After Beyonce released her gritty new single, “Bow Down/I Been On,” Sunday night, Keyshia Cole was among the first celebrities to respond, blasting Beyonce on Twitter after the song was posted.
Cole’s first attack called out Beyonce for being a hypocrite: “Can’t stand when people all self righteous when it’s convenient it makes them look good. Lmao! But can still talk shit when convenient 2 FOH”
The second seemed to indicate Cole’s belief that she has been keeping it more real than Beyonce all these years: “I done kept it real from the start #RespectTHAT”
Cole’s final (for now) tweet of Beyonce hate again accused the diva of hypocrisy: “First “Women need to Stick together” now bitches better Bow. Smh. But it’s all G! Chicks stay shooting the shit.”
Cole’s Twitter was indeed a maelstrom of hate yesterday, but her comments lose all clout when considering how Beyonce has long acknowledged these contradictions, and even spun them into artful juxtaposition.
The hypocrisy Cole seems to be finding in Beyonce is that between the doe-eyed mother of Blue Ivy who writes handwritten letters celebrating black women who performed at the Super Bowl vs. the overconfident woman who asks the same women to “bown down bitches” in the new single.
Really, this pattern is nothing new, as Beyonce has been playing around with dual identities since the invention of her alter ego “Sasha Fierce” for 2008’s album I Am…Sasha Fierce, a record based around the concept of multiple personas. Beyonce admitted in interviews at the time that she developed Sasha Fierce to give her confidence on stage and ability to adopt the sassy personality of her music.
Beyonce has always owned her contradictions by making them a creative statement, something Cole cannot claim. Before blasting Beyonce, Cole might consider how she herself is hypocritical.
Cole’s last major “project” was arguably not music, but a reality show. In late 2012, Keyshia & Daniel: Family First, premiered on BET, profiling Cole’s domestic life with husband Daniel Gibson and their young son. Gibson is an NBA player. So powerful husband, young child and family values. Sounds a little Beyonce/Jay-Z.
So, Cole herself had to step out of those “family first” values to blast Beyonce with a profanity-laced string of hate. Her comments about Beyonce being “self-righteous” certainly apply to her own life.
Interestingly, Beyonce is the not the first member of Destiny’s Child that Cole has blasted recently.
After the Destiny’s Child Superbowl performance, Cole had some negative words about the Destiny’s Child performance, singling out group member Michelle Williams. On her Twitter account Cole said, “I think I was frightened to blink for a sec. Then Michell(e) sung and woke my ass up from my daze! She always fuckN the groove up/But hey! I love y’all too! And y’all girl is WACK and always will be!”
Cole’s DC-hate makes one wonder if she auditioned for the group back in the 1990s and didn’t make the cut. Or maybe she couldn’t quite rock one of Mama Tina’s bedazzled ensembles.
Regardless, Cole is currently in no position to even be attacking Michelle Williams, much less Beyonce. Perhaps Cole is just jealous no one will “bow down” to her, or even give her music a fraction of the attention “Bow Down/I Been On” has been getting.
Suddenly, Beyonce doesn’t seem like the biggest hypocrite anymore.
