On June 16, Beyoncé and Jay Z dropped their long awaited collab album, “EVERYTHING IS LOVE.” In typical Carter fashion, we were given some amazing visuals for the song “APESHIT.”

We see the iconic couple performing utterly lavish black excellence throughout the halls and permitted exhibitions at the Louvre Museum in Paris. This alone is revolutionary. The beauty of the Carters is their ability to take up space in spaces not meant for black bodies, and certainly not "black" behavior. In this way, they aren’t just saying they run in elite circles, but that they run circles AROUND them. They have enough money, power and influence for the Mona Lisa to just be the backdrop of the empire they have created.

Jay Z references turning down the opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, saying: “This alone demonstrates the power of the black dollar / I said no to the Super Bowl / You need me, I don't need you / Every night we in the end zone / Tell the NFL we in stadiums too.”

In their lifetimes, they have created much wealth for their family in one generation, despite the forces of white supremacy.

If we should take anything away from both the album and the video, it is that we, as black people, deserve to take up as much space in white institutions as we want without compromising our authentic blackness.

Mansuda Arora

Writing since May 2018 · 2 stories contributed