In Lemonade Beyonce asks, "what are you going to say at my funeral now that you have killed me?" In the album her question is directed at her lover, but in life it extends so much further. It is what I ask when I consider that I may be killed for the colour of my skin, or my African beginnings. My words may seem paranoid, but they're not. When you're a minority, this is your reality.

At the PEN America literary gala, J.K Rowling said, "I find almost everything that Mr. Trump says objectionable. I consider him offensive and bigoted. But he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there. His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine." 

His freedom of expression may guarantee hers but it does not guarantee mine. If I were in America, I am fairly sure that I'd be one of the people that made the effort to protest. I would go to a rally with a placard, and yell things that I know to be true. He wouldn't pat me on the back and tell me that I was merely exercising my right to run my mouth. 

He would say, "get him out. Try not to hurt him.  If you do, I'll defend you in court. Don't worry about it." That's what he said at a rally in Michigan as a protester was escorted out of the venue. 

If I tried to storm the stage, I would be beaten till bloody and given medical treatment outside while anti-muslim rhetoric and swear words sailed above my head. 

Donald would then later say, "that's what we need a little bit more of."  

And if I planned to throw a tomato, he would say, "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously."

These are not hypothetical situations that I've dreamed up to make him look bad. These are words that he has said. Some people may say that he was merely speaking, but that's a lie. He was asking people to harm me because I dared to disagree with him. His freedom of speech does not guarantee mine, it places me in acute danger. His words become the fists that punch and the legs that kick.

There is a difference between speaking freely and inciting hatred. It is my belief that Mr. Trump does the latter. If he were to come to the United Kingdom and say that Muslims should not be allowed here, some idiot would take his words as a call to action and strive to forcibly delete everyone that he believed to be Muslim.

When J.K Rowling defends his freedom of speech, she doesn't see that while his words do not count as a threat to her but they do threaten the safety of other people. And this is why she is wrong.

Happy Days,
Afam

I was having a little bit of a shitty day, but it's better now. I'm in Stranger with a half pot of coffee I can scarcely afford and Yegwa the proprietor, is reading an article out loud about how Ted Talks lie to us. I wish you could be here. This is a sort of home for me.

The time has come for me to drop a line or more about Beyoncé. I was hoping to avoid it but I have read so much rubbish over the past few days that I cannot bear it any longer. She's been swimming around in my head, and I must exorcise her. You see, my traditional stance on Beyonce is that I am not a fan of hers. It is not that I do not like her music, or that I do not like her as a person. It's just that I'm not sure that this is enough to be a Beyoncé fan in 2013. In fact there are no Beyoncé fans, there are only stans. They're the ones that stand on the ready to decimate anyone that dares criticise their king. They buy her albums twice or thrice, and talk and tweet about her all the time. I would know. My twitter live feed is filled with people like this. These are the people that saw her twice in London during her Mrs. Carter tour, and still bought tickets to see her again in 2014. It isn't a bad thing to be a stan. In fact it's quite a lovely thing. I like Beyoncé. I really do... but not that much.

Beyoncé is an enigma for me. I do not feel that we know who she is when she stops being Beyoncé. There is nothing about her that we know that she herself didn't tell us. She's probably one of the most guarded celebrities out there. What we hear and see are things that she herself puts out there so they could not be real. She more than most others makes it clear that what she does is a job. And she's very good at it. She's perfect celebrity for such an imperfect world. She's black, but not so black that white people can't relate to her. A friend of mine from Uni once told me that while he wasn't racist he couldn't imagine shagging a black woman. I asked him if he would shag Beyoncé and he said yes. I informed him that Beyonce was a black woman and he kept quiet. We never spoke about it again. Her body is black-esque. She celebrates her curves, but she really isn't that curvy. She's curvy enough that black girls with phat booties can identify with her, but at the same time her booty is small enough that white women don't feel like they're left out of the conversation. When she's on stage she doesn't wear a lot, but you cannot call her a slut, or a whore, because when she's not on stage she's fully covered up. Beyoncé's Christian, but liberal. She supports the LGBTQ movement. She's feminist but at the same time, she's chosen some of the things feminists have fought against. Of course, if a woman calls herself a feminist it is impossible to say that she isn't. Feminisms cannot be compared with one another. Different women will want different things, and who is anyone to say that one of them is righter than the other? She sings about love, and sex, but then she's happily married. She's the perfect balance between Conservative and Liberal. She plays both sides of the fence. She is a blank wall, the people that support her take from her what they will. She stands for so much that it is impossible not to find one facet of your life that she supports. 

