Musical Womanism: An Analysis of Jamila Woods’s Legacy! Legacy!
A 2017 poll revealed the nation’s top four feminists to be Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (James, 2021). What do these four women have in common? They’ve all suffered public degradation because of their gender. They’ve all been expected in nuanced ways to mother this nation, an expectation that is unfairly put on women. But they all also serve as public surrogates for success; many women regard their wealth, status, and prestige as aspirational. They all strategically hide any further marginalization that they themselves have caused to call attention to their own aspirational status. These four women have never explicitly claimed to be Black feminists, which defaults them to white feminism.
The theory and space of womanism acts as a counter to feminism. Writer Alice Walker is often quoted as one of the spearheads of womanism in the 20th century. She presents her own definitions of this theory in her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. She identifies the pillars of womanism as such:
“1. From womanish. (Opp. of ‘girlish,’ i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or a feminist of color… Interested in grown-up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.
2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.
3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.
4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.”
Walker correctly points out that feminism was never designed with Black women in mind; it is by default white feminism, and even the fact that a distiction has to be made between default feminism and Black feminism already others Black women. White feminism seeks to be aspirational, not to save all women’s lives, whereas womanism functions as a separate space for Black women entirely. It is a space for Black women to interrogate the specific ways in which we are marginalized, explore all that makes us ourselves, and prioritize our own survival and the survival of other Black women through the understanding and preservation of Black female ancestry.
Several Black female scholars and artists have dedicated themselves to exploring womanism and creating womanist spaces in writing, art, music, and dance. Jamila Woods, a singer, songwriter and poet from Chicago, is an artist who participates in this work through her music. Her 2019 album Legacy! Legacy! features themes of Black ancestry, Black feminism, womanism, Black identity and self-love. Pitchfork named it “Best New Music,” and Rolling Stone called it a “revelation.” Published through the independent label Jagjaguwar, the album features collaborations with Saba, Nitty Scott and Nico Segal, to name a few. Each song is named after an artist, musician, poet or writer that has inspired Woods, such as “BETTY” after musician Betty Davis, “ZORA” after author Zora Neale Hurston, and “OCTAVIA” after Afrofuturist writer Octavia Butler. I feel incredibly fortunate that Woods essentially provided my bibliography for me in naming her inspirations without context, prompting the listener to explore each of these influences further. In this paper, I would specifically like to examine Alice Walker’s pillars of womanism in two of Woods’ songs, “GIOVANNI” and “BALDWIN.”
“GIOVANNI” is based on the poem “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” by Nikki Giovanni. The poem and the song evoke powerful imagery of the Black woman connected to and deriving power from both her ancestors and the earth. In an interview with Pitchfork, Woods comments on the poem:
“‘Ego Tripping’ uses hyperbole so well, in lines like how her ‘tears from her birth pains created the Nile,’ and all the other amazing ways it means for her to be a woman.”
Woods flashes a few lines from the poem on the screen in the music video, quoting Giovanni at the poem’s conclusion: “I am so perfect/so divine/so ethereal/so surreal, I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.” Woods changes the last line of the chorus from the poem’s “there may be a reason why” to “there must be a reason why,” demonstrating that both the earth and her ancestral line collaborated to result in her. The second half of the chorus is as follows: “I’m protected, joy said it preyed on me, mama burned sage for me/None can take that energy away from me/I've been up in here since grandmama was a baby, praise me/I be on my Giovanni, tea and honey/Tell it like I see it/Speak it so I be it/My ancestors watch me/There must be a reason why.”
The “GIOVANNI” music video opens on her grandmother’s house, with images of her sewing, reading the Bible, and her wedding photo album. She gives advice to Woods about her worth, saying, “Don’t let em misuse you, you are not their child. You are my child and I didn’t misuse you, did I?” Through featuring other Black women in the video, she decentralizes herself from the space and allows for the mantra “there must be a reason why” to extend to all Black women, as a way of affirming their existence and inherent dignity.
