Beyonce

Beyonce will remove a derogatory term for disabled people from her new song "Heated" after its use was condemned as offensive by campaigners.

“A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. Waking up this morning to hear@Beyoncehas heard and recognised the disabled community's call to remove ableist language from her music is an incredible feeling. But disability campaigners noted that the word is derived from “spastic.”

Beyonce removes the offensive ableist lyrics from her latest seventh studio album, 'Renaissance,' after receiving backlash.

But that doesn’t excuse her use of ableist language.” Advertisement Advertisement

It's on her "Renaissance" album. She follows the rapper Lizzo, who recently took the same word out of one of her songs after complaints from advocates for ...

Disability advocate Hannah Diviney, who pointed out Lizzo's lyrics that lead to the change, wrote on Twitter that hearing the word again used by Beyoncé "felt like a slap in the face to me, the disabled community & the progress we tried to make with Lizzo." Lizzo said in a statement she never wanted to promote derogatory language. "The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced," a spokeswoman for Beyoncé wrote in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday.

While Beyoncé's latest album Renaissance has drawn plenty of praise, it's also been the subject of criticism, with fans calling for her to remove an ...

Beyoncé is re-recording a song from her new album after facing backlash online over an offensive lyric.

Lizzo wrote in a statement that she would "never want to promote derogatory language". The singer's publicist told the BBC that the word, which can carry a non-offensive meaning in the US, was "not used intentionally in a harmful way". Beyoncé has now revealed via her publicist that she will be re-recording the song without the lyric.

Rodney Jerkins has revealed the story behind the hit single “Deja Vu”, which features on Beyoncé's second album, B'Day. The R&B producer has worked with a ...

“She has that same type of intensity in the booth.” Start your Independent Premium subscription today. “She attacked things so raw and in your face.

The Beyhive is buzzing over the Renaissance album merch. From durags, to horse hoops and bright yellow tape, here is what's on offer.

Instead, she has added a multitude of niche treasures waiting to be stockpiled by devoted supporters – and fast: the line is only available for a week. From opera gloves to horse hoops and bright yellow tape — here is what’s on offer Renaissance Crystal Black Gloves, £104; beyonce.com

Beyoncé has removed an ableist slur from the lyrics of a new song after criticism from disability charities.

The road to success is always under construction.” The song has nine credited writers including Beyoncé and Drake, but it is not clear which of them wrote the lyrics. "I suspect they probably wouldn't, and the same goes for the writers of that song."

Beyoncé: Heated song lyrics on Renaissance album, what is an 'ableist' slur - and did Lizzo use the same word? · In a statement, the singer's representatives ...

This is the result of me listening and taking action. They said: “Pleased to hear that @Beyonce is re-recording Heated to remove the ableist term. She wrote: “I thought we’d changed the music industry and started a global conversation about why ableist language – intentional or not – has no place in music. Words are important because they can reinforce negative attitudes that disabled people face every day. The lyric in question used two variations of the word repeatedly including, “sp*zzn” and “sp*z”. Disability charities and activists h called out the word for being “ableist” and “offensive.”

As Rolling Stone wrote last month, “for at least the past decade, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter has been the world's greatest living entertainer”.

She hopes it inspires fans to “ release the wiggle”. Beyoncé World is not the messy, no make-up selfies or confession videos of other stars. Beyoncé has yet to release any music videos for Renaissance, other than lyric-only videos. The audience is in on Beyoncé’s world building the same way we watch a film. Lemonade (2016) was Beyoncé’s most personal album. As I have written elsewhere, Beyoncé’s stardom is an interesting form of world building.

Diane Warren has insisted she meant "no disrespect" towards Beyoncé after she called out a song with 24 songwriters. The songwriter to the star's tweet was ...

She went on to explain that she realises it's due to samples that there are so many songwriters. Diane Warren has insisted she meant "no disrespect" towards Beyoncé after she called out a song with 24 songwriters. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Diane Warren faced backlash on Twitter after questioning Beyoncé's songwriting credits on one of her new songs.

Own it if you’re going to say it.” U good?,” The Dream tweeted. It was very passive aggressive,” one Beyonce fan wrote. They added: “The road to success is always under construction.” I didn’t know this, thank U for making me aware of it. “Ok, it’s prob samples that add up the amount of writers,” Warren, who has written songs for artists from Cher to Celine Dion, continued.

It comes just weeks after Lizzo came under fire for using the same word in her song 'GRRRLS'

Fellow US star Lizzo faced a backlash when she used the same word in “GRRRLS”, which was released six weeks ago. Beyoncé’s publicist told BBC News the word “not used intentionally in a harmful way”. It comes just weeks after Lizzo came under fire for using the same word in her song “GRRRLS”. Lizzo apologised and quickly rerecorded the track.

Beyoncé's long-standing and successful career is filled with several pop cultural “moments” and record-breaking releases.

