The Death and Resurrection of Oshun in Beyoncé's Lemonade

God permitted Christians to hold Africans as slaves even after they had converted to Christianity ... that Christian instruction could be tailored to the blacks’ supposedly inferior abilities by using special homilies and catechisms; and that their conversion in this manner made them more useful as slaves, not rebellious but diligent and loyal. (Scherer 627) This theology would later become profoundly intertwined with the institution of slavery, and despite several generational attempts by African slaves to cling to their old worldviews, indigenous African religions inevitably failed to flourish in the new world as there were no durable structures capable of upholding and promoting their values (Scherer 627–28). The democratization of thought in contemporary popular culture, due to manifold avenues of expression, such as social media and online articles, has allowed unorthodox perspectives like pop star Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade to flourish. Lemonade, I argue, is a comprehensive and groundbreaking body of work that subverts the institutionalized borders of Western Christian thought by challenging the hegemony of Christian mythology and seeking to resurrect the agency of indigenous African religions through the process of legitimization. Lemonade opens with a submerged Beyoncé using Christian iconography (the Holy Bible and a cross) to seek redemption from God. We then see two versions of Beyoncé confronting each other. One version later disappears and the other awakens in a blindingly yellow dress as the Yoruba Goddess Oshun, a precolonial African Goddess typically associated with water, purity, fertility, and love. Beyoncé, functioning as Oshun’s medium, seeks to reacquaint the African consciousness with the spirituality of indigenous African religions. Oshun thus operates as a genealogy thread that links precolonial African culture to contemporary African diaspora communities, and the pride that comes with discovering the vitality of one’s past is reflected in Lemonade’s pro-black anthems like “Formation.” Most importantly, Oshun dismantles the borders of Western Christian thought by appropriating the Christian doctrine of salvation. Beyoncé’s existential salvation in Lemonade (accessing her newfound agency as a black feminist in contemporary America) only happens when the old Beyoncé dies and the new Beyoncé morphs into a radiant African Goddess. The implication here is that true salvation is only possible by reconnecting with the authenticity of one’s roots. During the epoch of European exploration, Christians had a profound aversion to the non-European religious practices they encountered abroad (Garraway 146). The “bizarre” manifestations of these often-labelled “occultist” practices symbolized, they claimed, the Christian devil’s demonic forces (146). As a result, combating this “unmitigated diabolical influence” (146) through the process of evangelization and conversion became a prioritized mission. The zenith of European exploration, from the fifteenth to mid-seventeenth century, also coincided with the zenith of Europe’s witch hysteria (146). In Europe, the widespread suppression of women accused of being witches was precipitated by a religious epistemology called demonology, “the science of demons ... which described witch-craft through treatises, manifestos, trial transcriptions, and literary works” (146). Therefore, as missionaries attempted to identify, characterize, and eradicate the practices of indigenous African religions, they “drew on early modern European conceptions of witchcraft and diabolism to create a new discourse” (146–47), a new discourse colonial ethnography scholar Doris Garraway calls “colonial demonology” (147). The legacy of colonial demonology is conspicuous in our contemporary time. In Nigeria, for example, the once flourishing Igbo traditional religion is currently on the brink of extinction. Igbo Christians, due to centuries-long conversionist practices, are now the dominant group, and their condemnation of the Igbo traditional religion as demonic magic has led to widespread hostilities such as destroying the indigenous religion’s artifacts and the property of its loyalists (Okeke et al. 6–9). Associating demonic forces with indigenous religions, first, denies moral legitimacy to indigenous practices and, most importantly, scares off believers and potential converts because being associated with the malevolence of the Christian devil in predominantly Christian societies inevitably leads to persecution and ostracization. Demonic associations, a legacy of colonial demonology, are hence an effective eradication tool. This exponential growth of African Christians at the expense of indigenous religions is not only happening in Nigeria; as traditional shrines continue to disappear, “The number of ‘Christians’ in the African continent has grown from 8,756,000 in 1990 to 382,816,000 in 2004, with projected growth by 2025 of 640,460,000 professing Christians. That would make the Christian Church in Africa the largest of the six continents” (Gehman 4). It was at long last possible for them to establish church organizations, conduct their meetings and engage their ministers without the supervision and the control of their former masters. The Black preachers were the ones who had the most learning. The people looked to them for leadership, not only in religious matters, but in all other areas of life as well. (McKinney 458–59) This infiltration of the black church into every aspect of African American life, both secular and nonsecular, explains why the black church quickly became a place for social cohesion and civil rights organizing throughout the subsequent years and