Beyonce graces the cover of the May issue of Out Magazine and takes the opportunity to address her critics who say she’s being way too sexy in her new music.
Beyonce’s latest self-titled surprise album shocked her fans and critics in more ways than one.
In addition to the lack of promotion before the album dropped, the lyrics were just as sexually explicit as the accompanying music videos.
Some immediately slammed the powerhouse R&B singer for putting out such risqué music when she has a young daughter.
Even political commentator Bill O’Reilly went on an on-air tangent regarding her new music and tried to accuse Beyonce of being responsible for the teenage pregnancy crisis.
So what does Mrs. Carter herself have to say about the negative comments?
The message is the same message that she delivered on her song “Flawless.”
“There is an unbelievable power in ownership, and women should own their sexuality,” she said. “There is a double standard when it comes to sexuality that still persists. Men are free and women are not. That is crazy. The old lessons of submissiveness and fragility made us victims. Women are so much more than that.”
As for the people who don’t believe it’s possible to be a mother and a sexual being at the same time, Beyonce begs to differ.
“You can be a businesswoman, a mother, an artist, and a feminist – whatever you want to be – and still be a sexual being,” she said. “It’s not mutually exclusive.”
In addition to pushing her powerful, feminist platform, the “Partition” songstress also discussed some of the challenges she faced when putting the album together.
“When I recorded ‘XO’ I was sick with a bad sinus infection,” she told the magazine. “I recorded it in a few minutes just as a demo and decided to keep the vocals.”
She went on to explain that there was something she really loved about the imperfections in her voice while singing with the infection.
“I really loved the imperfections, so I kept the original demos,” she said. “I spent the time I’d normally spend on backgrounds and vocal production on getting the music perfect.”
The process was certainly a long one. She explained that she had to set aside entire days solely for the purpose of getting the right “mix of sounds for the snare alone.”
Needless to say, all that hard work and long hours in the studio came at a cost for Queen Bey.
“I only got maybe two or three hours of sleep each day,” she added.
At the end of what she considered a long, musical journey, Beyonce said that the album was just as much for her as it was for her fans.
“I needed to free myself from the pressures and expectations of what I thought I should say or be, and just speak from the heart,” she said, when asked if she wrote the new lyrics specifically for a feminist audience.
She said that she had several groups in mind, not just feminists, when she was making the new album and that there was one message that overruled everything else on the album.
“I’m very happy if my words can ever inspire or empower someone who considers themselves an oppressed minority,” she said. “We are all the same and we all want the same things: the right to be happy, to be just who we want to be and to love who we want to love.”