Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table Surpasses Her Sister’s Lemonade

By Matt Reinstein

Arts Reporter

Rating: 4.5/5

Solange Knowles’ album drop was a surprise to many fans and followers of music. Compared to Beyoncé’s monster-of-a-success album, Lemonade, which drew audiences together to marvel at the visual aspect of the album, A Seat at the Table exceeds the immensely high standards.

I have some very strong feelings about Lemonade, mostly concerning the fact that Beyoncé herself did not write her music for the album. With a message that’s so intimate– the entire album talks about how her marriage is in peril– the album would have benefited from a more personal approach.

Secondly, if Beyoncé was truthful to the lyrics she sung and claimed were so personal to her– even though she didn’t write them– the conclusion of the album’s story would be Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s divorce. So, that leads me to believe that all of this was some kind of hoax. Whether to bring Beyoncé back in the game, or to bring Jay-Z’s music streaming company, Tidal, into competition with bigger names such as Apple music or Spotify, I can’t help but find Lemonade‘s message a little hollow.

This is not the case for Solange’s poetic LP, A Seat at the Table.

A very intricately placed album, Seat at the Table provides audiences of all races a view of the hardships of being a black woman in America. This comes at a very important time in American history, as all of us have an opinion about the hell which we call an election and all of the racial and gender injustices that have taken place in the 21st century.

We are still living in an age where we judge a person’s entire life based solely on the color of their skin or their gender. We’ve been taught that the United States that we live in today is distant from the one during the Civil Rights Movement, but there are daunting similarities between the two time periods, and the truth is, we are still living through a Civil Rights Movement.

They are different, though, as we don’t live in a time where one cannot eat at a specific restaurant as a result of the color of their skin. But we do live in a time where we become nervous by cause of a person who seems to be Middle-Eastern or of Middle-Eastern descent sits next to us on a plane. Or we switch sides of the street when a black man walks towards us. Or we assume a Latino is struggling supporting their family because she is working a minimum-wage job. We take so much from all of these cultures, but we still have the need to stereotype them.

Though Solange only directly speaks about injustices faced towards black women in this country, all of these themes are present throughout the extent of A Seat at the Table.

The album feels a bit experimental at times, but that by no means is a bad thing. A Seat at the Table includes smooth, bass-driven songs that are sung in a soft, peaceful vocals, contrasting Beyoncé’s big, heavy voice that occasionally overpowers the arranged music in the background. This album regards the arrangements in the majority of the songs much more than Lemonade does. Lemonade also doesn’t possess anything new for Beyoncé. It’s really just a mix of her mid-2000s sound with the sound of her 2014 self-titled album, Lemonade.

Contrastingly, the differences between this album and Solange’s last are huge, even though she did hint at her variety during the two first two songs of her last album, “So-Angel” and “The Hadley St. Dreams”, which is much more derivate of the saxophone and trumpet. The electro-jazzy-synth choruses of some of the songs are an attempt to bring the past into the future. Combining the two genres is risky, but in this case, it pays off to bring in a new, fresh plate to the table.

Solange is a main contributor to this album. Nowadays, artists only sing the lyrics that are written for them. But in this case, Solange, sings, writes, and co-produces this album with Raphael Saadiq, which shows us the versatility she has as an artist. This helps the album as a whole, as it persuades us that this endeavor matters to her. Her previous albums did not include her in the writing process.

Whenever an artist writes their own music, which shows their dedication to their craft, it always benefits the album. Not writing shows laziness and indolence. This is a criticism I have with many artists in the business today. You would never hear of Bob Dylan not writing his own music. You would be appalled to hear that The Beatles didn’t write their own music (if they didn’t). Today, we react so casually to the fact that most pop singers do not write the lyrics to the song in which they do not give credit for.

In the album, there are many instances where interludes come into play. Because the album is constant– meaning that the music to the previous song goes right into the next– we often hear interludes, a period of time in an album during which a person simply speaks, in between songs. Solange takes these moments to talk about with people about their experiences with black representation and interpretation.

“It really saddens me when we’re not allowed to express that pride in being black, and if you do, then it’s considered ‘anti-white’,” mother Tina Lawson says during “Interlude: Tina Taught Me”. “No! That’s just ‘pro-black,’ and that’s okay.”

With a subtlety to the vocals, Solange’s message is hardened by the quiet, peaceful sound of the songs. “Don’t Touch My Hair” is a song about all of the disrespect and judgment people of color receive. A slow beat carries this song behind the xylophone-sounding keyboard and at times Animal Collective-sounding arrangement. The chorus is horn-based with trumpets as Sampha sings softly during Solange’s singing. “Don’t touch my hair, if it’s the feeling that I wear,” Solange states. She then goes on to say, “They don’t understand what it means to me, where we chose to go, where we’ve been to know.”

“Where Do We Go?” talks about the stereotypes given to black drivers pulled over and how they are “scanned” in everyday life. Again, a slow beat with piano solos derived from Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” pull this song together. Heavy bass, Elton John-esque piano, and pop beats make for an interesting mixture of genres present in the song. Where do black people go to call home? Where is a place in which they are not all viewed as criminals?

A Seat at the Table is a terrific sounding LP, which surpasses Solange’s older sister’s Lemonade. With a real personal message and better sounding music, Solange should be considered much more highly, after this LP. While being a poetic album, A Seat at the Table is a must-listen for the fall.