On first listen, Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade is all about Jay Z’s cheating. Spin magazine calls Lemonade “a visual tale of grief, resurrection, and black female empowerment” and goes on to say: The album’s title is drawn from Jay Z’s grandmother, who is shown in the film at her 90th birthday party: “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.” No, Lemonade tells the story of marital infidelity in such a way that Beyoncé – as the narrator of these songs – becomes a stand-in for all women who have been betrayed, particularly all black women who have been denigrated as second-class citizens (or worse). You couldn’t say Beyoncé slays on this album if this were merely a tell-all complaint. On the surface, Lemonade may tell the story of Jay Z’s infidelity, but to say that makes it sound as though you’re getting the latest issue of Us magazine or some other celebrity gossip rag. As she says in “Formation,” “I might just be a black Bill Gates in the making.” It’s safe to say that Beyoncé and her husband, rapper Jay Z (who owns Tidal), likely earned considerable money from this album and film. Two months later, Beyoncé released Lemonade, both as a “conventional” album (which in its release exclusively via the Tidal streaming service can hardly be called “conventional”) – and quite unconventionally, as a “visual album.” Back in the 1970s, we would have called this a “concept album” – but the term “visual album” refers to the fact that the entire album is also presented as a 65-minute film, which premiered on HBO in April 2016 the same day the album was released. I continue to watch the video and listen to the song – and I continue to hear and see new cultural references every time I witness this powerful piece. So many layers of African American history – from Creole culture to New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, from the Black Power movement to Ferguson and #blacklivesmatter. Like many Americans, I pored over the video, read the lyrics online, read analyses of the song and the video, talked with others about what they were hearing and seeing. Indeed, it made an entire nation sit up and take notice. “Formation” – especially the video Beyoncé released the day before the Super Bowl – made me sit up and take notice. She slays precisely because she contains vast multitudes. “I contain multitudes.” The same might very well be said of Beyoncé. Indeed, it seems that any genre is just too narrow to contain Beyoncé. Now I am not a big fan of hip hop or pop music or what the Grammys call urban contemporary music, but ever since Beyoncé’s performance of “Formation” at last year’s Super Bowl, I have been mightily intrigued by this powerhouse of a performer.įor Beyoncé’s songwriting and performance go well beyond hip-hop or pop music or urban contemporary or R&B. That’s the only word to describe her achievement on her most recent album, Lemonade.
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