The award-winning Nigerian author,
whose speech was sampled for Beyoncé’s
2013 hit “Flawless,” addresses the pop
star in a new interview. In her 2013 single "Flawless," Beyoncé sampled
a speech given by award-winning Nigerian writer
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie entitled "We Should
All Be Feminists." The internet was awash with
thinkpieces discussing the pop star's
"newfound" feminism or, conversely, the lack
thereof.
The author was recently asked about the the
song by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant ahead
of the Dutch translation of her TED talk. "'In the
first place: of course Beyoncé asked permission
to use my texts, and I did give her permission,"
Adichie said. "I think she's lovely and I am
convinced that she has nothing but the best
intentions. In addition, Beyoncé is a celebrity of
the first order and with this song she has
reached many people who would otherwise
probably never have heard the word feminism,
let alone gone out and buy my essay."
Adichie told de Volkskrat that she was shocked
at the response from the press regarding her
involvement, particularly by the number of
interview requests she received about the video:
"I felt such a resentment (laughs loudly). I
thought: are books really that unimportant to
you? 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."
"Still, her type of feminism is not mine," she
said. "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 per
cent of our time on men, because it's fun, but
otherwise we should also be talking about our
own stuff."
She went on to conclude her comments by
praising Beyoncé for taking a political stand and
"portray[ing] a woman who is in charge of her
own destiny, who does her own thing."
In a 2013 conversation with author Zadie Smith,
Adichie briefly touched on questions from
cultural commentators on the validity of
Beyoncé's feminism. "I think the world views
[Black women] differently and how things are
read differently," Adichie said. "Beyoncé, so she
chooses to own her sexuality and there’s
somehow something bad, just deeply bad about
it. It just seems to me like the White version of
Beyoncé wouldn’t have that kind of response."
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