Released September 30, 2016, Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table, is an exceptionally curated experimental experience that delves into the struggles and unheard stories of the black diaspora and black womanhood. I vividly remember the first time I listened to the album. It was a spring day in May of 2021. Captivated by the production and storytelling illustrated by Knowles I found myself on a bench, replaying the album many times over. I then reflected on the world around me, a world in turmoil. A world of police brutality, racial inequality, discrimination, and the echoed voices after hundreds of years of begging to be heard. This album serves as a transformative and powerful platform that amplifies the voices of those who feel unheard and unacknowledged in this world, an album for us, by us to share the story of us.
21 songs, 51 minutes and 55 seconds. Solange’s A Seat At the Table is an album paying homage to those who came before her, her roots, her rise and growth as a black woman in America, and how her place in the world would not be what it is without those who came before her and paved the way, with strength and fight. Solange opens the album with the 1:41 interlude Rise, paying respect to those of her past who have helped her to the point that she has arrived in her life recently. The next track Weary, is dedicated to the black individuals who have had to fear the world around them as they attempt to rise above the palace of inferiority. Faced with a question of belonging, exhaustion, and grief in a world that does not accept one, because of their skin color. Knowles re-emphasizes how “With flesh and blood, he bleeds just like you do”, and despite being told throughout life, decades, “Do you belong?” she states “I do. I do.” With interlude, The Glory in You, paving the transition into her well-known Cranes in the Sky, a song of frustration, love, and the anger of black womanhood, as you see individuals who look like you harmed in the media and the country refusing to acknowledge one's existence. Solange’s road to self-discovery in Cranes in the Sky shows the attempt to silence and move from the frustration of what happens in one's life as one experiences heartbreak from many different mediums.
In Interlude: Dad was Mad, her father discusses the frustration of being a young black child experiencing integration, segregation, and racism. He says “That was my childhood. I was angry for years. Angry, very angry.” The reality of many black individuals is the anger they are unable to overcome. They are angry that they are hated by individuals because of their skin color. They are angry that they will always be seen as different in this country because of their color. Treated and seen as less than no matter how hard one fights to change the way the country sees them. In her following track, Mad, the word Mad is repeated continuously. The question “Why you always gotta be so mad?” is repeated throughout the song, faced with confusion. But the answer to the question is “I got a lot to be mad about”. Mad is about black female rage, and the evolution of black anger, as they are constantly in the face of turmoil. The song explores black vulnerability which is the premise of the entire album, an insight into the black experience but most importantly black vulnerability in a world that constantly places them in an inferior place within society.
In Don’t Touch My Hair, her lyrics “Don’t touch my hair, When it’s the feelings I wear, Don’t touch my soul, When it’s the rhythm I know, Dont touch my crown, they say the vision I’ve found” is a statement of self-discovery. Seeing the beauty in her appearance, seeing the beauty in her hair, her skin color, despite being told otherwise being a Black woman in America. Her album of self-discovery is an acknowledgment of the beauty of Black rage, vulnerability, growth, and acceptance. She sees the evolution of her people and how they must not falter or lose hope in themselves.
In Interlude: Tina Taught Me, Tina states “I’ve always been proud to be black. Never wanted to be nothing else.” Solange’s seat at the table is an homage to all the black individuals who have felt less than because of the color of their skin. The young black children who have been taught to hate the color of their skin, the way their hair kinks, the size of their lips, the blackening of their elbows and knees, and the size of their nostrils. Her album is an exploration of the beauty of being black, the struggle, the importance, and how revolutionaries in Black history have paved our way to see the beauty in our skin, our roots, and the blood that flows through our body despite society attempting to see the black diaspora as less than. With this album, Solange prides the color of her skin and her love for individuals who look like her. She celebrates the beauty of blackness, and she emphasizes how individuals of the African diaspora should see themselves as beautiful as they are. In Adria Watson's "A Seat At The Table", still imperative to Black culture, she said “In the first moment of listening to “A Seat at The Table,” Solange made me feel even more proud to be a black woman.” Interlude: This Moment, reiterates the main message of A Seat at the Table “This is home. This is where we’re from. This is where we belong.” Individuals of the Black diaspora are more than worthy of a seat at the table, no matter what they believe.
Solange Knowles. A Seat at the Table. Saint Records and Columbia Records, September 30, 2016.
Comments