Lemonade came out during a time of great political upheaval in America and directly addressed the Black Lives Matter movement. Renaissance is less overtly political and more a celebration of a post-pandemic opportunity to hit the dance floor. The audience is in on Beyoncé's world-building the same way we watch a film. Beyoncé World is not the messy, no-makeup selfies or confession videos of other stars. It might be Beyonce's world, but that doesn't mean she won't listen to her fans. Beyoncé has yet to release any music videos for Renaissance, other than lyric-only videos. As I have written elsewhere, Beyoncé's stardom is an interesting form of world-building. Lemonade (2016) was Beyoncé's most personal album. Renaissance is Beyoncé's first solo album in more than five years, and her first fully dance album. Her past two solo albums were both surprises: the internet-breaking digital drop Beyoncé, and the politically charged celebration of Black women in Lemonade. (She also directed, wrote and produced the film/visual album and celebration of Black Excellence, Black is King in 2020, to accompany The Lion King remake.) The Beyoncé (2013) visual album was a sign of the increasing personal intimacy of Beyoncé's stardom, and her transition to the active creation and ownership of an intimate, identifiable and holistic world. - Renaissance is her first solo album in more than five years, and her first fully dance album.

We need allies who care enough to shift their thinking, so the onus isn't always on disabled people to point out problems, says the Observer New Review ...

We need them to change the way things are from the inside – to stop intolerance creeping into their work in the first place, not amend things retroactively, too late. We need allies to truly care, to shift their thinking and try to see things the way we might. As Audre Lorde wrote in 1984, it is still “the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes … there is a constant drain of energy which might be better used”. For too long, we have let these things slide. All of them, almost certainly, would argue they do not have an ableist bone in their body; too often, apologies take the form of “sorry if you were offended”. Lizzo and Beyoncé listened to the criticism and changed their lyrics, and will hopefully learn from their experiences. As a form of self-preservation we’ve trained ourselves to laugh off inappropriate or thoughtless comments, to see them as “just a joke”. Even if inside it feels as though a dreadful weight is pushing down on you, pointing out that something is causing you pain can feel like spoiling everyone else’s fun, like you’re being overly sensitive and finding offence where there was none. In her medieval fable Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh, usually an incredible and fearless writer, uses her characters’ disabilities – their “clawed hand”, “unseemly disproportion”, being “misshapen” – as a way of evoking eeriness and discomfort.

The star's new album Renaissance weaves Black dance music history, feminism and queer thought into an ecstatic masterpiece that defies marginalisation.

Each sound constitutes a dense building block in a seamless, exuberant sonic history of how to live a free life in our Black bodies in spite of enduring attempts to annihilate them. Nearly a decade since Beyoncé pulled Black feminism explicitly to the centre of her repertoire (on her masterful, self-titled 2013 “surprise” album), Renaissance continues to deepen this resolve as it weds cutting-edge pop experimentation with Black feminist liberation principles that speak to our ever-present precarity. To be “un-American” in Beyoncé’s Renaissance age is to be “comfortable in my skin”, as she sings on the slinky Chicago house banger Cozy. The song features trans icon Ts Madison’s soundbite “Black as I want to be” and a verse that not only sets out to “paint the world pussy pink”, but drench it in the colours of Daniel Quasar’s expansive Progress Pride rainbow flag. Into this midst, Beyoncé has unleashed a reclamation of the pleasure to be found in our own flesh. It is the third year of a pandemic in which we continue to struggle to keep our bodies well and gradually learn how to make contact again with other bodies. Oh, to be an “un-American girl” in the year of our Lord 2022.

“Hey @lizzo my disability Cerebral Palsy is literally classified as Spastic Diplegia (where spasticity refers to unending painful tightness in my legs) your new ...

Did she learn nothing from the Lizzo episode?” “Maybe now we can learn from these incidents, drop words like this one & make sure there don’t need to be any more retrospective lyric changes?” “Honestly fuck Beyonce,” another tweeted. Surely one of ‘Heated’s 11 writers and 10 producers must have known?” someone else asked. The use of the word “spaz” was criticized by listeners. “It’s been brought to my attention that there is a harmful word in my new song ‘GRRRLS.’ Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language,” the statement read. It's hard to believe that could have gone unnoticed by Beyoncé's team.” I already have chronic fatigue I don’t have to energy to explain multiple times why words are offensive.” “This is the result of me listening and taking action. She did the right thing when being met with deserved criticism, and I hope other artists take note.” Lizzo just went through this and corrected it IMMEDIATELY and Beyoncé still thought she could get away with it? “Did Beyoncé not learn from Lizzo first?!

Beyonce will re-record the song “Heated” to remove an ableist slur after public outcry from disabled people, and activists are hopeful that it will signal ...

Fox News Calls Beyoncé 'Vile'. Brian Kilmeade and guest Raymond Arroyo teed off on the Renaissance artist for her “X-rated lyrics” and singing about stretch ...

