Flawless (Beyoncé song)
On March 17, 2013, Beyoncé released an audio track titled "Bow Down / I Been On" as well as a picture of herself as a child standing in a roomful of trophies on her official website.
[9] Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly commented that Beyoncé seemed "to be attacking straw women a generation behind her who dismiss her as little more than Jay-Z's wife.
[20] Then, the song incorporates a portion of "Bow Down / I Been On",[21] with Knowles singing about "the pressure women feel to be perfect and to think of marriage as the main goal of their life"[20] — "I took some time to live my life/ But don’t think I’m just his little wife.
"[17] A series of samples from "We Should All Be Feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDxEuston conference in April 2013, starts at 1:24 and forms the second verse of the song: We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.
[26] Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian commented that by using Adichie's TED talk as a feminist spoken word interlude in the middle of "Flawless", the singer put "Bow Down" into a different context.
[27] Andrew Hampp and Erika Ramirez of Billboard magazine wrote, "When we first heard the Hit-Boy produced track in March it didn't contain the content of the full-version, only to come off abrasive.
"[28] The Guardian's Mikki Kendall wrote, "In 'Flawless' (a track that leaked as 'Bow Down' over the summer), Beyonce quotes from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TedX talk 'We should all be feminists', adroitly addressing the idea that she is somehow anti-feminist for not fitting into the boxes others project onto her.
It's clear that like a lot of black American women, the mainstream middle class white feminist narratives with which we are so familiar aren't necessarily compatible with Beyonce's view of herself.
"[29] However, Catherine A. Traywick of Foreign Policy magazine criticized the singer, commenting that "On a track called 'Flawless', Beyonce samples Adichie's April 2013 Ted Talk, which is a thoughtful, amusing examination of subtle sexism in everyday life.
Beyonce bookends Adichie's words with distinctly less thoughtful lyrics of her own: She shallowly trumpets material wealth and physical beauty and, working in a few lines from her spring single, advises others to 'Bow down, bitches.'"
[43] The video opens with original footage from Star Search, with young Beyoncé and other members of Girl's Tyme being announced by McMahon.
It transitions to other scenes shot in black-and-white, showing Beyoncé headbanging and moshing with members of a punk subculture, as well as dancing with a team of street dancers in a graffiti covered alley.
"[47] On May 7, 2014, a video was uploaded on Vimeo called #everyBODYisflawless featuring plus-size fashion bloggers and models Gabi Gregg, Nadia Aboulhosn and Tess Munster lip-synching and dancing to the song.
[49] After "Run the World (Girls)", the performance of the song opened with the words from Adichie's talk being displayed on a screen on the stage with a large lit-up font.
[54] Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Isabel Mohan noted that while performed live, the "booty-shaking" song "turns into a huge, powerful urban pop hit".
"[52] Graeme Virtue of The Guardian felt that unlike the studio recording of the song, it became an "all-out sonic and visual assault" when performed live.
[58] "Flawless" was performed live by Beyoncé during the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards on August 25, as part of a medley consisting of songs from her self-titled album.
[60][61] Nadeska Alexis, writing for MTV News praised the bold, feminist statements made during "Flawless" and felt that Beyoncé changed the soulful vibes of the other songs for "all out breaking-it-down".
[69] The Guardian editor Alexandra Khan-Anselmo felt that the remix is "good enough to make you want to smash the window of a cop car, pull a Wynona or sneak on to the underground".
The lyrics in which Beyoncé sings about the infamous elevator incident between her husband Jay-Z and her sister Solange Knowles received media attention.
The song peaked at number 41 on the US Billboard Hot 100 after being released as a digital download, included in the reissued version of Beyoncé, subtitled Platinum Edition.
[72] Two months prior to the release of the song, Minaj's manager Gee Roberson contacted her to inform her that Beyoncé wanted a remix of "Flawless" on which she would be featured.
[76][80] Her lyrics reference the work with Kanye West on the song "Monster", her success and compare detractors with Michael Jackson's convicted doctor through numerous punch lines.
[81][82] Caitlin White writing for MTV News felt that the version "more than exceeds our expectations" and added that it managed to expand "flawlessness beyond women at this juncture".
[82] Melinda Newman, a writer of HitFix, felt that the reworked version "brings... up to speed" compared to the original, but noted that Minaj's lyrics discussing Jackson's doctor would likely upset his fans.
[85] Time reviewer Nolan Feeney deemed the remix a "feistier, more aggressive take" on the original, while also adding that it had a different message, "talk all you want, you'll never wake up like them".
[91] During the concert in Paris, France as part of the On the Run Tour on September 12 and 13, 2014, Minaj joined Beyoncé onstage to perform the remix of "Flawless" live.
[93] Lewis Corner in a review for the Digital Spy felt that Minaj "bolster[ed] its [the song's strong feminist message] weight with her tight rhymes".
[95] During an interview with radio station SkyRock FM, Minaj revealed that she felt honored and emotional to perform together with Beyoncé and acknowledged that she was surprised by the positive reaction of the audience when she appeared.
[98] Beyoncé has performed this song during her all-stadium Formation (2016) and On the Run II (2018, co-headlined with Jay-Z) tours as a mash-up with her and Minaj’s second collaboration, “Feeling Myself”.
