
“That was cool, because we were creating a subculture video in the wrong city, and in their numbers were Indians and blacks and whites,” Nava told me.

Shooting in Paris, director Jake Nava populated the scene with models, actual London Rudeboys, and members of something called the Parisian Anti-Racist Skinhead Alliance. The accompanying video dramatizes that spirit via a multicultural punk-rock mosh pit. But the meaning behind it, to say ‘I just woke up feeling good,’ is what it’s about.” “It’s not to be taken literally,” said musician The-Dream, who co-wrote the song along with Beyoncé, Chauncey Hollis, Rey Reel, and Rashad Muhammad. By then, “Bow Down” had been reengineered into “***Flawless,” with the song’s original back half replaced by a TEDx talk snippet from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a rap from Beyoncé, and an instantly viral refrain about rising in the morning looking perfect. That track reemerged in December on the self-titled “video album” that she and her team created in secret and released sans forewarning-prompting an Internet freakout and enormous sales. And look in the mirror and say, 'Bow down, bitch' and I guarantee you feel gangsta.” Imagine a person that doesn't believe in you. "I went into the studio, I had a chant in my head, it was aggressive, it was angry, it wasn't the Beyoncé that wakes up every morning," she told iTunes Radio. That’s how she later explained the controversial six-minute sonic experiment called “Bow Down/I Been On” that she posted online in March of 2013. Before she woke up flawless, Beyoncé woke up mad.
