‘Black Is King’ Review: Beyoncé’s Tribute to African Culture Is a Visual Masterpiece

Black Is King—a new visual album from Beyoncé which premiered on Disney+ today—is described as a “reimagining” of the 2019 photorealistic Lion King movie, but it bears little resemblance to the Disney film. The Lion King may have provided the original clay, but Beyoncé—who wrote, directed, and produced Black Is King—took that and shaped how she pleased. The product feels like a natural progression in her evolution as an artist, from a pop star in Destiny’s Child, to Auteur with a capital A in Lemonade. While Lemonade was a tribute to African American women, Black Is King is a precise and intentional love letter to African culture.

Like Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016) before it, Black Is King is a visual album: a series of music videos, connected by interludes, set to Beyoncé’s 2019 soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift. The album, while well-reviewed, didn’t feel like a true Beyoncé album. Perhaps that was due to the presence of Disney overlords, or because almost every song featured another artist, sometimes more prominently than Beyoncé herself. But Black Is King brings the ownership back to Bey. (That said, she does share her directing credit with seven other people, including Emmanuel Adjei, Blitz Bazawule, Pierre Debusschere, Jenn Nkiru, Dikayl Rimmasch, Jake Nava, Ibra Ake, and her long-time collaborator, Kwasi Fordjour.)

Throughout the 85 minute runtime, Beyoncé glitters and glimmers in a neverending progression of jaw-dropping landscapes, from billowing waterfalls to rolling deserts. She cycles through twice as many outfits—I lost count, but I think it must be over 50—from sparkly leotards with fringe and opaque sunglasses in “Find Your Way Back,” to a bedazzled sleep mask that says “Mood” in “Mood 4 Eva.” Each one is instantly iconic, and I expect we’ll see many recreated on Tik Tok by the end of next week.

The songs are more or less in order, with a few exceptions. The Lion King dialogue interludes are included, which means, that yes, you do hear the voices of Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, and yes, it is jarring. There are also spoken-word interludes that were not on the album, though these are not as prominently featured as they were in Lemonade—a good thing, because I found it harder to take seriously after seeing it parodied by The Lonely Island in The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience.

But more than anything, Black Is King is a visual masterpiece. It’s almost overwhelming, especially because the shots rarely linger. You get one, maybe two seconds to take in the location, outfits, actors, extras, and mise en scène, before you’re swept away to somewhere entirely different and equally as impressive. The cameras are constantly moving, pushing in and pulling back out again, breathing with the viewer as you take everything in.

But this is not a random collection of aesthetics that Beyoncé thinks are dope. This is an intentional tribute to African culture. Every frame, outfit, and dance move has meaning. I’m not qualified to comment on what she did or didn’t get right—last year, Atlantic writer Hannah Giorgis pointed out that the album neglected to include any artists from East Africa—but it’s clear much was drawn from traditional African style, clothing, music, and movements. African artists are featured prominently, including Yemi Alade, Tekno, Aweng Ade-Chuol, Lord Afrixana, Adut Akech, and more. There are also a handful of celebrity cameos, particularly in the song “Brown Skin Girl,” which finds Lupita Nyong’o, Kelly Rowland, and Naomi Campbell smiling at the camera as Beyoncé shouts them out in her lyrics. Though a simpler production than the other numbers, this may be the best music video of the bunch. An ode to the singer’s 8-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, it’s a pure celebration of black women and their joy. I’ll admit, I got emotional when Beyoncé and former Destiny Child’s member Kelly Rowland were singing praises to each other.

The thing about Beyoncé is that she has been consistently outdoing herself for nearly a decade now. First, there was the surprise Beyoncé album, then there was Lemonade, then there was the Coachella performance, and then there was the Homecoming film. In the context of that nearly-impossible standard she’s set for herself, Black Is King feels slightly less revelatory than the works that came before it. But taken on its own, it’s an undeniably breathtaking, personal, and political work of art. And truly, the outfits are just fabulous—possibly her best to date.

It goes almost without saying that Black Is King is particularly powerful because it comes two months after the killing of George Floyd, the unarmed black man who died after being pinned to the ground a white police officer, and whose death launched a global conversation about racism, reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement. There’s an urgency in the way that Beyoncé is addressing the “black kings,” as if she feels like she’s running out of time.

Leading up to the highly anticipated release today, Black Is King was shrouded in mystery. Journalists weren’t given advanced screeners, or even told what songs would be featured in the film. That’s fairly typical Bey, who has a talent for getting people to talk about her with very little marketing. But in a not-so-typical move, she opted to explain what Black Is King was and why she made it, in an Instagram post last month.

“I believe that when Black people tell our own stories, we can shift the axis of the world and tell our REAL history of generational wealth and richness of soul that are not told in our history books. With this visual album, I wanted to present elements of Black history and African tradition, with a modern twist and a universal message, and what it truly means to find your self-identity and build a legacy,” she wrote in the caption. “I only hope that from watching, you leave feeling inspired to continue building a legacy that impacts the world in an immeasurable way. I pray that everyone sees the beauty and resilience of our people. This is a story of how the people left MOST BROKEN have EXTRAORDINARY gifts.”

We can only hope there are many more Beyoncés to come.

Watch Black Is King on Disney+