even centuries (McKinney 466–68). A conspicuous example of the black church’s indispensable role in civil rights activism and community building is the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama (1955–56). When civil rights activist Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus in segregated Montgomery, meetings were held in a local black church to address the issue and minister Martin Luther King Jr. later agreed to lead and organize the now historic Montgomery bus boycott that forced the Supreme Court to outlaw segregation practices in public transportation (McKinney 466–67). These social cohesion successes of the black church have made African Americans overwhelmingly loyal to Christianity, and their loyalty to the monotheist Christian faith means the near extinction of indigenous African religions in America. Findings by the Pew Research Center in 2018 revealed that African Americans are more likely to be Christian than other major ethnic groups (Masci et al.). Unlike Americans of European heritage, most African Americans trace their lineage to regions in Africa that, a few centuries prior, were “not primarily part of the Christian world” (Masci et al.). Today, however, “Nearly eight-in-ten black Americans (79%) identify as Christian ... By comparison, seven-in-ten Americans overall (71%) say they are Christian, including 70% of whites, 77% of Latinos and just 34% of Asian Americans” (Masci et al.). Christianity is thus an integral component of contemporary African-American life. It’s ... a major personal statement from the most respected and creative artist in the pop game. All over these songs, she rolls through heartbreak and betrayal and infidelity ... Yet despite all the rage and pain in the music, she makes it all seem affirming, just another chapter in the gospel according to Beyoncé: the life-changing magic of making a great loud bloody mess. (Sheffield) Billboard’s review was also congratulatory, hailing Lemonade as “a revolutionary work of black feminism” that redefines authorship by historicizing the vulnerability and strength of black women (Bale). Scholarly analyses echo similar ideas, often conceptualizing the visual album an intermedial aesthetic (Hartmann 2-3) that uses alleged autobiographical references to betrayal in Beyoncé’s own marriage to rap mogul Jay-Z to explore themes of “family, infidelity and the black female body” (Hess). My article, I must emphasize, is not interested in the alleged autobiographical elements of Lemonade. I view the album as a piece of visual and textual art that uses multimodal aesthetic productions to articulate its distinct point of view. While talking points like infidelity have dominated mainstream analysis on Lemonade, an arguably more radical discourse about the institutionalized borders of Western Christian thought brews beneath the surface. Lemonade opens with a submerged Beyoncé zipping open her black sweatshirt to reveal a scaly and fleshcolored undergarment. She is in the process of metaphorically shedding her skin. This section of the album is titled “Denial,” and Beyoncé, the narrator, recounts in a poetic monologue the ordeal of trying to conform to an idealized aesthetic of womanhood, one in which she tried to be more quiet, softer, prettier, and less awake. She then encounters another submerged Beyoncé lying still on a bed with her eyes closed. We get a close-up shot of the still Beyoncé’s face, and she is visibly not awake. This short scene, only thirty-two seconds, is of profound significance. In addition to hegemonic conformity, another central theme is the idea of consciousness. Beyoncé’s efforts to conform by being “less awake” implies the suppression of her consciousness. Thus, strict conformity to hegemonic standards can be interpreted as the loss of consciousness. The lifeless Beyoncé is the Beyoncé without consciousness, the Beyoncé in denial, submerged and sound asleep. The Beyoncé shedding her skin, on the other hand, is the Beyoncé resisting conformity, also submerged but desperately fighting to keep her consciousness awake. In the subsequent scene, awake Beyoncé, seemingly more resolute, stares intently at her dormant counterpart. She proceeds to transport her consciousness into dormant Beyoncé and both entities become one. The inactive consciousness of dormant Beyoncé is immediately vanquished, and the now whole Beyoncé opens her eyes. As the enlivened Beyoncé tussles and struggles to adjust to the awakening of her consciousness, the narrator continues to recount her ordeal of trying to conform. In a society governed by hegemonic dogma, refusing to conform is inherently sinful and morally distressing. This explains why Beyoncé had previously attempted to subdue her urges of defiance by seeking redemption from the hegemonic authority. In this section, Beyoncé describes her experiences attempting to conform to Christianity with images of confession, baptism, self-flagellation, taking communion, and Bible reading. These specific references to Christian beliefs and practices make it very clear that the hegemonic authority Beyoncé is referring to is Western Christian thought. This argument is visually confirmed with a shot of a conspicuous cross on a dog-eared Holy Bible floating, listlessly, next to the awakened Beyoncé. In biblical scriptures, God is described as an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient deity: “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (Daniel 4:35, New American Standard Bible). Questioning the legitimacy of God’s authority is therefore a sinful, and even sacrilegious, act: “Do not put the LORD your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16, New International Version). Awakened Beyoncé has an epiphany. She realizes that despite