Growing Up

By Saundra Bunton

Over the course of this Thanksgiving weekend, I spent a lot of time listening to Beyonce's new album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. Knowing some people who are hardcore fans of hers, I called them up to share with them my apparent surprise at the quality of her song choices. I was particularly impressed with the ballads as well as several of the more upbeat songs. As Beyonce and I are about the same age I have been insistent for several years now that her music should be maturing as she does, and I felt, with this album, that she had begun to move in that direction, which pleased me to no end.

Oddly enough, those people who I spoke to about her album were a bit less enthused. In fact, they were ready to throw away their fan club membership cards.

You should know that this is not about Beyonce. This is about disappointment.

This morning I was reading a book titled Complementarity. In one passage the author states that in Western society people are encouraged to maintain an immature childlike state all throughout their adulthood. This is evidenced in our appreciation for material possessions over spiritual development, as well as our greed and need to hoard items and money, living well past our means and owning way more than we'll ever need. Look no further than hip-hop if you need assistance with understanding this concept.

Hip-hop has nurtured an entire generation of folks who have no intention of growing up, a generation of people who resent anyone who does. It is insane that one should expect that an artist is going to stay the same throughout his/her entire career. Jay-Z suffered through the same criticism when he released his Kingdom Come album in 2006. Fans commented that he had lost touch with his roots and forgot where he came from, but the truth is that Jay-Z is not the same man today that he was when he recorded Reasonable Doubt. He has been president of Def Jam. He is recently married. He has been in a committed relationship for at least eight years. He is not standing on anyone's corner, selling anyone's drugs -- that is no longer his reality. How can you expect him to continue to talk about a life that he no longer has to live?

Rather than being happy that he has grown out of that stage in his life, rather than embracing the natural evolution that we all must eventually take, hip-hop has wholeheartedly embraced the Westernized and incredibly capitalist perspective that one must remain a perpetual child in order to be liked and appreciated.

This isn't just the standard that we hold up for artists. There are so many people who should have well outgrown the teenage stages of hip-hop and have yet to do so. Men in their forties and fifties who have no stocks, no bonds, no 401K, who continue to wear their jeans around their knees and rock backwards caps to the club. Women who have three and four children putting on the same miniskirts that they wore to their high school homecoming dance. What kind of examples are you setting for our children? When is it time for you to grow up?

So, I'm disappointed. That's what this is about. I have never liked Beyonce but I give props where props are due -- she proved with this album that she is maturing and that she is capable of taking her artistry to a more adult place. Unfortunately her fans seem to be unforgiving. And that's what disappoints me.