Jamila Woods - GIOVANNI
This is one of my favorite videos of all time that encompasses a Black, Queer, and Feminist imagery. The song is titled Giovanni after Black Queer writer Nikki Giovani and ushers themes of energy, womanhood, hair, and divinity. Jamila Woods and Vincent Martell begin and end with images of black women that seem to hold a nostalgic meaning for the video. The queerness aesthetics are present in the fluidity of the video transitions and movement, vibrant colors, and the embrace of the black body. Along with the fluid styles the video embraces different movements of the body through boxing, dancing, and partying. With black women at the center, this work is deeply black feminists in its assertion that Black womanhood is divine, the ultimate flex. This divinity can be seen in the way Woods hoovers over and holds the city of Chicago in one of the final shots. The black aesthetics can be seen in the highlighting of black haircare products and black hairstyles like box braids and the iconic Black afro. This cultural product uses auditory accounts, archival footage, and movement to shows black women are “so perfect, so divine, so ethereal so surreal” and ultimately in the same vane queer and divine.