repeatedly praying, fasting, and pleading, she can never subdue her urges of defiance. In brief, she cannot conform, so she must swim to the surface. She closes her monologue repeatedly asking if she’s being cheated on, and when she reemerges on the surface, water gushing at her feet, she assumes a new form as the Yoruba Goddess Oshun and majestically gaits down a flight of stairs. Publicly and confidently asking the question “Are you cheating on me?” epitomizes liberation because she is no longer the subordinate wife who attempted to appease hegemonic power structures by keeping her mouth closed. She is now a new woman, and her newfound agency has emboldened her with the courage to challenge the status quo by asking difficult and uncomfortable questions. This is another deceptively simple scene operating on multiple discursive levels. There is the literal infidelity interpretation. Beyoncé is “submerged” in distress because she suspects her husband is unfaithful. Her desire to confront and investigate these suspicions are stifled by the hegemonic pressures of being the idealized subordinate wife who is “soft” and “pretty” and “less awake,” but after wrestling with thoughts of subversion, she finally accrues the courage to confront her husband, “Are you cheating on me?” Although this reading satisfies the insatiable tabloid interest in the often-concealed personal life of Beyoncé, the larger than life pop star, there is also a meticulously layered connotative interpretation that subverts institutionalized borders of Western Christian thought. In Lemonade, conventional interpretations of Christianity represent subjugation. This is emphasized when Beyoncé has to seek atonement from God for attempting to independently interrogate the state of her reality, describing herself on her knees saying amen after a number of failed attempts to change on her own. It is therefore no coincidence that the liberated Beyoncé, the Beyoncé who swims to the surface and subverts hegemonic power structures by boldly asking “Are you cheating on me?” is reincarnated as the Oshun, a deity belonging to a pantheon of indigenous African Gods who were actively persecuted and delegitimized by Western Christian thought. Adjectives like “the African venus,” “river goddess,” and “fertility goddess” are often used in Western religious discourse to describe Oshun (also spelled Osun) (Murphy and Sanford 1). Theology and African studies scholars Joseph M. Murphy and Mei-Mei Sanford label these descriptions as “ethnocentric and reductive” (1) because they do not “convey the multidimensionality of her power: political, economic, divinatory, maternal, natural, therapeutic” (1). Oshun is not just a goddess; she is a religion that encompasses complex sociopolitical thought processes that negotiate the intersection of social identity and spirituality (2). Oshun is a revered orisa (deity) belonging to an elaborate and sophisticated religious system (Abiodun 10). The origins of her traditions can be traced back to the Yoruba territory of Ijesa, “a region of West Africa that since 1991 has been known as Osun State, Nigeria” (Murphy and Sanford 4). The name Oshun means a source that “runs, seeps, flows, moves as water does” (2). This explains why Oshun often takes the form of freshwater springing from the parched earth, an image that evokes hope sprouting from challenging circumstances (2). The fact that Oshun’s elemental power is water reveals her unrivaled importance to her devotees because water not only creates life, but it also preserves it (2). Moreover, it is believed that she has the power to heal both man and the Gods: “Osun ... is believed to have the power to influence the destinies of men, women, and the orisa” (Abiodun 11). This makes her an omnipotent orisa with extraordinary powers: “When she is invoked her presence is felt to bring lightness and effervescence to illness, want, and gloom. Osun’s ability to heal is based on her sovereignty and her compassion. She is a warrior who can fight for her children and vanquish enemies visible and invisible” (Murphy and Sanford 8). Oshun is the only female deity of the seventeen orisas who came to earth at the dawn of creation (Abiodun 18). Her ability to assert her feminine agency amongst formidable male orisas is frequently attributed to her “power and influence” (18). As a feminist trailblazer in the male-dominated orisa pantheon, she probably has a profound understanding of what it means to be different and estranged. This explains why she is arguably the most compassionate orisa, always keen to defend the defenseless. Every year, the Osogbo festival celebrates Oshun’s vital role in the Ijesa territory of Osogbo, the capital city of Nigeria’s Osun State (Murphy and Sanford 4). The Osun River, where the festival takes place, is believed to have healing powers because it is the holy home of Oshun (Alarcón 733). Furthermore, festival attendees pay homage to Oshun’s purity by wearing white (733). Oshun originally assumed the color white but “a popular story ... that she was very and would to the to her white the dress yellow from in the water, and this is yellow became one of her (733). The Osogbo festival is Nigeria’s largest to a traditional deity and has become an to the of the festival and to (Murphy and Sanford 4). to the of a of Yoruba people the of Oshun’s practices the and in the The efforts by Western Christian thought to Oshun’s practices were however, in like Oshun became an integral part of a religious and she is now with of Oshun is and in Beyoncé’s Lemonade. When the submerged Beyoncé to the hegemony of Western Christian she her old and reemerges from beneath the surface in a yellow the color of Beyoncé here is appropriating the Christian of to religious scholars