What's The Real Meaning Of Alien Superstar By Beyonce? Here's What We Think
Beyoncé's last full studio album, "Lemonade," was filled with lyrically poetic and personally meaningful songs. She referenced her husband Jay-Z's infidelity. We learned the existence of "Becky with the good hair." She made strong political statements about race, family, and feminism. She changed the whole game by releasing the 12 songs as a "visual album" intended to be watched as a completed film. It was the album that cemented Beyoncé as the universal queen of everything.
So naturally, now that she has at last released her follow-up album, the first act of a three-parter called "Renaissance," fans want to know if they can expect the same kind of meaning in Beyoncé's latest tracks. Is there something deeper she is trying to say in "Alien Superstar," the third track on the album? The song begins with the lyrics, "I'm one of one, I'm number one, I'm the only one / Don't even waste your time trying to compete with me," per Genius. But there's more to it than first meets the ears.
Alien Superstar has a deeper meaning
Beyoncé's "Alien Superstar" continues into the chorus, which contains an interpolation of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. Only instead of sexy, Beyoncé sings, per Genius, "I'm too classy for this world, forever, I'm that girl / Feed you diamonds and pearls, ooh, baby / I'm too classy to be touched, I paid them all in dust / I'm stingy with my love, ooh, baby." But there's more to this track which, like the rest of the album, references and was inspired by queer ballroom culture.
For instance, the lyric, "I got diamonds beneath my thighs, but ego will find bliss," appears to be a reference to Maya Angelou's line in "Still I Rise" that says, "Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I've got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?" The song also samples the work of another famous and influential Black woman — Barbara Ann Teer, who founded Harlem's National Black Theatre. "Alien Superstar" includes a sample of Teer's "Black Theater" speech, according to the liner notes, where she says, "We dress a certain way / We walk a certain way / We talk a certain way / We, we paint a certain way / We, we make love a certain way, you know?"
So, it might sound like a standard bop — and it is a bop — but the song is really a celebration of Black queer culture.