Music

Beyoncé’s ode to Levi’s Jeans is giving the brand a moment

Levi’s was founded in 1853 by a German-Jewish immigrant

A member of the Bey Hive wears a denim jacket with Beyoncé’s name. Photo by Emil Ravelo/Getty Images

By PJ Grisar April 8, 2024

Beyoncé’s latest alter-ego is a blue jean baby — and that’s leading to some real-world profit for an iconic American brand founded by a Jewish immigrant.

Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s new No. 1 album, features a track called “Levii’s Jeans,” in which the singer invites her lover to play the part of her dungarees, so they might “hug that ass all day long.” As a lyrical comment on Genius.com helpfully elaborates, “instead of feeling the denim gripping on her butt, Beyoncé allows her man’s hands to do this job.”

Levi’s was quick to seize on this prominent homage, adding an extra “I” to their social media to fit how Beyoncé styled it in the title. Since the song dropped, Levi’s stock rose 20%, once again proving that when Queen Bey speaks, the world listens.

Levi Strauss, born in Buttenheim, Bavaria, invented blue jeans as we know them with the help of another Jewish immigrant, Jacob W. Davis, who hailed from Riga. In a classic tale of immigrant industry, Levi Strauss became a brand synonymous with the United States, and thus a fitting touchstone for Beyoncé’s Americana album.

It’s not clear if Beyoncé, who sings the song with Post Malone, is fully aware of the company’s origins — maybe she attended the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s exhibit on Strauss — but she, like so many Americans, clearly has a history with it.

“Denim on denim on denim on denim,” she sings, bringing to mind a Canadian tuxedo, but she also avers that “these blues” are in her genes, which she shares with her sister and Celestine (her mother).

In the grand American tapestry, denim is an inseparable part of the fabric. Looking ahead, and knowing Beyoncé’s penchant for referencing past work and gifting us double meanings, the nod to Levi Strauss suggests this may only be the beginning.

I’m not saying to expect an ode to anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, but don’t rule it out. After all, they have that accented e in common.

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

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