Beyoncé dropped her latest album on Thursday night or early Friday morning and it set social media afire. People were quick to say that there was no marketing for it but there was. It wasn't obvious, but it was there. It started late last year when she signed that $50 million dollar deal with pepsi. The internet didn't blow up, but I remember reading several articles about how she was somehow supporting child obesity. I disagreed with the sentiment. I love pepsi. I drank a 50 centilitre bottle of it earlier today. I know enough that I shouldn't drink 20 a day. Then in January, there was Beyoncé-gate. She sang the American National anthem over a backing track and it blew up. Everyone covered it. It was impossible to miss. We knew then that she was going to be headlining the Superbowl halftime show and what's more during the press conference she gave for the Superbowl half time show she belted out the National Anthem acapella and silenced even her most determined critics. The year before, Madonna headlined the show, and she released a single (Give me all your luvin) shortly before it. The Superbowl halftime show is the perfect promotion vehicle. I expected Beyoncé to take advantage of this. I was waiting for the single. There was none. Her Superbowl performance was epic, but that was almost a sure thing, she scarcely puts a foot wrong live. After her Superbowl performance she announced that she'd be going on tour. I was surprised because there was no new album to promote. It seemed like a tour from out of the blue. In March, Ryan Tedder, the man who penned Halo, said that he'd been in the studio with her, but that her album wasn't ready. In the same month  I've Been on/Bow down leaked, so we knew that there was definitely new material out there. That too caused a little bit of a buzz because of how vulgar it was. She said nothing. Writers said everything that there could be said about a song, and her fans pined. On the fourth of April, she released her pepsi commercial with a clip of her song "Grown Woman." Her fans were pleased but they were also disappointed. She'd announced that there'd be something new on her youtube page with #BEYHERENOW. They were expecting a new single, but they made do with 30 seconds of a song that was good enough to be one, and 20 seconds of their queen dancing with past versions of herself. And then she went on tour.

While she was on tour, her H and M commercial that featured the song, Standing on the Sun was released. It too was good enough to be a single. After that she performed Grown Woman live, and we all heard it. We all watched a fan's recording of it. There was no way I could escape it because I follow pop culture so closely. I longed for her to stop dominating my radar. I wanted her to drop her album and be done with it. If I felt like this I can only imagine how her stans felt. They must have been starving for something new, something they could buy, something tangible. A bit after that she performed Standing on the Sun live as well. We would have continued talking about her if Miley Cyrus hadn't happened. After Miley's antics lost all of their shock value, she was back. She wasn't as news dominant as she'd been before but she was there lurking. As late as a week before her album was released I was reading articles that said her album could be expected next year. These articles were followed by the news that she would continue touring in 2014. Her hive almost died. They'd endured a year of tantric foreplay with no release.

They'd been teased mercilessly with the hope of new music  so when she made it available all at once, complete with videos, they gorged. It isn't marketing or promotion as my generation has known it, but I think it still counts. It's like when you go through a period of immense poverty and then you receive a windfall. You always splurge. You gorge yourself like a starved lion. And that's exactly what her fans have done. Has it changed things? Not really. She probably won't be able to do this for a while. In fact no one will be able to do what she's done for a while. She's put her name on the surprise release. Anyone that does it now will be mentioned together with Beyoncé. She'll steal the story. I imagine that she and her team's busy now, working on her next move. There's one thing that's clear, Beyoncé is the annoying child in school that never sleeps. Rihanna's partying, Katy Perry's shagging John Mayer, Miley's twerking with Mike Will Made it,  Lady Gaga's being weird, and Beyoncé's working. 


Happy Days,
Afam

We're already four months into the year but recent developments have forced me to make a new new year's resolution. I must not become a Beyonce stan. The odds are against me but I, Afam am nothing if not a fighter. I will outlast the woman. I will be like a big ass rock in the rapids. The waters of Beyonce will break on my head but I will remain unweathered.

I have already resigned myself to the fact that we shall not go a day this year without talking about her. Everyday she's on my facebook timeline. Everyday she's on my twitter live feed. As I type this that song that she debuted yesterday (Grown Woman) is stuck in my head because like it or not I really like to hear that she can be bad if she wants and that she can go slow all night long. Don't blame me. It isn't my fault. I'm only a man.

And after this:
 and this:

 and this:


and this:
I can hardly be blamed for keeping a very special eye out for her. I cannot tell you the number of times this year I've thought something along the lines of, "Jay-Z, you lucky bugger you."

Do you understand my plight? If you don't then you are even more addled than me, madman Afam. Over the year, I have had the following thoughts and questions about her. I will share them with you because sharing is always caring except when referring to STDs. Wear a condom.

Is Blue Ivy an Alien or is she just incredibly healthy? (She's a little bit large for her age.)

Is Beyonce actually Solange's mother? (I didn't make this one up.)

Why are her guns so big, and why is it that when she dances she gets this murderous look on her face?

Is she part of the illuminati, or is it all just one big publicity stunt?

Has she set the feminist movement back 50 years by telling the beetches to bow down?

What is her hair made of? I know it's a weave but human hair just isn't that bouncy.

Why is she trying to make us think that she drank that pepsi? She didn't drink that pepsi. Anyone who doubts this is a dolt. 

So she did music for the Great Gatsby? Why did we only hear about this yesterday? It was a little bit clever because in the morning I saw the Pepsi advert, in the evening I watched the new Great Gatsby trailer and today I saw the behind the scenes video of the Pepsi advert. Does that mean she occupied a whole day of my life?




 

How do all those costumes still fit her? Is she a wizard?

Is she a satanist? No, really, I saw some damn crazy video that had all sorts of demonic connotations and stuff.

Why has she been on the covers of so many magazines this year? I know she's an over achiever but 3 is just wicked. 

Is she a feminist or not? Because this is really important. I want to know!

So when is that first single coming out? 

Crazy in Love came out a decade ago!! I'm an old man!!

 Happy Days,
Afam