PostedAugust 1, 2022, 10:25 PM
MusiqueBeyoncé will re-record a song from her latest album
Criticized by people with disabilities, singer Beyoncé will re-record a track from her latest album, deemed insulting by people with disabilities.
Beyoncé at the 94th Academy Awards
AFP
American superstar Beyoncé will have to re-record a song from her latest album after heavy criticism on social media for her use of a slang word considered an insult by people with disabilities.
It is a phrase from the title “Heated” of the album “Renaissance” released on Friday that has sparked the ire of people with motor disabilities: the “queen” Beyoncé sings “Spazzin’ on that ass, spazz on that ass “. The term “spaz” in English, derived from the adjective “spastic” (“spastic”), may be used to make fun of people with cerebral palsy and may be loosely associated with the terms “cretin”, “disturbed” or even “bumbling”.
In the United States, the word “spaz” is infrequent and seems rather to describe a person who is deemed to be out of control or who acts erratically. In an attempt to put out the start of a fire on social networks, Beyoncé will re-record the offending song by replacing the term “spaz”, a spokeswoman for the artist confirmed to AFP, assuring in an email that ” the word had not been used intentionally to hurt”. The track “Heated” was written in collaboration with Canadian rapper Drake.
Exactly the same story happened in June to American singer Lizzo who had to re-record her track “Grrrls” to remove the same slang term “spaz”. For Australian activist Hannah Diviney, who spoke on Twitter, the use of this term by Beyoncé “feels like a slap in the face for me, for the disabled community and for the progress made with Lizzo”. She vowed to “keep telling the whole music industry to ‘do better’ until ableist slurs are gone from music.”
Musical event of the summer, Beyoncé released her seventh solo album on Friday. Six years after “Lemonade”, which has become a classic, fans have found their “Queen B” in full “Renaissance”, the title of this 16-track album intended for a world that is starting to party again after the pandemic.
“Making this album allowed me to dream and escape during a scary time for the world. It allowed me to feel free and adventurous at a time when little was happening,” Beyoncé, soon to be 41, wrote to her 270 million Instagram followers.
(AFP)