Already (song)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Already" (stylized in uppercase) is a song by American singer
Beyoncé Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. With a career spanning over three decades, she has established herself as one of the most Cultural impact of Beyoncé, ...
, Ghanaian singer
Shatta Wale Charles Nii Armah Mensah Jr., (born 17 October 1984) known by his stage name Shatta Wale, formerly Bandana. is a Ghanaian reggae-dancehall artist. Shatta Wale started with stage name "Bandana'' after senior high school and released the hit trac ...
and American trio
Major Lazer Major Lazer is an American electronic dance music and DJ trio, which includes record producer Diplo, and DJs Walshy Fire and Ape Drums. They were founded in 2008 by Diplo and Switch, with Switch leaving after three years in 2011. He was the ...
from the 2019 album '' The Lion King: The Gift'' and featured in the 2020 film ''
Black Is King ''Black Is King'' is a 2020 American musical film co-written, executive produced, and directed by Beyoncé. It is a visual companion to the 2019 album '' The Lion King: The Gift'', curated by Beyoncé for the film ''The Lion King'' (2019). Th ...
''.


Release

"Already" was written by Beyoncé,
Starrah Brittany Talia Hazzard, professionally known as Starrah, is an American songwriter, singer, and rapper from Delaware. Best known for her songwriting work for other music industry artists, Starrah has co-written three singles that peaked atop the ...
, Nii Armah Mensah, Picard Brothers Ronald Banful and Diplo, with Beyoncé, Diplo and Picard Brothers producing the song respectively. "Already" was originally released as a track in 2019's ''The Lion King: The Gift'', a soundtrack album curated by Beyoncé for the 2019 photorealistic animated remake of ''
The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical coming-of-age drama film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, and written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Produced by Walt Disney ...
''. It was then featured in ''Black Is King'', a visual counterpart and television film for the album, released on
Disney Plus Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming media service owned and operated by Disney Streaming, the streaming division of Disney Entertainment, a major business segment of the Walt Disney Company. The servic ...
on July 31, 2020. Its music video was uploaded separately to
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
and
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
a few hours prior to the film's release.


Composition and lyrical interpretation

Craig Jenkins of
Vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...
described the song as a "tune about remembering your roots" and suggested that the song pertains to when a "lost and dethroned Simba rom 2019's ''The Lion King''is forced to come to terms with his legacy. Jon Pareles of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' stated that "Already" acted as a "springboard" for " he 2019 ''Lion King''splot points" alongside "Keys to the Kingdom" and "Scar", songs also featured on ''The Lion King: The Gift''. Matthew Meadow of Your EDM described Beyoncé's vocals on "Already" as "flawlessly smooth", whereas Devki Nehra of Firstpost described the song as "reggae-heavy."


