Solange debuts two music videos from new album ‘A Seat at the Table’
By Will Stroude
Solange Knowles has captivated the world with her latest album A Seat At The Table. Released last Friday (September 30), the record is a bold and timely reflection on the world, through an unapologetically black perspective.
The album both celebrates black identity and meditates on the challenges the community faces over 21 tracks. The production, both rich and effortlessly breezy, underscores important discussions on survival, anger and joy.
Tina Beyoncé-Lawson (more commonly known as Tina Knowles) implores listeners to understand that to be pro-black is not to be anti-white on ‘Tina Taught Me’, former Destiny’s Child star Kelly Rowland teams up with Solange to celebrate blackness on the joyful interlude, ‘I Got So Much Magic’, ‘You Can Have It’.
Today (October 3) Solange has given us yet another window into the world that A Seat At The Table was formed in, with two new music videos for ‘Cranes In The Sky’ and ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’.
Both videos bring together photography and live action to provide beautiful accompaniments to the tracks, with Solange peppering each with some of her signature, quirky dance moves that have become somewhat of a hallmark for the singer.
One particularly evocative scene in the video for ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’ shows a black woman diving into a swimming pool, hair uncovered. Considering the rules and restrictions placed particularly on black women’s hair – including the golden rule of never, ever getting it wet – this particular scene feels like a liberation from expectations and boundaries. A perfect microcosm of the album’s wider intentions.
Check out the two videos below:
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