BET referred to A Seat at the Table as, “the journal we didn’t get to write.” I couldn’t agree more. While listening to Solange’s album I could feel the words that she was saying. They were a more lyrical version of my thoughts. From FUBU, to Cranes in the Sky, the many inspirational interludes, and my personal favorite: “Don’t Touch My Hair,” Solange spoke for a lot of black people with this album. “Fall in your ways, so you can wake up and rise.” This lyric from “Rise” represents the entire album. In A Seat at the Table, Solange talks about the struggles that black people face, while also motivating them to rise above.
There have been multiple times when non-black people have asked me, a black woman, if they could touch my natural hair. In one of my classes the subject of black people having their hair touched came up. A white man in my class was confused and asked me, “Would you not curl your hair?” Instead of being offended I told him that I could curl or straighten my hair like anyone else. I explained that many black women dislike non-black people asking to touch our hair because we are looked at as something of entertainment, but we’re not. When I heard the title of “Don’t Touch My Hair,” I was instantly excited. I was even more excited when I heard how Solange referred to her hair, My soul, my crown, my pride.” She then goes on to say how others don’t understand how much her hair means to her and what it represents.
Another song worth mentioning is “FUBU (For Us By Us)” and its matching interlude. In the interlude, music mogul Master P talks about how a white man offered him a million dollars when he was getting into the business. To the dismay of people around him, he turned it down. He knew that if he was only being offered a million, he had to be worth millions more. After this, Master P created a record label, No Limit Records, which would later make him worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The song “FUBU” features The Dream and BJ the Chicago Kid. Solange opens by singing, “All my n*ggas in the whole wide world… this shit is for us.” The main purpose of the song is to tell that some things are exclusive to black people. The good and the bad. She says how the use of the n-word should only be for black people and how black people are often racially profiled. Cultural appropriation is also criticized when Solange sings, “Get so much from us then forget us,” and “Don’t be mad you can’t sing along, just be glad you got the whole wide world. For us. This shit is for us.” A lot of public figures (including Marc Jacobs) have said that cultural appropriation shouldn’t matter. This song will be one of the few things black people created and intended to only be for black people that doesn’t get stolen. After all, with the way that institutional racism is set up, it’s like white people have the whole world in comparison to what black people have.
A Seat at the Table exemplifies the phrase “Black Girl Magic.” Solange uses song and dance to give the world a peak at what it feels like to be black.