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Beyonce felt free to express herself on her chart-topping self-titled album. In the fourth installment of her Self-Titled mini-documentary, aptly titled “Liberation,” the singer explains how recording her album in New York’s upscale Hamptons beach region with great producers — including The-Dream and Hit-Boy — helped her create the proper atmosphere to be an artist and not just a mother.
“We had so much fun, we had dinners together, my family was there and I was breastfeeding, cornrows in my hair because I was spending so much time being a mother,” Beyonce says. “I would take a few hours out of the day and record. In real life I was this woman, this mother trying to get my focus and my dreams and myself back and you know recording this album was such an outlet for me to kind of escape and create whatever world and fantasy that definitely at the time was not happening.”
She also reveals the recording process for one of her raunchier songs, “Partition,” which she says was sparked by the nostalgia of her teenage days when she first started dating her husband, Jay Z.
Beyonce recalls being in the studio and hearing the beat, which she says “takes me back to like when me and my husband first met and he’s trying to scoop me and, like, thinks I’m the hottest thing in the world.” She adds, “I kind of had this whole fantasy of being in the car and this whole movie played in my head,” referring to the song’s video where she makes out with Jay in the back of a limousine.
“I was so embarrassed after I recorded the song. And I’m like, ‘I can’t play this for my husband,'” Beyonce shares. “I still haven’t played it for my mom, she’s going to be very mad at me.”
She also reveals the how the accompanying visual was inspired by the memory of her husband proposing to her on his birthday and a later visit to a New York gentlemen’s club, known for its cabaret shows.
“I took him to Crazy Horse and I remember thinking, ‘Damn these girls are fly.’ I just thought it was the ultimate sexy show I’ve ever seen and I was like, ‘I wish I was up there, I wish I could perform that for my man,’ so that’s what I did for the video,” she says.
The album seems to spotlight Beyonce’s stance on embracing her sexuality while being a mom. She explains, “Just because you become a mother, it doesn’t mean you lose who you are.”
The singer then recalls getting her body back after giving birth to her first child, Blue Ivy. “I was very aware of the fact that I was showing my body. I was 195 pounds when I gave birth. I lost 65 pounds,” Bey says.
So how did she get back in shape? Bey says, “I worked crazily to get my body back. I wanted to show my body. I wanted to show that you can have a child and you can work hard and you can get your body back.”
After introducing people to her new alter-ego, “Yonce,” the singer explains why she’s not embarrassed by her sexuality and racier songs.
“I know finding my sensuality, getting back into my body, being proud of growing up, it was important to me that I expressed that in this music, because I know there’s so many women that feel the same way after giving birth,” Beyonce says. “You can have your child and you can still have fun and still be sexy and still have dreams and still live for yourself. I don’t at all have any shame about being sexual and I’m not embarrassed about it and I don’t feel that I have to protect that side of me because I do feel that sexuality is a power that we all have.”
The singer’s fifth solo effort, which boasts 14 new tracks and 17 videos, is available in stores now.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
