‘Music should always be about the song’ — What I learned while attending a Beyoncé music class

The Jazz Urbane Cultural Commentary

My first journey into song this winter is through this writing as a visitor to the class I attended on Beyoncé’s music on Jan. 29, at the Berklee College of Music.

The class was titled, “Songwriter Analysis: Songs of Beyoncé,” and is taught by Associate Professor Keli Nicole Price from the Songwriting Department. Professor Price co-wrote “Déjà Vu” on Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning album “B’Day.” According to the description, “The class offers students an in-depth exploration of the lyrical and musical compositions that have shaped Beyoncé’s career and her cultural impact.” The class includes conversations with some of Professor Price’s colleagues who are also writers and producers of Beyoncé’s songs.”

“Music should always be about the song. The song matters. When a song is well written, you can feel something in it … . We are going to be digging deep into this human,” she told me. And this human is Beyoncé Knowles, who in this class, is referred to as “Our Queen.”

The class is now in its second offering this spring semester. What makes this class unique in content and approach is the professor, a member of “The Queen’s” songwriting camp. 

What struck me about this assignment was that I was asked to bring perspectives on the class, but this journey brought me deeper into other aspects of the lady known as “Our Queen.”

Beyoncé on the Renaissance World Tour at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on June 1, 2023. PHOTO: Raph_PH/wikimedia commons

My first writing on the work of Beyoncé was run in the Bay State Banner in a piece titled “Beyoncé’s Beehive is Buzzing,” from April 11, 2024. I noted then, “Music-making is essential and as fundamental as human existence. It is a crucial sounding of how the planet breathes. The greatest gift of music is a song that carries stories and human experience, raises questions, inspires joy, and hope, and burns great melodies and rhythm in your head. Beyoncé in her music does that.  ‘Lemonade’, by Beyoncé, was to me what music should do as a carrier of culture and a signifier of the best we can become.”

Back to the professor. During the class I attended, first up in the lineup was the work of Destiny’s Child, with a young new up and coming Beyoncé.

And the homework given was to do an analysis of a series of recorded songs to find the “theme of empowerment.” Well, I was impressed because this is the way I believe a class on contemporary songwriting in this age, might get students to actually understand the value of song.

In Professor Price’s words, “The songs matter and connect to how the artist wants to present themselves.”  Said Price, the only Black female professor in her department, a department that offers three sections of Taylor Swift.

I asked her, “What’s the thing that you hope to achieve doing this class?”

She responded, “With all the music that was offered in our department there were no representations of Black women who were being featured that are changing the game. Beyoncé deserves to be recognized. She changes the narrative. She is giving us the blueprint.”

Price went on to say, “She has done things that have changed the game, album by album. Since Destiny’s Child stepped into the scene, there has been a shift in the industry. This deserves to be recognized. The main goal was to show them that other things are important. They (the students) do not have to stick to the norms. They can create their narratives as women. When you think of the business assets, wow. She puts her name on everything she does. That’s just good business.”

Associate Professor Keli Nicole Price teaches “Songwriter Analysis: Songs of Beyoncé” at Berklee College of Music. PHOTO: Bill Banfield

Ownership of the work is one of the thing Price wants to impress upon her students.

“Whitney Houston died with no stakes in publishing for “I Will Always Love You,” and that song is Whitney Houston. So I wanted my students to know, you can make you the priority in your life. You can even fire your dad!” the songwriter said.

Keli’s approach to teaching the class is a juxtaposition of videos as text layered in with lyrics, critical commentary and Keli’s own experience as an industry player having worked with Kelly Rowland in addition to Beyoncé. Along with her love and excitement of the music, she weaves memorable and lasting industry insights along with her concern for the over-sexualization of young women.

As I stated, music-making is essential and as fundamental as human existence. What I know is, in this class situation the educational pay-off is the gift of music. It’s the songs they learn about and write. These songs raise questions. They also inspire joy and hope, while teaching values. Black music defines American beats. It is the music that has provided the “on-ramping” of many of our popular cultural banners, sayings we sing first from Duke Ellington’s 1943 hit, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” to “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me” and “Living my life like it’s golden.”

From the spirituals to ragtime, blues to jazz, country to bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, reggae, soul, rap to reggaeton, to Beyoncé, all can learn richly through the lens and experience of Black arts history and culture.

Most serious artists, from every culture era and walk of life, are dedicated to how arts uplift and contribute to the world by inspiring people and giving joy. The impact is important. And out of this grows the mother of social change, industry strangling Beyoncé, full-blown as Queen B.

This Sunday night at the Grammys, Beyoncé, did it . …

This was the year that she finally got her flowers when she won Album of the Year for “Cowboy Carter.”

I believe these students are getting an extraordinary journey into the work of one of the popular music industry’s most extraordinary contemporary Black artists. I loved the class, sign me up!