Music video


Production

Stylist Zerina Akers spoke about how she "wanted to reference different cultures, traditions and tribes, but to have the freedom to create fantasy, for people to be able to escape into a new world" through the fashion in the film. One costume in the "Already" video was a 5:31 Jérôme blue Nigerian lace trench dress with an accompanying Nigerian gele, inspired by the fashion of matriarchal women at Nigerian weddings. Another costume, a
Burberry Burberry Group plc is a British luxury fashion house established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry and headquartered in London, England. It designs and distributes ready to wear, including trench coats, leather accessories, and footwear. It is l ...
cowprint top and skirt, was inspired by the
Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...
and Zulu people of South Africa, who use the hide of
Nguni cattle The Nguni is a cattle breed indigenous to Southern Africa. A hybrid of different Indian and later European cattle breeds, they were introduced by pastoralist tribes ancestral to modern Nguni people to Southern Africa during their migration from t ...
in their
shields A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...
. Akers also collaborated with American fashion designer
Natalia Fedner Natalia Fedner is an American fashion designer, inventor and actress, best known for inventing a six-way stretch metal textile. Early life and education Fedner was born in Chernivtsi, in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine), and immigrated to Columb ...
on a gold chain headpiece covered in gold earrings of various styles and sizes; embedding the earrings into Fedner's patent pending chain textile headdress, Akers wanted to show how gold jewelry connects generations of black women and the African diaspora. The hairstyles in ''Black Is King'' were inspired by various traditional African hairstyles, with hairstylist Neal Farinah and Beyoncé also striving to offer insight into African culture with every style. One of Beyoncé's hairstyles in the "Already" video was inspired by the horned heads and lip plates of the
Dinka The Dinka people () are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out of three provinces that were formerly part of southern ...
and Mursi peoples, who wear them as symbols of prestige and honour. Another of the hairstyles used Bantu knots to pay respect to the
Zulu people Zulu people (; ) are a native people of Southern Africa of the Nguni people, Nguni. The Zulu people are the largest Ethnic groups in South Africa, ethnic group and nation in South Africa, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. They o ...
, with an
ankh The ankh or key of life is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol used to represent the word for "life" and, by extension, as a symbol of life itself. The ankh has a T-shape topped by a droplet-shaped loop. It was used in writing as a tri ...
symbol in the center to symbolize life as in
ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...
ian culture. Members of the
Accra Accra (; or ''Gaga''; ; Ewe: Gɛ; ) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , had a population of ...
-based dance school Dance With Purpose (DWP) Academy were recruited for the video. In 2019, the DWP Academy posted their own choreography for the song after it was first released. This caught the attention of Beyoncé and her team reached out to them to invite them to feature in ''Black Is King''. Stephen Ojo and Caleb Bonney of dance group AVO (Africa's Very Own) Boyz worked with American choreographer JaQuel Knight on the choreography for the video. Ojo and Bonney showed Knight choreography to the track that they had made a few days prior for a class they were teaching. They then taught Beyoncé the choreography, including several dance styles from throughout Africa, such as the Gbese, Poco and Kpakujemu from Nigeria, the C’est Moi from Ivory Coast, and the network from Ghana. Ojo said that his aim for the choreography "was to make sure the moves we were bringing out were properly represented and danced in the right way. I wanted to make sure Africa was being represented properly and not diluted." Ojo commented on his experience working with Beyoncé, saying: "She was a very good student. Paying homage to the originators, paying respect to our culture—some people might not care. But she was very receptive. She was being respectful the whole time, listening. And every move was clean, sharp, crisp." A scene where black men in purple suits jumping up and down in unison is a reference to the adumu
Maasai Maasai may refer to: *Maasai people *Maasai language *Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) Masai may refer to: *Masai, Johor, a town in Malaysia * Masai Plateau, a plateau in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India *Maasai peopl ...
jumping dance of Kenya and Tanzania, a ceremony in which men in a circle compete for who can jump the highest with a straight posture.
Ugo Rondinone Ugo Rondinone (born November 30, 1964) is a Swiss-born contemporary artist. Rondinone is known for his temporary, large-scale land art sculpture, '' Seven Magic Mountains'' (2016–2021), with its seven fluorescently-painted totems of large ...
's sun sculptures, which symbolize rebirth and renewal, were featured in the "Already" music video in order to reflect the film's motif of the 'circle of life'. '' African-American Flag'' was also included in the video; the piece was created by
David Hammons David Hammons (born July 24, 1943) is an American artist, best known for his works in and around New York City and Los Angeles during the 1970s and 1980s. Early life David Hammons was born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, the youngest of ten ...
in 1990 to represent the marginalization of African-American artists and is seen as a symbol of black liberation. Portions of the video were filmed in Ghana, with the Ghanaian chapter of the film being led by director Joshua Kissi. Filming took place in the
Eastern Region Eastern Region or East Region may refer to: * Eastern Region (Abu Dhabi): Al Ain *Eastern Region, Ghana *Eastern Region (Iceland) *Eastern Region, Malta *Eastern Region, Nepal *Eastern Region, Nigeria * Eastern Region, Serbia *Eastern Region, Ugand ...
and
Greater Accra Region The Greater Accra Region has the smallest area of Ghana's Regions of Ghana, 16 administrative regions, occupying a total land surface of 3,245 square kilometres. This is 1.4 per cent of the total land area of Ghana. It is the List of Ghanaian re ...
, with the team wanting to include locations that were underrepresented in depictions of Ghana, such as Shatta Wale's hometown of Nima.


