Suga Mama
| Suga Mama | ||
|---|---|---|
| Single Beyoncé | ||
| from the album B'Day | ||
| Released | April 2007 (UK) | |
| Genre | ||
| Length | 3:25 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Writer | Beyoncé Knowles, Rich Harrison, Makeba, Chuck Middleton | |
| Producer | Rich Harrison, Beyoncé | |
| Beyoncé singles chronology | ||
| Beautiful Liar (2007r.) |
Suga mama |
Get Me Bodied (2007r.) |
Suga Mama is a song written by Beyoncé Knowles, Rich Harrison, and Makeba, and produced by Knowles and Harrison for Knowles' second solo album, B'Day (2006). It features a sample of Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers' song "Searching for Soul", which was written by Chuck Middleton. The music video for the song was released on television in the United Kingdom in April 2007.
Music video and other promotion
The "Suga Mama" music video was released to UK music channels in April 2007.[1] It is black-and-white and was co-directed by Melina and Knowles for the B'Day Anthology Video Album, which was released the same month;[2] it was one of eight videos shot in two weeks for the album.[3] It begins with Knowles sitting in a chair, wearing men's clothing and smoking a cigar. She gets up and begins to pole dance. The remainder of the video presents Knowles dancing on top of a sugar cube, dancing with backing dancers whose faces are partially concealed, lying in a circle of light and riding a mechanical bull. Knowles said she is meant to "slowly become a woman" during the video, adding "Well, a sexier woman — I'm always a woman."[2]
Knowles rehearsed the pole dancing using two ballet bars, which was when it was decided to add a pole above her head to form an arc. Though Knowles is from Texas, she had never previously been on mechanical bull. There were no problems during warm-ups, but the man operating the bull during the video shoot programmed it to go faster, causing Knowles to fall off when she tried to perform tricks such as lifting up her foot, leaning back and turning around. To minimise the time Knowles spent on the bull, the director shot the sequence at twelve frames per second (see frame rate) and Knowles sang twice as quickly, but it was not until 4:00 a.m. that they completed work.[2]
"Suga Mama" was included on the set list of Knowles's 2007 tour, The Beyoncé Experience, and The Tennessean wrote that the song "was even sexier and more gutbucket than on record".[4] A remix of the song features rapper Consequence.[5]
References
- ↑ "Beyonce - Suga Mama" Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine. RCA Label Group (UK). April 24 2007.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Vineyard, Jennifer. "Beyoncé: Behind The B'Day Videos". MTV News. April 2 2007.
- ↑ "Beyonce releases 'B'Day' video album". Associated Press via USA Today. April 5 2007.
- ↑ Friskics-Warren, Bill. "Review: Beyoncé and her all-female band inspire, uplift". The Tennessean. July 19 2007.
- ↑ Concepcion, Mariel. "Consequence Snags DMC For Video, Preps New CD" Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine. Billboard. July 16 2007.