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Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album

Beyonce Answers Questions About New Album In Fan Q&A

December 22, 2013 - 9:47 pm by VIBE

Beyonce held a private screening of her visual album Beyonce on Saturday, Dec. 21 at New York City's School of Visual Arts. Open to a handful of radio contest winners, the 32-year-old diva answered a few questions about the LP during the intimate gathering.

“It’s interesting how motherhood changes you and it changes your perspective on life," Beyonce told the crowd before answering five questions. "I took all the things that I wanted to change about myself and all the things I wanted to share, and I put it into this record. More than the music, I’m proud of myself as a woman. The biggest message is owning your imperfections and all the things that make you interesting because I refuse to allow someone to put me in anybody’s box.”

Check out Beyonce's answers to questions about her album in the gallery that follows.

Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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What was the hardest thing to keep the secret about your new album? Beyonce: Well, it was many things! Oh my god, it was so hard and I still every single day, I have gotten on my knees and thanked God that this happened. Well, it was a lot of craziness, we went through. One of the things, I had a earbud in the videos and basically the song would be playing for me and the director, so for instance, “XO” we’re walking through Coney Island and everyone’s screaming and you know those earbuds, they have a lot of static and you can barely hear and I’m trying to lip sync to the lyrics, I can barely hear anything and I know I look completely out of my mind…and people are like “HI! BEYONCE,” so no one knew why I was just speaking, while they were talking to me, but we went through a lot of things to keep it secret and to keep the surprise because there’s something missing, it’s such a joy and it’s something I was able to experience growing up and I really really wanted to surprise people and for them to really just hear the art and it not be about the hype and promotion and we actually did it and it just says so much about my team. You know, I started my own company, and my father taught me so so much, so much! And when I decided to manage myself, it was important that I didn’t go to some big management company. I felt like I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire and show other women when you get to this point in your career, you don’t have to go sign with someone else and share your money, and your success, you can do it yourself. So I found a team of underdogs, a team of women, a team of people that no one believed in, and we worked together and we stayed up all night and we were progressive and we did not follow the rules and we said, “Why can’t we do it?” and I don’t think people believed you know? I said to so many people, “I have an idea to do a visual album,” and everyone was like “Ok.” And we did it! And not only did we do it, it’s my company and I’m very proud of that.
Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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What inspired you to be so open with your personal life on this album compared to your previous albums? Like in the songs “Mine,” “Partition,” and “Drunken Love,” what was the story behind it? Beyonce: You know, I’ve always been very generous. I’ve always been very generous on the stage and I took all of my pain, all of my joy and I used it in my performance, but I’m very private, I’m very respectful and I think it just took me no longer being someone’s child. Once I became a mother, I felt like I could tear down those fourth walls and I just felt like it was time. I completely feel liberated and I felt like I could no longer create my art for other people, so I just felt like it was time.
Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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Where were you right when you released your surprise album? Beyonce: I just got off the stage. It was 11:30PM once I took off and I had a glass of wine and my cousin Angie was like, “Girl, you alright?” Because I was talking to myself, because I was terrified, I was so scared and I already envisioned like the worst things that could happen, I’m like, “People are going to hate it, why didn’t I say anything?” I mean it’s just things that we all go through, it’s just human, and I was just really nervous because this was a huge risk and when I landed, I saw it actually live on iTunes and you know you’re just waiting for the first comment and the next morning…(Crowd exploded in appease and cheers)
Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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Who is Yonce? Is she like Sasha? Is she an altar-ego? Beyonce: Well, Dream actually came up with Yonce. We were in the studio and Justin Timberlake started beating on buckets, so when you hear the beat, that’s literary a bucket and it was really organic, it reminded me of being in middle school during lunch breaks when you just start free styling and so we kept the production. We went back and forth and I was very adamant about keeping it organic because that whole feeling is what’s so beautiful about it and Dream started [singing], “Yonce all on his mouth like liquor” and I’m like what does that mean? But I love it. I think Yonce is Beyonce. Mrs. Carter is Yonce. Sasha Fierce is Yonce and I’m finally at a place where, as I said earlier, I don’t have to kind of separate the two anymore. We’re all one. It’s all pieces of me and just different elements of a personality of a woman because we are complicated.
Beyonce holds fan Q&A on new visual album
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Aside from charts and statistics, what would you have hoped to have achieved with this album when you look back maybe 10 to 20 years from now? Beyonce: This was my first album that – of course I wanted people to love it and I wanted critics to love it and I want it to be successful, but my goal was not picking a number one single, my goal was putting together a body of work and I just wanted to know if people cared about music because honestly I was at a point where I felt like everything it feels the same and what I said in “Ghost,” “All this sh*t I do is boring,” that’s how I felt and if I could not challenge that, then maybe it was time for me to do something else or develop more artists, which is something I want to do, but growth and I just hope that I continue to move forward and challenge myself and I think now that I’ve become a mother, I just want my legacy to inspire people and I guess that’s the biggest goal is having happiness and knowing that when people come to my shows, they can escape all of the madness and leave there feeling like there’s hope.
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