and Christians the of the Holy is at The Holy the and new life, which is to God. The a new in the life. It is a water is the central the of is used in all Christian because it life and thus evokes the of life, and it is used to the of In Lemonade, what Beyoncé and “a is not the water of the Holy it is the healing of Osun River, the of Goddess Beyoncé only the courage to challenge Western Christian hegemony when she to the surface as Goddess The water therefore her from the of and the new Beyoncé on the surface is no longer the and wife trying to her mouth more and be “less This new Beyoncé is and she to if her is unfaithful. that Beyoncé is now a of Oshun are revealed in the she after from beneath the surface. the of and Beyoncé about her with a with a As and Yoruba describes Oshun as a and when she has been a and Beyoncé and with a and These of Beyoncé in a yellow the color of Oshun, wearing a and about her the argument that the new Beyoncé on the surface is a of this point in Lemonade’s reincarnated Beyoncé, the of Oshun, no longer if her husband is cheating on She is now that is and she why would the and of their by with women who will never as she The power and influence of Oshun Beyoncé with and While she tried to conform to standards of and, as a result, the to confront the of her on the surface, and emboldened by the healing powers of Oshun, she not only herself to to with the state of her but she also the of her She of her in “the and when she of her bed and her she herself that an of her not from her This newfound also Beyoncé to and her agency as a black In the to the she in another poetic monologue over the betrayal of her black husband, in the what say at her it was who her when her There is a to this in African-American black have often and the of black In the civil rights of the and for example, black women like and the black male of the often them as and the specific of black women as a result, et al. Moreover, of the black community that black to is another example of the betrayal of black women by black to from the American had white more often than black women and white In other in of the husband was and scholars that this is due to social because white women are more to mainstream white society than black women, a white black Black alleged to white is in Beyoncé’s when her black husband on the most and pop star, with for a white with The implication here is that even the most of black are no for the of a white Beyoncé not to in she with a of her their and in the Yoruba of and they each other by and The of here is in Yoruba means but ... it also in the to one’s and their consciousness part of The art of Beyoncé to her new consciousness, and she the courage to assert her and her black She a to say to with her and the Her with black women here is also these women are to and each the implication here is that black women must on each other to their at the uncomfortable intersection of and By using Oshun and Yoruba practices to her agency and her Beyoncé her liberation as a black feminist from reconnecting with the spirituality of her African and with other black Lemonade’s Oshun and Yoruba references would have by mainstream media often of the and of indigenous African religions. due to the democratization of thought in our contemporary for African now have a of on the to their after the of Lemonade, on black feminist Beyoncé’s to Yoruba orisa Oshun in her review of Lemonade. The and social and an on and references to Oshun and other of African in Lemonade. The about these references quickly the and social media example, about the of Oshun in was social and a about the and of African in a Oshun who with and practices, that is not at at black it still to and the at and that I was to see reflected in even in the As previously Oshun’s practices were to the by the culture in the because black people were from what is now and in West Oshun is popular in through the religion of and in through who are by mainstream Christian society due to their in the spirituality of indigenous African religions, Lemonade them “a of as part of the larger African Beyoncé’s to by the authority of Christian dogma, with by the feminist agency of Oshun and the of precolonial African can be as a to the institutionalized of Western Christian thought and the of indigenous African religions. But Lemonade, I must is not In the for example, there is a shot of a New of a black and on the from and The vitality in this is and the the of and the of life is As previously the black church an indispensable role in the of African-American life. During of like the the black church was still to the of African-American culture and as a for social cohesion and civil rights activism (McKinney This of in the of is in Lemonade’s The black I therefore argue, does not the of Western Christian thought. While it is by Western Christian it has prioritized that the black of America. Furthermore, in one of Lemonade’s an black woman, a of the of the community lead their children into the Her is for Beyoncé once and black profound to the black black the black the only Christian institution that to the black still the at these it is that Lemonade is not of Beyoncé’s I argue, is and not is a central theme in Lemonade. In the Beyoncé’s black husband comes to and desperately for another The image of rap mogul an in culture, down and Beyoncé’s epitomizes the difficult to and the efforts by black male to address their alleged generational betrayal of black The that is a but short called images of black like and who their Martin and to the black at next to these of their black is Black women, this have always by black men, from the civil rights to the Black Thus, black must also be

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