For all of you Beyoncé fans and stans and any other such members of the “Beyhive”, you are aware that Beyoncé drops songs and albums out of the blue from time to time without any prior notice. And this is no exception. The Queen Bey released her surprise album titled, Lemonade, after the premiere of her HBO special which was centered around the music.
There are 12 songs on the album and they shed a personal light on Beyonce who portrays herself “as a scorned lover.” Now, I don’t have Tidal or iTunes, but thanks to the good members of Twitter, I got to listen to a few songs (before they got deleted) and I must say I am impressed. I am not anywhere close to being a huge Beyoncé fan but I do like what I have heard so far and there are two songs in particular that have peaked my interest.
The first is “Don’t Hurt Yourself”, which has a sort of old school, jazzy, kind of ominous sound to it and I absolutely love it. I feel that it helps to add a lot of character to the song. In this song Beyoncé rants (to Jay-Z presumably) and basically tells him that she doesn’t necessarily need him and she definitely doesn’t need his money. She mentions that he (whoever the man this is directed toward) is not trying hard or enough or loving her nearly enough and that to be quite frank, she is “just too much” for him. Another thing I find quite interesting about this song is her inclusion of part of a speech by the late activist Malcolm X. In it, he talks about the black woman and how she is the most downtrodden member of society. Beyoncé leaves this “woman thou art scorned” attitude in “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and moves into a “sorry, not sorry” type of mood with her next song, “Sorry.”
In “Sorry” Beyoncé shows that she is completely unconcerned with this mystery man and states “I ain’t thinking ’bout you.” In the last verse of the song, Beyoncé speaks of regretting marriage and hoping to find out the truth. But despite these hopes, she will have distanced herself by the time her lover even understands what happens and even with this sort of separation, she and her baby “gon’ be alright.” One intriguing line which got the Beyhive riled up is the last line of the verse which is repeated and goes “Better call Becky with the good hair.” Now Becky is a stereotypical name that is used to describe a white girl and “good hair” is a term which relates to hair that is easy to manage, which whites are known to have. The Beyoncé stans were up in arms when they heard this line and believed “Becky” to be none other than Rachel Roy (who was first confused with Rachel Ray) who was brought up in the disputes between Jay-Z and the Knowles’, most famously during the elevator incident with Solange. Roy even had an instagram post after the album dropped (which was later deleted) with a caption that included “good hair don’t care.”
Honestly, I am not certain if this album is truly centered around Queen Bey’s personal life or not, she is a relatively private person. Maybe time will tell. (But probably not)
References:
“Beyonce Knowles Lyrics.” AZ Lyrics. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Coscarelli, Joe. “Beyoncé Releases Surprise Album ‘Lemonade’ After HBO Special.” NY Times. 23 Apr. 2016. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
Feldman, Jamie. “She Says She’s Not ‘Becky With The Good Hair.’ So Who is Rachael Roy?” Huffington Post. 26 Apr. 2016. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
“Sorry.” Genius. Web. 26 Apr. 2016
npr5083 says
I hope this album is not about Beyonce’s personal life. Beyonce and Jay-Z are one of the few celebrity power couples that do not act like idiots and make fools out of themselves in front of the media. It’s refreshing to see to megastars like them get along. But, frankly, I don’t see why Beyonce would release this album with all these hints if they were not truly about her life. She does not seem like someone to tease her fans and listeners like that. Like you said, though, only time will tell whether the album reflects her life or is just a generic project to relate to broken-hearted men and women.