Release

The full music video for "Already" premiered on
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
and was uploaded to
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
on July 31, 2020, only a few hours prior to the release of ''Black Is King'' on Disney+ in which it featured. It became the first music video from the film to be uploaded as a standalone video, with " Brown Skin Girl" following soon after.


Critical response

Callie Ahlgrim of ''Insider'' ranked "Already" as the best music video of 2020, describing the video as a "painstakingly styled and deeply impressive enterprise. You can pause "Already" at literally any moment and it will look like a painting." The video was also listed as one of the best music videos of 2020 by publications such as ''
Vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to Nort ...
,'' ''
Idolator An idolator is a practitioner of idolatry. Idolator or Idolater may also refer to: * Idolator (website), an American music blog * ''Idolator'' (album), a 2005 album by Blood Stain Child * ''Idolator'', a 1986 album by Ole Evenrud * "Idolater", a ...
'', ''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'', ''
Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...
'', ''
Crack Magazine ''Crack'' is a monthly independent music and culture magazine distributed across Europe. Founded in Bristol in the UK in 2009, the magazine has featured Björk, MF Doom, Lil Yachty, FKA twigs, Gorillaz and Queens of the Stone Age on the cover ...
'', and ''
Slant Slant can refer to: Bias *Bias or other non- objectivity in journalism, politics, academia or other fields Technical * Slant range, in telecommunications, the line-of-sight distance between two points which are not at the same level * Slant ...
''. Althea Legaspi of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' described the video as "vibrant" and "visually arresting", also noting that the inclusion of "dancers from around the world interwoven throughout the clip" highlights ''Black Is King'''s purpose as an "inspiring celebration of being Black, from its elegant choreography and fashion to the global locations". Jon Powell of ''Revolt'' praised the "dancing and choreography", "variety of vibrant locations", and tributes to African cultures and "Black kings around the world". Brea Cubit of ''
PopSugar PopSugar Inc. is an American media and technology company that is the parent to the media property PopSugar (stylized POPSUGAR) and a monthly subscription business PopSugar Must Have. The company was founded in 2006 by married couple Brian and Lis ...
'' agreed, similarly praising the "gorgeous outfits, mesmerising choreography, and nods to African culture" seen in the video. ''
Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...
'' named "Already" one of the best music videos of 2020, writing: "With the release of her sprawling Disney+ film Black Is King this summer, Beyoncé proved that she remains on the cutting edge of music visuals... Even as a part of a huge cinematic effort, "Already" is a world of its own."


Impact

The
Marine Serre Marine Serre (born December 13, 1991) is a French fashion designer and sustainability advocate. She won the 2017 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers. Early life Serre was born in Brive-la-Gaillarde near Corrèze, France. She studied in Marse ...
moon print bodysuit that is featured in the "Already" video became "the most popular design of 2020", with the brand seeing a 426% increase in searches in the 48 hours after ''Black Is Kings release. Steff Yotka of ''
Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...
'' wrote that "''Black Is King'' was the digital fashion event of the summer, upstaging official fashion weeks by aligning garments with history, celebrity, purpose, and unparalleled beauty."


Awards and nominations


Charts


Weekly charts


Certifications


References


External links

* * {{authority control 2019 songs Beyoncé songs Major Lazer songs Song recordings produced by Beyoncé Song recordings produced by Diplo Songs written by Beyoncé Songs written by Diplo Songs written by Starrah