How Beyonce’s ‘Brown Skin Girl’ is the Song I Always Needed
Thank you, Beyoncé.
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By now, those of us in the melanin community have heard Beyonce’s “Brown Skin Girl” which features Nigerian artist WizKid and Blue Ivy on The Lion King: The Gift album. By merely listening to the lyrics of the song, you know who Beyonce is paying homage and uplifting.
“Pose like a trophy when Naomis walk-in
She need an Oscar for that pretty dark skin
Pretty like Lupita when the cameras close in
Drip broke the levee when my Kellys roll in”
Women like Naomi Campbell, Lupita Nyong’o, and Kelly Rowland all have glowing dark skin that demands the attention of all around.
Historically, darker-skinned Black women have been ridiculed and looked down upon for our darker complexion because it isn’t deemed beautiful according to the European standard of beauty that has poisoned the world.
In the song, Beyoncé angelically shouts out our natural curves and nappy, kinky hair encouraging us to embrace what makes us, us.
Over the last two years, there have been plenty of cases where young Black girls (and boys) have been punished for their natural hairstyles by being kicked out of school because their natural hair was deemed “unkempt.”
The same bullshit affects Black women in the workplace. When I used to teach preschoolers in Midtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, I would wear my hair in weaves and not boxed braids because I was scared I would be deemed “too black.”
This experience is well-documented in the series Being Mary Jane, starring Gabriel Union, where her character, Mary Jane Paul, a stylish newsroom reporter, refused to wear her natural hair to work.
She had a full-on breakdown when she learned her hairdresser canceled her appointment after she had already removed her old weave.
This is the experience of many Black women in America and around the world in an effort not to be ostracized from white spaces.
Early last month, California became the first state to ban discrimination against natural hair with the Crown Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair).
The new bill aims to prevent schools and employers from imposing grooming policies that claim to be race-neutral but consistently affect people of color.
“Brown Skin Girl” is the ode the little dark-skinned girl inside me always needed but never had growing up.
To be honest, I think I needed this song more in my pre-teen and teenage years than I did in my younger years. In high school, I was called the cringe-worthy term “blackie” because of my dark skin causing years of internalized colorists beliefs.
Hip-hop songs consistently praise light-skinned Black women, referring to them as “redbone” and in Jamaican culture, the term “brownin” is used throughout songs to uplift light-skinned women who they believe are more desirable.
The fact that Beyoncé, a light-skinned Black woman created a song that centered and empowered dark-skinned Black women who are dismissed and disrespected is beautiful and telling.
I play the song multiple times a day, and my favorite line is:
“Your skin is not only dark, it shines and it tells your story.”
I can only imagine what my sixteen-year-old self would have done to hear those words.
To know that the skin that she lived in was not a burden or a curse, but tells a story.
A story of journeys.
A story of strong women.
A story of fighters.
A story of Queens and royalty.
A story of resistance.
The sixteen-year-old within is smiling with pride because now, she knows.