This video uses the prominent theme of Black hair throughout. Afros, braids, combs, and headwraps are worn with pride, showing Woods’ confidence in her Blackness. At one point, she’s sitting on a giant tub of eco sheen gel, a hair product associated with Black hair care. She also has the scene of her face painted with the names of women in her family. Her hands in a prayerful pose show her reference for all of the Black women, past and present, from whom she draws everlasting strength. Notice her movements and lyrics aren’t based in a dramatic display of desirability, which is a politic that is constantly weaponized against Black women and keeps them trapped in striving for impossible access to white femininity. She understands that it is counterproductive to use the same unattainable standards lobbied against her to justify herself. Instead, she walks, stands, dances, and dresses in a way that displays that she is confident and comfortable with her body, without elevating it above the other bodies in the video. Woods also takes half of the video to hold space for the words and actions of her mother, her grandmother, and several other Black women about what Black womanhood means to them. The other women are seen cooking, dancing, boxing, working in a hair salon, and doing yoga, and their diverse bodies and voices are all allowed to participate in Giovanni’s mantra with Woods’ twist, “there must be a reason why I’m here.”
Another song and video that holds space for multiple Black voices is “BALDWIN.” Based on the work of the writer and activist James Baldwin, Woods resonated with the way he wrote about love, saying:
“This song was inspired by advice Baldwin wrote to his nephew. He talks about white people, and how they don’t always see us as human—but he’s saying, These innocent people, we have to accept them with love. The way Baldwin talks about love is so complex, and it’s always an active choice, but that was always the part of the letter where I was like, Really? It seems very difficult to accept all of these people with love. Accept Dante Servin and [George] Zimmerman with love? That’s a lot, James.”
This comment is referring to the conclusion of the letter where Baldwin writes:
“There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it… Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know.”
The video opens with a James Balwin quote, then features her name in a Harry Potter style font, transporting the listener to a magical Black school. Woods herself has described it as “like Hogwarts, but Black,” featuring a large feast, children learning to braid hair, and spells to cast fireworks. It is an intentional choice to place Black people in a spiritual setting, as the fantasy genre has been barred for Black people. Once again, Woods allows for other voices to be heard in the video, reserving the last few minutes for interviews with Black youth on the south side of Chicago about their experiences in school. Through this fantasy school setting, she honors the fantasies of the children she interviews, who dream of attending a school in which they feel challenged, cared for, and have access to basic academic resources like a library.
Woods began producing this song with a SWV sample. It started much more upbeat and as a tongue-in-cheek critique based on personal experiences she had had with white people. She elaborates on the “I’m good” phenomenon, the claim that having a Black friend or supporting Black businesses means that a white person is freed from being held accountable for doing harm to the Black community. The lyrics went from “You could put my face in a magazine, you could sell my shade at a Walgreens, That don’t mean you good” and transformed into a song speaking to the collective Black experience: “Somebody's daddy always laid out on the street and for what? You could change a hood just by showing your face/Condo climbing high, now the black is erased/It's a casual violence in your speech and your silence/It's unnatural science, you too comfortable lying.” During this point in the song, her voice is the lowest it’s been during the whole album, giving it a somber timbre and displaying her Black exhaustion. However, the addition of Nico Segal’s horns and the choir to the chorus take it out of the realm of solely Black despair and lift it into Black joy and community. Much of the video features both the schoolchildren and the adults at the table dancing, as well as the breaking of bread in solidarity. Woods balances the anger and sadness of the Black experience with the grand use of color, the brightness of the horns, and the joyful dancing in the video.
I present Jamila Woods and her album Legacy! Legacy! as a groundbreaking, evocative, and complex portrayal of modern Black womanhood. With drawn out themes of ancestry, womanism, and healing through art, Woods’ pays homage to several poets, artists, musicians and writers who have inspired both the development of her music and personal politics. The entire album tells a cohesive narrative of all of the ways she embodies both Blackness and womanhood, both Black joy and rage, both female strength and vulnerability. She combats both desirability and aspirationalism; instead of calling Black women to aspire to become more like her, she implores Black women to become more of themselves. Embedded in her lyrics is a portal to her own personal womanist space, and she invites her Black female listeners to construct their own.
