Beyoncé Is Back with 'Formation'
Bitch, she’s back. On the eve of her Super Bowl halftime performance with Coldplay, Queen Bey returns with her Southern-fried banger “Formation,” produced by Mike WiLL Made-It and co-written by Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee.
The song also comes with its own stunning Melina-directed video, which was shot in New Orleans. The five-minute clip, a proud homage to being black, opens with Bey on top of a cop car floating in a flooded street post-Hurricane Katrina. She dances in a mansion and in an empty pool, rides out the car window, and throws up the middle finger. Blue Ivy even makes an adorable cameo.
“I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils / Earned all this money, but they never take the country out me,” she sings. “I got hot sauce in my bag. Swag!”
https://twitter.com/solangeknowles/status/696092871447851009
Beyonce just made me so proud of my nose. 😭😭 #Formation
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) February 6, 2016
Always wanted to work with Beyoncé and after working with her I respect her on even more levels than I knew she was on… Real ARTist Fr
— MR. MADE-IT (@MikeWiLLMadeIt) February 6, 2016
But the visuals also carry a deeper message in support of Black Lives Matter. At the end, cops raise their hands in front of a hoodie-clad child while a wall reads, “Stop shooting us.”
“Formation” is available for free download on TIDAL. Bey has also launched her “Formation Collection” of clothing featuring lyrics like “I twirl on them haters” and “You that bitch when you cause all of this conversation.”