A Seat at the Table

In 2009, the year after Beyonce Knowles released “Single Ladies,” Kanye West stormed the Video Music Awards stage. Taylor Swift had just won Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me” when West grabbed the microphone from Swift and yelled, “Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” This infamous story is the starting point for an important inquiry into the intersection of Blackness and art. Kanye made a normative claim about Beyonce’s work. He did not say that Taylor Swift won because she is white, or that Beyonce lost because she is Black. These claims, indeed true, were certainly implied by his outburst. But what he said was that “Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time.” What he said was that Beyonce’s art was good, was better, was the best.

Does Beyonce make good art? In the history of the Grammy Awards, a hip-hop album has only won twice. In fact, a Black woman has not been awarded the prestigious Album of the Year prize since 1999, when Lauryn Hill won for “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” And worse, this most prestigious honor has been awarded to only 12 albums made by Black artists over the course of its 60-year existence.

Beyonce has never won Album of the Year. So does Beyonce make good art? If we trust music awards and those responsible for their winners, then she clearly does not. What Kanye was saying is that this lack of validation is not a sign of poor quality but is rather rooted in anti-Blackness and misogynoir.

In 2018, after years of disregard by the Academy — by any Academy, really — Beyonce finally decided to weigh in on Kanye’s claim. In August, without warning, she dropped the music video for “Apeshit,” a single from her and Jay Z’s joint album “Everything Is Love.” In this video, she quite effectively attempts to convince the world that Kanye was right: Her art, Black art, is fine art.

“Apeshit” frames the Carters among the art showcased in the Louvre. They first appear in the video in front of the Mona Lisa. The three faces — Mona Lisa’s, Jay Z’s, and Beyonce’s — stare at the camera, united as a Trinity of masterpieces. From there on, the Carters rap and dance among the artistic masterpieces, often mimicking or bleeding into them. Beyonce begins her first verse on the ground in front of the famed sculpture “The Winged Victory of Samothrace.” Her white gown matches the color and texture of the marble from which the sculpture is hewn. As she lies on the ground beside the piece, she essentially becomes part of it.

The Carters, and the Black bodies they carry, establish themselves as equal to the Mona Lisa herself. Blackness, for Beyonce, is no barrier to aesthetic perfection. Beyonce asserts that she should have won that VMA. She announces, in no uncertain terms, that she is better than a Grammy. She is fine art. She, hip hop, Black art, Black people, belong in the Louvre.

Beyonce’s realignment of the bounds of fine art, welcoming Black creation into the realm of the aesthetically good, certainly seems radical. But is it? The aesthetic quality of “Apeshit” is in line with the Carters’ broader financial ambitions. Beyonce’s and Jay Z’s verses are stunts. They flex their cash, and their power. Beyonce opens her first verse with the line “Gimme my check.” In the video, the Carters wear high-end fabric, and weigh down their necks with gold chains. They are art because they have money. Beyonce receives the status of fine art only through absorption into and dependence on capitalism. This is quite literal: As commentators have pointed out, it is only thanks to the Carters’ substantial wealth and power that they are able to stage their art in the Louvre in the first place.

The category of “fine art” depends on power. Goodness, as it is commonly construed, depends on whiteness, but only inasmuch as whiteness depends on power. To become “good,” to bring Blackness into the realm of high art, Beyonce embraces the power of wealth. While distinct from that of whiteness, power derived from capitalist notions of wealth remains deeply problematic. This, after all, is the central debate over the validity of Black Capitalism, a Black liberation ideology often criticized for its focus on assimilation into capitalist structures.

Is this use of problematic power the only option Black artists have? Of course, it remains to be seen if this strategy will even succeed. Can we expect a Grammy for “Apeshit”? Only time will tell.

But beyond questions of success, we might wonder if there exists other options for Black artists, and indeed all marginalized artists. Can these artists find liberation without institutionalized power? Can their art can find value and meaning outside of the oppressive definitions of good art? It is possible that the notion of “good art” itself ought to be dismantled and discarded, that wanting to be good — where good means fitting in the conditions of a white, patriarchal, classist art world — is not even worth our time. What if Beyonce didn’t want a Grammy? What if we don’t need a seat at the table?