Portrayed as a project on black identity, Solange Knowles’ newly released third studio album, “A Seat at the Table,” serves as a modern-day memoir of black survival.
Released on Sept. 30, Solange weaves her latest album with messages of grief, independence, empowerment and healing with powerful song titles such as “Rise,” “Mad” and “Don’t Touch My Hair,” just to name a few.
The 21-track album features guests appearances by Kelly Rowland, Lil Wayne, Kelela, Q-Tip and The-Dream, co-executive produced by Solange and neo-soul artist Rapahel Saadiq, opens up with the instruction to “fall in your ways, so you can wake up and rise” solidifying Solange’s message of black pride.
In a recent article published by BET, critiques give Beyonce’s little sister extreme praise for her passion, innovation and strength on the album.
“Thankfully, Solange’s ‘A Seat at the Table’ is the journal we don’t get the time to write, the conversations we don’t get to have and the exclamations we’re too tired to repeat,” the BET article said.
In the album, Solange also includes rhetoric from her father, Matthew Knowles, who describes his troubles growing up down South, detailing events of being spit on as one of the first black students at a school in the South, and from her mother Tina, who, on an interlude titled “Tina Taught Me,” rebuts the statement of “White Lives Matter.”
With so much heightened controversy concerning poor race relations in America, “A Seat at the Table” does a wonderful job of dismantling and reassembling black America, focusing on the gifts of healing, celebration, community and an unapologetic sense of blackness.
