NORTH CAROLINA A&T STATE UNIVERSITY

GREENSBORO

Brown Skin Girls of America

By: Alana Smith

Course: JOMC 303 Mass Communication Research Methods

Section: 002
Instructor: Dr. Kim Smith
Semester: Fall 2019
 Abstract

The song “Brown Skin Girl” made by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Blue Ivy Carter

uplifts, motivates, and elevates every black girl or woman across the world. Even though most of

them are looked at as lesser, this song boosted some confidence that almost died. Living in this

world most of the time black people are constantly looked at as inferior to the other races. From

police brutality to just having injustice in everyday lives black people has always been

oppressed. And in today’s time black women have harder obstacle’s because not only are they

black they’re women as well, so society really thinks they don’t need to have a voice and gets

disrespected the most. This paper will discuss how brown/black girls were affected by this song,

how does brown/black girls feel about the song once they hear it, what occurred in the black

community after this song came out and lastly what will this song do for most brown/black girls

in the future.

Introduction

Brown skin girl was recorded by Beyoncé and her seven-year-old daughter Blue Ivy a

very well-known singer not only in America but internationally as well. Beyoncé is a twenty-

third Grammy award winning artist not to mention the sixty-six Grammy award nominations

under her belt. With her incredible shows and performances Disney felt as though she was the

perfect person to play the leading role as Nala in the live action movie “Lion King” this past

summer. Lion King grossed over $422 million in the USA and over $968 million worldwide,

making it the third largest grossing animated film in history. From this anticipated movie came

an album that released a week or so before the movie came out. This album was a soundtrack for

the movie that featured Beyoncé and some other artists.

 Beyoncé held six songs on the album; NILE, MOOD 4 EVA, reunited, ALREADY, war,

and of course BROWN SKIN GRIL. All these songs possessed deep rooted African pride, taking

elements of musical cultures from places such as Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and South Africa.

The song “BROWN SKIN GIRL” made a huge splash in the social media community amongst

black girls everywhere. The song made the billboard charts a total sixty-three times and placing

number one ten times. In almost every other post whether on Facebook, Instagram, or twitter

some one was using the song in stories, flipagram videos, or just adding their own twist to the

lyrics. There then emerged a “#BROWNSKINGIRLCHALLENGE where black people

everywhere would sing or rap their own lyrics to the beat of the song.

Results/ Findings

Once I conducted a thematic analysis of the Brown Skin Girl lyrics three themes came

out of the songs. The first theme was “Exclusive “and the like codes consisted of words that

describes black women and their skin which was; rare, elaborate, and irreplaceable. The second

theme was “Confident “and the like codes consisted of words that describes the black community

and how strong it is which was; independent, excellence, shining, showstoppers, and elegant.

And the third theme was “Captivating” the like codes consisted of the resiliency of the black

culture which was; stunning, beautiful, radiant, and admirable.

In my research this song was made to magnify the black culture and not just black culture

but to black women. Black women are the ones that birthed black culture but gets disrespected

the most in this world. By men, other races, and the media. In this society black women gets the

shortest end of the stick in every scenario that goes on in this world. Being from being abused to
kidnapped to even being killed and having no one to protect them makes black women feel

unneeded and unimportant.

So why not make a song dedicated to the magic black women possess and give them that

boost of confidence that they are beautiful, important, and strong. In today’s times its starting to

be rare occasions that black women uplift other black women, and Beyoncé along with her

daughter Blue Ivy opened the door to self-love and loving one another in the community of black

women.

Discussion

What I’ve learned while doing my research on this song is that as a culture we’re really

going backwards in society. And this song fits in today’s current cultural landscape because the

no one is protecting from black women from self-esteem and colorism issues and that ultimately

has black women thinking they’re not good enough for this world. But it just takes a song from a

powerful black woman to send the message to the black race that they need to utilize self-love

and loving one another. It also sends a message to other races that’s not black that black women

are beautiful, and the black culture has something that no other race would be able to have. This

shows the black culture is filled with kings and queens and that they should be treated as such.

Limitations/ Future Research

In the future I would love to see more songs like this come from different black artist that

truly and genuinely want to uplift their community and everyone that’s apart of it. In the future I

want there to be so much awareness to self-love within the black race that it overflows into the

world and let’s every race imaginable feel it and finally give black people the proper respect and
honor that’s so necessary to the future. And maybe that dream of Dr. King’s would be

completely be realized and come to pass.

 References

“Blue Ivy Achieves Her First Billboard Hot 100 Hit.” Consequence of Sound, 30 July

2019, https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/07/blue-ivy-first-billboard-100-brown-skin-girl/.

“All the Numbers You Need to Know about ‘The Lion King.’” Marketplace, 11 Sept.

2019, https://www.marketplace.org/2019/07/18/the-lion-king-by-the-numbers/.

“Beyoncé Knowles.” GRAMMY.com, 10 July 2019,

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/artists/beyoncé-knowles.