Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Felt Resentment When Beyonce Sampled Her For ‘Flawless’

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Felt Resentment When Beyonce Sampled Her

While some would consider being sampled by Beyonce a major accomplishment, others not so much. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s  TED talk “We Should All Be Feminists” was sampled by Beyonce on her hit track “Flawless”. Some would assume she was thrilled by this, but the Nigerian author admits she didn’t necessarily view it that way. She laughed,

Literally every major newspaper in the world wanted to speak with me about Beyoncé. I felt such a resentment. I thought: Are books really that unimportant to you?

She continued,

Another thing I hated was that I read everywhere: now people finally know her, thanks to Beyoncé, or: she must be very grateful. I found that disappointing. I thought: I am a writer and I have been for some time and I refuse to perform in this charade that is now apparently expected of me: ‘Thanks to Beyoncé, my life will never be the same again.’ That’s why [I] didn’t speak about it much.’

Adichie admits that she respects Beyoncé bringing the conversation about feminism to a broader audience, but says their points of view differ.

Her style is not my style, but I do find it interesting that she takes a stand in political and social issues, since a few years. She portrays a woman who is in charge of her own destiny, who does her own thing, and she has girl power. I am very taken with that.

Beyonce

She adds,

Still, her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men. I think men are lovely, but I don’t think that women should relate everything they do to men: did he hurt me, do I forgive him, did he put a ring on my finger? We women are so conditioned to relate everything to men. Put a group of women together and the conversation will eventually be about men. Put a group of men together and they will not talk about women at all, they will just talk about their own stuff. We women should spend about 20% of our time on men, because it’s fun, but otherwise we should also be talking about our own stuff.

Check out Beyonce’s ‘Flawless’ below, featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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