When Fifth Harmony broke up, I was excited considering the members, specifically, Normani can focus on their careers. However, although Normani has that star potential, I remember saying to my roommate, she isn’t going to make it because she’s dark skin.
A Lack Of Dark Black Women in The Music Business
The 90s has an abundance of dark skin black women in hip hop. Over time, the complexion got lighter and nowadays you see the same shade of black women in music videos. The Nickis, the Rihannas, and the Beyonces: fair black women.
What’s worse is that the moment there is another black girl who can sing, dance, rap, etc they are automatically compared to Beyonce or Nicki. It’s as if there is a limit of how many black women can be in the entertainment business and even in other businesses. Let alone, there are is almost no room for darker skin women in the music business. No dark skin women in this generation are practically mainstream/relevant.
She’s NORMANI. No one else but Normani. It’s not that I don’t want her to succeed, but society makes it so hard to give room to black women, PARTICULARLY dark skin black women.
Racism In Fifth Harmony
The racism that Normani faced in Fifth Harmony made matters even worse. Black girls already have to prove themselves way harder. As for Normani, one of the things she was ridiculed for was for not having the best voice. Although Normani wasn’t the strongest singer in Fifth Harmony, how many artists today can’t sing but are still able to sell a bunch of records? A bunch.
No one bothered to point out her dancing skills. But then again Fifth Harmony’s choreo didn’t showcase that well enough in my opinion. And back to her voice, the girl can sing. Her voice mellows me out.
And we all know about the situation when she had to temporarily quit Twitter because of Camilia fangirls. Despite how I think it’s dumb to stan celebrities, I think about how easy it is to put words into people’s mouths online. The video was blown out of proportion, but its interesing seeing how the racists come out and go so hard, defending someone they don’t even know. #Nolife
And I was even more disgusted by the lack of direct response/defense from Camila and her other bandmates regarding the Normani situation. Many times we need to have our own backs even though even our own people can have problems with doing that.
Motivation
Prior to Motivation, I fell in love with Waves. But, it wasn’t really a hit. Listening to Motivation, the song was decent. The music video made it iconic. Not only is she paying an ode to the early 2000s, but her dancing is marvelous and her flexibility is to die far.
In particular, the most sentimental and powerful scene, in my opinion, was the very beginning when her kid self is watching 106 and Park. Every kid just visions themselves watching T.V wishing and wanting to be something. As a black girl, there’s not much representation on T.V. It almost reminded me of the time I saw this black kid looking at a Black Panther poster.
So seeing that scene, it’s so relatable and nostalgic. But, it gives me hope. I felt like crying because, my god black girl magic. I can’t 100% say that Normani will last long because it’s too early and many artists start off with great hits and fall through. Look at the lovely Sevyn Streeter. It really depends. But, I sincerely hope she does and I can see her being an icon, especially for darker skin girls.
And if she doesn’t have her longevity, her music video is her personal win. She was trending all over social media this weekend and many celebrities were giving her attention. And most importantly, the music video was beautiful.
Normani always had potential, but Fifth Harmony did not display that. She s***s, or splits, on more than half these artists today, and I’m glad she’s getting that recognition. It surprised me that she’d get all this attention considering the history of darker skin black women getting ignored in the industry. But, she’s getting that great attention and I hope she makes me devour my initial words.