"She's so vicious."

A&P loves Beyoncé (and Destiny's Child). We've made it clear. But further praise is necessary, because MJ's death (what else) has brought forth some new information about her, specifically, a fresh calm about the word fierce. I'm a great fan of the most recent effort, I Am...Sasha Fierce, but have bitten my lip at the title and that old moniker, Sasha Fierce, a self-appointed nickname for B's performative "alter ego," each time I've heard it. For me, fierce is a word rooted in Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Empire, over-overused gay fay-shun slang for...um...fabulous? We also love ANTM/The Tyra Show, but DIFFERENT WORLDS. Fierce struck me as dumb and cartoonish, fine for reality television, but not for our reigning Diva.

However, on Friday June 26th, the day after MJ's passing, while watching the "Thriller" video, I noted phrases in which it was impossible to describe his dance, his expressions, his singing as anything but fierce. In 1982, Michael set aside sweetness (of both the precocious soul-child and disco-sugar variety) and attacked his steps and lyrics, not-so-incidentally playing a hungry zombie and werewolf. By the late eighties, ferocity was MJ's standard, a central theme of the album, Bad.

Now, B's use of fierce seems part of an old, appropriate tradition. She is a brilliantly aggressive performer, with a good bit of Michael's disarming sweetness at her disposal. She has posed this dichotomy of humble Houston Belle and strutting, otherworldly Alpha herself, and, finally, I see that it works. Ann Powers disagrees with me. Oh well.

The only thing that still consternates is B's use of the word it....as in, "Shoulda' put a ring on it," or "Check Up On It," a song that has sounded so good to me lately that I've worked to quiet Mom's voice in my head--"This dehumanizes women!"--and listen to it on repeat...it's not like I don't absorb countless derogatory rap songs with pleasure.