Posted by | Cyrena Rose
#BEYOUT
Beyoncé graces the cover of OUT Magazine with a Marilyn Monroe-esque vibe…LA LIBERTAD!
The thirty-two year old, who just wrapped her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, is the epitome of POWER! She’s businesswoman, a mother, an artist, and a feminist; Beyoncé is everything she sings about in “Beyoncé.”
Aaron Hicklin didn’t have the luxury of a face-to-face with the Queen for this engaging interview; she was in the midst of an intense international tour. Instead the editor-in-chief of Out Mag settled for an unusual condition…he had an email exchange for this story + he received unprecedented access into Bey‘s inner sanctum b.k.a. Parkwood Entertainment (the tight-knit, furiously devoted team at the heart of Brand Beyoncé).
The staff (#TeamBey), backbone of her brand, at Parkwood (named for the street Beyoncé grew up on) consist of :
- Angie Beyince, vice president of operations, who grew up spending her summers with her cousins, Beyoncé and Solange.
- Yvette Noel-Schure, Publicist at Parkwood Entertainment
- Ed Burke, visual director, who had never heard of Beyoncé when he met her 10 years ago, responding to a request from a friend to shoot her for a day.
- Todd Tourso, Creative Director, Parkwood Entertainment
- Jim Sabey, head of Worldwide Marketing, Parkwood Entertainment
- Ty Hunter, her stylist, who was working at Bui-Yah-Kah, a boutique in Houston, when he first met Beyoncé’s mother, Miss Tina, on the hunt for outfits for Destiny’s Child. The two clicked. That was in 1998.
- Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood, Digital Strategy, Parkwood Entertainment
- Kwasi Fordjour, Creative Coordinator, Parkwood Entertainment
- Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, the general manager at Parkwood, whose Boston childhood was informed by the music of Carole King, James Taylor, and Carly Simon.
- Melissa Vargas, Brand Manager, Parkwood Entertainment
Enjoy a few excerpts from her first cover story since her album dropped last year and the breathtaking photos lensed by Santiago & Mauricio:
Out: Your new album is also your most sexually liberated project. The confidence and maturity and the fantasy speak to women almost as if in code. How do you create this conversation?
Beyoncé: I’d like to believe that my music opened up that conversation. There is unbelievable power in ownership, and women should own their sexuality. 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. You can be a businesswoman, a mother, an artist, and a feminist—whatever you want to be—and still be a sexual being. It’s not mutually exclusive.
Out: On certain songs, like “XO,” your voice is a lot more raw (and beautiful) than fans are used to. Was it a conscious decision to be less polished?
Beyoncé: When I recorded “XO” I was sick with a bad sinus infection. I recorded it in a few minutes just as a demo and decided to keep the vocals. I lived with most of the songs for a year and never rerecorded the demo vocals. I really loved the imperfections, so I kept the original demos. I spent the time I’d normally spend on backgrounds and vocal production on getting the music perfect. There were days I spent solely on getting the perfect mix of sounds for the snare alone. Discipline, patience, control, truth, risk, and effortlessness were all things I thought about while I was putting this album together.
Out: Your fifth album has been noted for being feminist, but a number of people in the LGBT community also identify with it. Were the lyrics ever written consciously with different groups in mind?
Beyoncé: While I am definitely conscious of all the different types of people who listen to my music, I really set out to make the most personal, honest, and best album I could make. 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. Being that I am a woman in a male-dominated society, the feminist mentality rang true to me and became a way to personalize that struggle…But what I’m really referring to, and hoping for, is human rights and equality, not just that between a woman and a man. So I’m very happy if my words can ever inspire or empower someone who considers themselves an oppressed minority…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.
To read the article in its entirety, click here!
Lensed by Santiago & Mauricio | Styling by Lysa Cooper
