Haunted folkie Marling was 16 when she wrote her break-out ballad – a divination of teenage heartache with a streak of flinty maturity that punches the listener in the gut. “Lover, please do not/ Fall to your knees/ It’s not like I believe in/ Everlasting love.” “You might just be a black Bill Gates in the making,” she muses, but then decides, actually: “I might just be a black Bill Gates in the making.” In a society that still judges women for boasting about their success, Beyonce owns it, and makes a point of asserting her power, including over men. The lyrics reclaim the power in her identity as a black woman from the deep south and have her bragging about her wealth and refusing to forget her roots. Beyonce had made politically charged statements before this, but “Formation” felt like her most explicit.
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