ABSTRACT
“From Destiny’s Child to Coachella” is an examination of Black respectability politics and feminism through the prism of Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter’s journey from Destiny’s Child to Lemonade and culminating at the Coachella Festival. Through the star’s rise—and the public and Black community’s reaction to that rise—one sees the limitations and perhaps futility of adhering to respectability too closely, and how the fruits of it are continually denied Black women no matter how high they climb, what they achieve, and how they genuflect to patriarchy and conservative mores in their effort to maintain the affections and approval of others. For some, there will always be “one more thing.” Speculative to the eleventh power, “From Destiny’s Child to Coachella” explores how Beyoncé’s evolving presentation and personas reveal what she has learned and is teaching other Black women through her continual example of how to claim one’s own freedom and live one’s own life on their own terms, unapologetically.