“The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced,” a representative told Rolling Stone. I don’t know.” “Heated” was the source of controversy over its inclusion of an ableist slur in the lyrics, prompting Beyoncé to remove the word “spaz” from the song.

Beyoncé has sparked controversy with her choice of words in some lyrics on her new Renaissance album and is now set to re-record parts of one particular ...

But Beyonce has since confirmed she is to re-record the lyrics. Her latest track Heated features a derogatory term often used to demean people with disabilities. Sign up to the GoodTo Newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Beyoncé will be editing a track from her album 'Renaissance' to replace an ableist slur in the lyrics to “Heated,” a collaboration with the rapper Drake.

In an opinion piece for Hireup that was republished in The Guardian, writer and disability advocate Hannah Diviney expressed her disappointment in Beyoncé, writing that her artistry “doesn’t excuse her use of ableist language — language that gets used and ignored all too often. “The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced,” a Bey-rep said in a statement. It’s more like 9.75’s. Points have been deducted for the use of an ableist slur on track 11, “Heated.” The song, a collaboration with Drake, features the lyric, “spazzin’ on that ass, spaz on that ass.” Determined not to let one offensive moment dull the album’s shine, Beyoncé will be removing the lyric from the track, Insider reports.

Beyonce's new record Renaissance is a dazzling and cohesive love-letter to house music, disco and techno. But it's her interpolation of I Feel Love that ...

After taking us on a similar journey across the journey of electronic music, Beyonce is both anchoring the record and positioning herself as the forefront of pop. The European renaissance wasn’t just about rediscovering the art and ideology of antiquity, but superseding it. Placing this song last on the album isn’t just a fitting musical conclusion, it’s a clear allusion to the placement of the original. By collaborating with artists like the Chicago-born DJ Honey Dijon and sampling an eclectic mix of music including tracks by Right Said Fred, James Brown, Robin S., and Kelis, Beyonce is taking listeners on a history tour of some of the most important and influential dance music ever released. Each track combined disco elements with popular musical elements of each decade, before culminating in one of the most influential tracks ever released: I Feel Love, the final song on the album. The story he’s telling is the story of how I Remember Yesterday came together.

But "disabled people's experiences" are not being used as fodder for song lyrics. "Spazzing on that ass" does not reference a person with cerebral palsy having ...

The more plausible explanation is that she has an image to uphold and has chosen the path of least resistance, bending when needed to merit the good publicity to which she has become accustomed. Regardless, her decision suggests that perhaps she didn't mean what she initially said; that words can be substituted on demand; that she has little attachment to the art she released. She has always been keen on an empowerment-lite aesthetic, choosing to dance in front of the lit-up word "FEMINIST" and sampling the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speech "We Should All Be Feminists" on her song " Flawless." Beyoncé and her publicity team are well within her rights to make a calculation about how to best curry favor with her audience. This must stop," tweeted the disability rights organization Scope. "When Beyoncé dropped the same ableist slur as Lizzo on her new album, my heart sank," reads the headline of a Guardian article by the activist Hannah Diviney, who wrote that she has "no desire to overshadow" Beyoncé's "lived experience of being a black woman…but that doesn't excuse her use of ableist language." Beyoncé's publicity team quickly responded to the heat, saying she'd be changing that line and removing the word from the song, just as fellow artist Lizzo did two months ago when she came under similar scrutiny, led by some of the same activists.

Beyoncé has made the decision to update a controversial lyric in her song 'Heated', just weeks after Lizzo was caught up in a near-idential situation.

“Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language,” Lizzo wrote in a statement at the time. “The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced,” the statement read. Beyoncé has made the decision to update a controversial lyric in her song ‘Heated’ after receiving criticism of the track including an ableist slur.

Beyoncé has also faced backlash for using the ableist term "spaz" in her song “Heated,” prompting a pledge to change the lyric.

Since Beyoncé released Renaissance, it's been met with some criticism, not just from Kelis. On Monday, songwriter Diane Warren tweeted and then apologized for her confusion over how "Alien Superstar" credited 24 writers. I also know the things that were stolen," Kelis said on Instagram. "Publishing was stolen, people were swindled out of rights — it happens all the time, especially back then." (Kelis isn't credited as a writer or producer of "Milkshake" and so has no legal claim to the song.)

Beyonce performs in Cleveland, OH on November 4, 2016. Brook Kraft/Getty Images. Beyoncé has removed the usage of “Milkshake” from her new song “Energy” ...

“It’s beyond this song at this point,” she wrote in an Instagram caption. She referred to the contentious relationship in her Instagram video, saying, “Publishing was stolen, people were swindled out of rights. Full credits later revealed the song in question was “Milkshake,” with Kelis’ former producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo credited on the track. “Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity, and they have everyone fooled.” Then on Monday, Beyoncé announced she would be removing the word “spaz” from her song “Heated” following backlash from critics who said the word is an ableist slur. “It’s not a collab, it’s theft,” she wrote.