A Complicated Transformation: BEYONCÉ, “Blue,” and the Politics of Black Motherhood

This article examines how Beyoncé as an artist has engaged with black feminist concepts of motherhood and what Camille Wilson Cooper calls “motherwork.” How does Beyoncé’s work complicate the binary frames of celebrity motherhood and pathologized black motherhood? How does she claim an agential voice that rejects splitting the roles of artist and mother? I explore these questions by examining the song and video for “Blue” (2013) as part of the genre of confessional motherhood songs and in the context of the BEYONCÉ album, as well as through a brief discussion of Beyoncé’s performance at the 2017 Grammys.