Ballroom Culture Tags Used in Events

While other songs on the Renaissance album like “HEATED” feature more sonic appropriations of a ballroom commentator’s fast-paced, onomatopoetic , scat-like repertoires, “PURE/HONEY” relies the most on the sonic presence and discursive expertise of three samples: MikeQ ft Kevin JZ Prodigy’s “Feels Like”, Kevin Aviance’s “Cunty (Feels Like)” Wave Mix, and Moi Renée’s “Miss Honey”. The song could be considered as two tracks in one, hence the two names “PURE” and “HONEY”. Notably, the overall flow of the album has no clear beginning and end between the songs, so the duality of sound in one track contributes to the dynamism and ability to pull together so many critical samples. Working with the song as a text, much like a literary work, the preface and conclusion to the song are by renowned artists in the world of ballroom music. The samples serve as lyrical and sonic canon from which Beyoncé’s voice is brought in and dismissed at the end of the track:

1 Cunt (cunt to the feminine, what)

2 Cunt (cunt to the feminine)

3 Cunty (cunt to the feminine, what)

4 Cunty (cunt to the feminine, what)

5 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

6 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

7 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

8 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

9 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

10 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

11 Cunty (cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)

12 Feminine to pussy cunt, feminine to pussy, what

You cannot talk about ballroom and vogue music without engaging the discursive tool of ‘cunt’. The incantation of “Cunt” from Kevin Aviance’s “Cunty (Feels Like)” sets the foundation of the song, while Kevin JZ Prodigy’s “(cunt to the feminine, what)” and “(cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt)” echoes afterwards. This sonic synchronicity shows a synonymous discourse of cuntiness, or an expression of queer femininity, putting them in conceptual harmony as well.

The concept of cuntiness, as associated with feeling and essence, also shows up notoriously in Grace Jones’ “Walking in the Rain” song: “Feeling like a woman, looking like a man/ Sounding like a ‘no-no’, making what I can.” (Jones 1981). Between Jones and Beyoncé is a critical discursive history, based in Black women’s oral traditions as we acknowledged with “Poets at the Kitchen Table” by Paule Marshall and Centering Ourselves by Olga Idriss and Marsha Houston Stanback. Francesca Royster writes that “Jones may transmogrify this Caribbean tradition into a patois informed by bodily, as well as vocal, manipulations of punk and performance art, but the spirit is still shared.” (Royster 156-157). Black women and the Black LGBTQ+ community’s relationship is shared in many ways on the grounds of discourse but more importantly on the grounds of Black oral traditions and open criticality. The transfer of these discourses into song requires an understanding of an even larger context of Black oral traditions and the geographies that facilitate such a history.

Kevin JZ Prodigy in an interview explains the language and embodied expression of ‘cunt’ by saying, “Cunt is a feeling, cunt is a mood, cunt is not a read. If you feel cunt, you feel soft, you feel feminine. You feel really good. I feel cunt right now. Do you feel cunt?.. ‘Cunt to the feminine, what!’ Exactly. You have to feel it. You feel cunt walking into your place. You work, you feel cunt with it. But bring the cunt! It's an embodiment. It's a formula. Kevin Aviance started that, and I took and ran with it.” (GQ 2023). The call to feeling cunt and feminine embodied expressions is one that Black sonic traditions have crafted since the early 1990s. It also serves as an affirmation of gender-expansive femininities and how such expressions should spark joy in the everyday.

The repetition of “cunty” is mixed in with the “cunt” repetition in “Feels Like”, to the point that they are in dialogue with one another, then sonically intertwined so that you almost can’t hear the difference in speakers. Aviance’s descriptions of cuntiness in this case likens itself to flowery eminence. Whether feeling like a daisy, a lily, a rose, or “an orchid!” (performed in exclamation)– the feeling is clear and visible to all. Aviance opens this feeling to all by repeating at the end: “She's cunt, he's cunt, they're cunt, I'm cunt” which makes cuntiness also a unifying essence of self; one that has no gender attachment. Aviance’s physical performance aligns with the “queer eccentric Post-soul” traditions of “gender code switching [and] facial gestures that might threaten a loss of emotional control one minute and then switch to a cool mask the next.” (Royster 28).

Sample mixing

Sample mixing

The discursive references Beyoncé makes to ballroom and the sampled Icons and Legends include lines 21-22, 27 and 39:

“PURE/HONEY”: “Feels Like”:

21 Bad bitches to the left 41 Should I go, should I go, should I

22 Money bitches to the right go left?

42 Should I go, should I go, should I go right?”

Sample mixing

“PURE/HONEY”: “Cunty” and “Miss Honey”:

27 Get your money, money, 3 Cunty, cunty, cunty, cunty,

cunty, hunty cunty, cunty

39 Sweet honey sin, taste it 1 Miss Honey, Miss Honey

on your lips

The “left/right” parallelism of discourse shows a transformation between songs from question to command, something that otherwise isn’t an obvious call-back without the lyrics of “Feels Like” present. Moving into the directive, Beyoncé reminds “bad bitches” and “money bitches” that “You can be both, meet in the middle, dance all night”. This meeting in the middle between Black community members feels like call for shared space to make and maintain Black LGBTQ+ traditions and ballroom culture, despite monetary or physical difference. Giving directions in song also points to a powerful Black musical lineage, especially in the world of ballroom where its function is to guide the movement of performers.

These examples of paralleled discourses–specifically with the Black LGBTQ+ discourses of “cunty” and “hunty”– not only upkeep the sonic continuity between vocalists but also the semantic continuity of Black LGBTQ+ traditions. Beyoncé presents a morphological innovation which emerged within the Black LGBTQ+ community with the words ‘cunty’ and ‘honey’, turning it into ‘hunty’. The discourse marker “cunt/y” appears in “Feels Like” and “Cunty (Feels Like)” Wave Mix, which also share the concept of ‘feeling’ in their titles.

Sample mixing

Sample mixing

Sample mixing

Sample mixing

Sample mixing (only instrumental)

Sample mixing

The introduction of the song is a repetitive percussive/horn element that serves as the foundation of the beat and eventual layering of other percussive elements. The use of camera flash sounds (not present in the sample "PURE/HONEY") provides an extra visual element, demanding the listener to focus on Aviance's critical vision of self.

From the repetitive bumps to the break of the cymbals, there is a build up and crescendo met with the visual performance by Aviance. A mash-up of several performances, the visuals are edited (sped up and slowed down) to match the time of the beat in the song. This use of multiple videos express a variety of embodied performances, from open-mouth laughter, to twirls, spotting and fashioning herself with a feather boa.

The adlib repitition of "cun-" is present and similarly sampled in "PURE/HONEY". This is an example of remixing and repetition that interjects on language legibility, privileging sound to repeat the unit 'cun-' to create a repetitive beat alongside the percussive elements.

Aviance moves slowly between the phrases “Feeling cunt, feeling tea”, which gradually gets sped up into the signature mix of “cunt-tea” and the eventual “Cunty” repetition sampled by “PURE/HONEY”. The compounding of words /cunt/ and /tea/ not only represent a linguistic innovation but also a semantic shift of the two words into one: /cunty/

This is an example of a Black queering of sound through mixing. Aviance is innovating on language as well as sound, crossing linguistic boundaries and imbuing new semantic content that would otherwise be lost in the sample of the song in "PURE/HONEY"

I know you hear me calling you, Miss Honey

Here I am and feeling fierce!

Don't you hear me calling you, Don't you hear me calling you, Miss Honey?

Outro performance