From Saartjie to Queen Bey: Black Female Artists and the Global Cultural Industry

Abstract

This work historicizes the uses and abuses of the black female body and talent through the global Eurocentric cultural industry. It focuses on the figure of Saartjie Baartmaan, the Hottentot Venus as the icon of the deeply embedded other. The article provides strong evidences that Saartjie Baartman serves as a conduit for a new generation of black female artists led by Beyoncé Knowles slaying these racist and ideological formation and the cultural industry legacy of racialized power and privileges. Concomitantly, the creation of new categories of female blackness that explode conventional stereotypes, clichés and foreclosed categories for Black female artists to open up new avenues for power, autonomy, authorial voice and prestige that complicate the power game within the global cultural industry.