Beyoncé samples Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's call to feminism
The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie makes a surprise appearance onBeyoncé's latest album, released on iTunes this morning, declaiming: "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'."
The novelist's intervention comes during the track ***Flawless, appearing as a series of samples from her impassioned TEDxEuston talk, "We should all be feminists".
During the speech, the Orange prize-winning author argues that differing expectations of men and women damage economic and social prospects in Nigeria, and more generally around Africa and the world.
Beyoncé has been particularly inspired by sections where Adichie explores attitudes towards marriage, sampling a passage where the novelist talks directly about aspirations.
Another section sampled on ***Flawless argues that girls are raised "to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or accomplishments which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men".
Beyoncé has also used lines from a part of the speech where Adichie queries parents' attitudes towards young people's sexuality:
"We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about our sons' girlfriends, but our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid. But of course when the time is right we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband.
The pop diva quotes Adichie's definition of a feminist as "a person who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes".
Over the course of the 30-minute speech, the novelist argues that we do "a great disservice" to boys in how we raise them, putting them in the "hard cage" of masculinity; and that we do "a greater disservice" to girls.
"We say to girls, you should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten The Man."
Adichie begins her talk by recalling a Nigerian childhood spent reading British and American literature which inspired her to write novels featuring African characters. Now it seems the writer's words have themselves inspired an uptempo feminist anthem from one of the biggest names in pop music.
Beyoncé Knowles overtakes Oprah as Forbes' most powerful celebrity
Singer joins six more African Americans in magazine's annual Celebrity 100 list, with husband Jay-Z also in top 10
Beyoncé was named Forbes' most powerful celebrity of the year in a list unveiled Monday, snatching the top spot from Oprah Winfrey and joining six more African Americans in the top 10 of the magazine's Celebrity 100.
The singer earns an estimated $115m per year, making $2.4m per stop on the massive On the Run tour. Her husband Jay-Z is part of the same tour and also made the top 10, earning an estimated $60m per year.
It was a good year for minorities on the list – seven of the top eight most powerful celebrities, according to Forbes, are black; one, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, is gay. The magazine ranked the celebrities in order of their wealth and influence, measured by media appearances.
The top 10 most powerful celebrities, in order, are: Beyoncé, LeBron James, Dr Dre, Oprah Winfrey, DeGeneres, Jay-Z, Floyd Mayweather, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Robert Downey Jr.
In 2013, six of the top 10 spots were held by women, but only two of the 10 most powerful celebrities were black – Oprah and Beyoncé.
There was more reshuffling elsewhere on the list. Justin Bieber fell to 33 from number nine. Tennis star Roger Federer, director Steven Spielberg and the rock band Bon Jovi dropped out of the top 10 but still made the top 20.
Wildcards included conservative media personality Glenn Beck and Swedish DJ Avicii. Beck's earnings are estimated at $90m per year – he grabbed the number 39 spot. Avicii earned $26m in part on the strength of his single True, the biggest-selling electronic music song ever.