CIARA - MELANIN FT. LUPITA NYONG’O, EATER DEAN, CITY GIRLS, & LA LA

Ciara returns with an anthem for self-love over a booty bass on "Melanin"!

Beauty standards are BS. The idea that humans need to fit into some prototypical mold to be beautiful, desirable, or worthy of love is crap. We are not products, not meant to be displayed in clamshell packaging like collectible action figures.

Every body is beautiful, every heart, every mind, every soul. Thankfully, society's catching up to this idea. We've still got a long way to go, however, which is why we need anthems like Ciara's "Melanin."

CIARA - MELANIN FT. LUPITA NYONG’O, EATER DEAN, CITY GIRLS, & LA LA

Ciara's been on a mission towards helping others find self-love and acceptance since her last album, Beauty Marks. According to Ciara, "“This is ultimately an anthem of self-love, which is a journey I’ve been on since my Beauty Marks album. It celebrates the beautiful shades of culture that comprise the inner and outer beauty of everyone. Embracing the unique nature of our skin tones threads together the tapestry of humankind.”

She gets some help on her mission on "Melanin," joined by some of her talented homegirls, Lupita Nyung'o, City Girls, Ester Dean, and La La. The ladies take turns dropping rhymes and spitting verses like an old school rap crew.

Everything about "Melanin" is old school. It's mostly built around an electro booty bass drum machine, like the greatest Egyptian Lover outtake you've never heard, topped by some classic jump rope rhythms and rhymes. It's got al the charms of late '80s/early '90s hiphop, but without the hokiness or bucket hats. They even have a shot-out for all of the beautiful, talented ladies out there killin' it.

It's unlikely you would've heart such acceptance or positivity during that era, however. Society was still playing the game, still adhering to the '50s advertising standards of women as products. It creates a nice "What If?" mental scenario. What could today's culture look like if we'd ferreted out those toxic threads 20 years ago?

We Are: The Guard are here to remind you it's never too late. Whoever you are, you are beautiful. Go out and shake your stuff, work it like you own it. Because you do.

J. Simpson occupies the intersection between criticism, creativity, and academia. Based out of Portland, Or., he is the author of Forestpunk, an online journal/brand studying the traces of horror, supernatural, and the occult through music, fashion and culture. He plays in the dreamfolk band Meta-Pinnacle with his partner Lily H. Valentine, with whom he also co-founded Bitstar Productions, a visual arts collective focused on elevating Pop Culture to High Art.