian, mashed-mixed-and-mingled production on "Already" (his Major Lazer are featured guests too on the track). Bey's sonic backing on "Find Your Own Way" is a rushed, sensual, kitchen-sink samba that makes her sound, shockingly, like Sade. "NILE," the collaboration between Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé, features production from Sounwave (Kendrick's collaborator from "DAMN" and his "Black Panther" film project), and together they project the noir tone of the endlessly echoing outback in the cool of night. Their voices, alone or intertwined together, are comparable to the narrators of "The Sheltering Sky," if they were far hipper and decidedly Afrocentric. Beyonce's chatty "Otherside," which starts with a rolling floaty piano melody fresh from a Satie chamber concert, gives way to the sweet whispers of Swahili towards the end of the track, surely conjuring the move from the Eurocentric to the Afrocentric. Beyonce is not the only artist to enjoy the fruits of Africa here. Her Nigerian guests too are heightened by their cinematic circumstance. "Don't Jealous Me" by Tekno, Yemi Alade & Mr Eazi talks about monkeys and lions, utilizes Swahili, and has the hot breeze of the Sahara on its back, a whoosh as dense and tactile as any dangerous Santa Ana wind. Burna Boy's melodic baritone sing-speak comes through loud, clear and AutoTune-ed on the clattering "Ja Ara E." Cameroonian vocalist Salatiel holds his own next to Beyonce and Pharrell, with a contextually odd lyric that goes "I'm not much of a talker / Can I drink from your water?" And he's not talking about the Nile. For all of its big-name guests and complicated clicking rhythms, it is the arid airiness of spare, spiritual numbers such as "Otherside" and its grand, incrementally rising sister "Spirit" that define Beyoncé's "Gift," two ballads dedicated to uplifting the self in the name of something bigger — be it family, God or success. This isn't a perfect album. "SCAR" by 070 Shake and Jessie Reyez is a shockingly slick mess. The interludes by characters in the film should have remained on Elton's soundtrack. And Khaled? Really? Beyond those few missteps, "The Lion King: The Gift" manages to be a wild, wonderful offering dedicated to sounds and soul of the motherland, all while sticking to the script: Beyonce's, of course. |
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