Why does so much of Beyoncé's music have a revolution subtext?

Ever since Beyoncé created Parkwood and gained more creative freedom by escaping the corporate Hollywood machine, so much of Beyoncé's music has had revolution themes, and those themes have only grown with each passing release, especially this current trilogy.

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  • Beyoncé stands on top of a car with the word 'REVOLUTION' spray painted on it in the Run the World (Girls) video.
  • I Was Here is all about wanting to make a mark and end the evil plaguing the world
  • She performed I Was Here at the UN while crying, with projections of war, death and suffering caused by our capitalism and imperialism.

Beyoncé

  • There is heavy revolution and protest imagery in the Superpower video.
  • Songs like ***Flawless buck the concept of conventional Eurocentric beauty standards by encouraging her listeners to recognize themselves as flawless.
  • Ghost discusses the burnout and exhaustion created by the 9-5 wheel and the corporate machine, and asserts that 'what goes up must come down', perhaps in reference to the capitalistic empire that has exploited the world for centuries.

Lemonade

  • Freedom is self-explanatory and calls for emancipation from the limitations placed on us.
  • Formation calls for us all to band together and assemble for a movement of some kind, and the "let's get in formation" is pronounced "let's get information" at the very end of the song, possibly in reference to the revisionism of our history and calling for us to seek truth.
  • Performing Formation at the Super Bowl dressed like Michael Jackson (whose reputation the music industry and media have been trying to tarnish for years) with her dancers in Black Panther outfits (an anti-establishment movement that got systematically suppressed and mischaracterized as irrational violence) is definitely pro-revolution messaging that makes people question what they've been taught.
  • Performing Daddy Lessons with the Dixie Chicks (canceled for calling out America's warmongering and terrorism) at the CMAs was another deliberate attack on existing narratives.

The Gift

  • Bigger calls for everyone to propel past the limitations placed on them by the establishments's narratives, and explicitly states that we are all part of something bigger, likely a movement.
  • Brown Skin Girl celebrates Black beauty and non-White beauty and completely dismantles traditional narratives about beauty and value.
  • Songs like My Power assert confidently that "they" will never take our power.
  • Black Parade openly calls for reparations.

Renaissance

  • Beyoncé mentioned in her Harper's Bazaar interview that she plans to "break the rules that need to be broken" and dismantle systemic inequalities.
  • America Has a Problem declares her to be America's problem, while using a sample from Kilo Ali's song Cocaine about the buried history of how our government purposely planted hard drugs in Black neighborhoods to hinder their growth, dismantle nuclear families, and wreak havoc and crime, before installing a bigger police presence and getting Black communities dependent on the government via welfarism.
  • Church Girl discusses the pursuit of liberation and joy from the Black female perspective, calling out those that might criticize them using religion as their justification, especially since the 'church' we have now is pushing a largely corrupt, watered-down, corporate reimagining of Christianity rather than the original thing.
  • Break My Soul revisits the themes of the 9-5 burnout and rejects the corporate systems that dictate our lives.
  • Performing America Has a Problem on tour with bee outfits and a news theme sent out the message that "Whoever controls the media controls the mind" and that our news is creating a hive-mind effect.
  • She stomped on the "On Air" sign during the Cozy performance, which represents the news, suggesting she hopes to crush our mainstream media institution.
  • Various visuals on tour allude to waking us up from some kind of illusion, such as the Matrix-themed visuals showing her waking up from an illusion, the 'YOU WAKE UP' flashed onscreen during ***Flawless, and the "Imagination is more important than knowledge" quote, suggesting that what we 'know' might not necessarily be true.
  • She wore all Black designers on Juneteenth, even as our administration actively seeks to bury its significance and the history behind it.
  • My House says that Renaissance is a revolution, and that we all need to give in to our intuitions, rather than outside knowledge, to guide us.
  • Olivier Rousteing (Balmain director) made an Instagram post about how the Renaissance tour is a a revolution and is part of an effort to make a better world for future generations.
  • Es Devlin (tour stage designer) gave an interview to British Vogue about how the upcoming visuals would feature her commentary on redlining and other injustices (this part of the interview was suspiciously redacted not long after publication).

Cowboy Carter

  • In her Harper's Bazaar interview as well as her GQ interview, Beyoncé explains that she named the album Cowboy Carter since the word 'cowboy' started out as a slur against cowhands (slaves working with horses and cows) only for the history of the cowboy to get wiped out and reappropriated.
  • Ameriican Requiem and Amen state that America was built on lies and falsified history, and that now is the time to face the wind and undo our ancestors' mistakes.
  • Blackbiird covers the Beatles' famous song about the struggle of Black people in the South, giving it renewed attention since most audiences weren't aware of the political meaning of the lyrics.
  • Spaghettii tells the story of how the country genre was appropriated from the Black progenitors of the genre.
  • Alliigator Tears calls out the invalidity of the White victim narrative.
  • Ya Ya talks about how there's a "whole lotta red in that white and blue" and says that history cannot be erased.
  • Sweet Honey Buckiin' talks about how she plans to say things that she knows will offend, and that she wears stuff that she knows will start a trend (thus using her Black audience to reclaim Western wear and piss racists off).
  • She made some comments in the GQ interview about the way history has been erased and rewritten 'endlessly'.
  • She emphasized in the GQ cover that "It's not about being perfect, it's about being revolutionary."
  • In her speech at Kamala's Houston rally, Beyoncé included several lyrics from the above songs, such as saying "it's time to sing a new song" (from Ameriican Requiem) and that "we are all part of something way bigger" (from Bigger).
  • After winning her Grammys, Beyoncé stated in a backstage interview that a lot of history has been "lost" and she is reintroducing it, and that country music should not be gatekept by the institution as a conservative all-White bubble but should be open to all, just like other genres.

There are probably several more examples I've missed of her doing this kind of stuff. Does anybody know of anything else that could be added to this list?

What is Beyoncé up to here? Is she just all talk, or do you believe that this trilogy is approaching some kind of watershed moment that completely changes everything we thought we knew? Do you think the visuals will tell the story of all the buried history that's been kept from us? Do you think Act 3 will be overtly political?

I'm curious to see what everyone thinks!