Beyonce In The Music Video 'Hold Up'

Within in music video ‘Hold Up’ the leading character is Beyoncé, as briefly stated earlier on, there was some belief that the music video ‘Hold Up’ was based on the Yoruba water goddess Oshun where Beyoncè herself portrays this character. Similar to the goddess who is often shown in the colour yellow while surrounded by fresh water, Beyoncè is wearing a yellow ruffled dress and is bare footed while there is a constant presence of water throughout the music video. Oshun is the goddess of female sensuality, love and fertility who can also be named the orisha or goddess. As Beyoncé channels the goddess through different segments, firstly by starting the introduction by suicide diving into the water to being underwater in a surreal dream-like
state located in a room. She is wearing a black jacket and removes it while she is being submerged, this in itself can be symbolic, while still underwater she has her eyes open and is looking at herself sleeping. As the voiceover seems to be overdubbed and dislocated from her body causing the audio to sound disortainted. After Shire’s poetry which is narrated by Beyoncè, she opens the two large golden doors she emerges while water is gushing past her and continued down the stairs.