Who? Molly Novotney, Senior Analyst
Molly’s creative hero: Beyoncé
She’s everyone’s creative hero, but why exactly did Molly choose Beyoncé? There are so many reasons: her fearlessness, her attention to detail, her commitment to delivering quality everything. Plainly put, Beyoncé never does anything half-assed. Whether it’s an album, its corresponding visuals (still waiting on the Renaissance visuals, girl) or a stadium tour, she takes her time and makes sure every detail makes sense and flows perfectly. Her approach to stepping into different genres is the same: She takes her time, internalizes all the inspiration and information she can, and comes back with her own fully realized interpretation of it. No matter what, she’s going to deliver a body of work that stands for something. She’s truly a creative master in every sense of the term.
The piece of Beyoncé’s work Molly comes back to again and again:
The real question is what works of hers don’t I come back to? Recency bias aside, Cowboy Carter has been such a special work for me personally. I grew up in rural Illinois, surrounded by a very particular aesthetic when it came to country music. This album not only broke every mold for the country music genre — and all other Americana music genres — but it also did what Beyoncé does so artfully and returned the genre back to its actual roots in Black America. By embarking on this endeavor, she kicked down the door for so many Black and brown artists to break into the mainstream.
Its opening track, “Ameriican Requiem,” is perhaps one of the greatest thesis statements for a body of work I’ve ever heard. She starts off by acknowledging how she was made to feel an outsider during her 2016 Country Music Awards performance with The Chicks. She follows it up with her own upbringing and family history, stating that she’s not new to this. She even calls out how she and the rest of Destiny’s Child were cast out as “too country” or “too curvy” or “too Black” for mainstream pop music. To cap it off, she declares that she’s reshaping country and Americana music (“Goodbye to what has been / A pretty house that we never settled in”) and proceeds to show exactly how she does that. It’s an absolute master class.
What Molly does when starting a new project:
My friend Nick Wineland said it best: He needs to “go off into the data forest and come back with recommendations.” Fully grounding myself in a client’s owned data, as well as relevant research on the topic at hand, is how I approach a new project. And of course, meeting frequently and collaborating with other strategy and creative team members.
Her idea of happiness:
A quiet lakeside dock, free from mosquitoes and cell service.
Her idea of misery?
St. Louis during a heat wave. Sorry to all the 618 folks out there.
The most beautiful thing Molly has ever seen:
All the children playing together at my neighborhood park. They don’t care who you are or where you’re from, they just want to add another person to their game of tag. It’s beautiful.
Her first concert:
Lady A at the National FFA Convention — if you know, you know.
