The ever-so influential Beyoné Knowles, generational queen and all, just struck again. Vogue magazine will be her oyster after being chosen to be on the cover and her first order of business was to employ the first black photographer to shoot a Vogue cover.
Vogue magazine will not only allow Beyoncé to be their cover girl for the September 2018 issue, she has chosen to bring Tyler Mitchell, 23, to shoot it which will make him the first black to shoot the cover in the magazines’ 126-year history.
Anna Wintour, Vogue’s long-time editor isn’t known for favoring black culture, or the full-figured. So this comes as a bit of a surprise and regardless of Wintour’s true intentions, this is yet another monumental accomplishment by the 36-year-old musical icon.
Despite the April 2008 Lebron James cover as the King Kong of basketball, portraying him as an ape, and Oprah Winfrey’s 1998 October cover where she had to lose 20 pounds first, Bey gets her own spread. She gets the opportunity to guest-edit her own spread in this magazine.
Mitchell will take the photographs and Beyonce will write the captions for them. Beyoncé has always been unapologetically black and from the looks of it, that will continue. She uses her celebrity platform to raise issues that aren’t politically correct in any way, something that our modern society has shied away from. From her Black Panther themed Super Bowl, to her bringing black culture to the Grammy’s and diversifying Coachella, Beyoncé continues to do whatever she wants to do.
Leon Talley, longtime Vogue editor-at-large would be proud. Considering everything he had to sacrifice for his position of influence; his blackness being the main thing, paved the way for Beyonce to do what she’s doing now. At just 36, Bey is like Thanos to these historically white events and continues to insert her culture on each one of them.
We’ll have to see what Beyonceé has in mind for the September 2018 Vogue issue but it’ll surely be well put-together as all of her projects are.
