Hadeel Abuhamda
English 1101
May 5, 2019
Queen Bey
Everyone knows who BeyoncĂ© is A.KA “Queen Bey.” Unlike many, I have a very unpopular opinion about her and well, I believe she’s a bit overrated. She dropped an album on April 23, 2016 called “Lemonade” and everyone went wild about it. It turned out to be a Grammy winning album. To be specific, this album earned her sixth consecutive number-one album on the charts. As of December 2016, it sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States, which made it the third best selling album of the year. (Wikipedia) All over these songs, she battles through heartbreak, betrayal, and infidelity. When I first heard about it, I wasn’t very interested in actually listening to it. Once again, I just thought it was everyone doing the usual of worshipping everything that she does. But, I have to give it to her. She really did do her thing on this album. And that’s coming from a person who doesn’t necessarily like her.
I will say, BeyoncĂ© seems to be the one artist, in whose voice people find their own stories. With this album, you can tell she poured her everything into it. A dozen songs plus a sixty minute movie that is more than just advertisement for the music, but an important partner that supplies context and deepens the understanding. It’s apparent that this album is her most accomplished and cohesive work yet. This album is more than just music and play for pop supremacy. It is the work of an artist who is trying her best to know herself better and deeper for better or worse and letting the listeners in on the sometimes brutal self inspection. Lemonade bristles with anger, vengeance dreams, political disappointment, internal turned inquiries and commotion.
If you ever been cheated on by someone who you thought you can trust and who thought you would be too stupid to notice, the first half of Lemonade is for you. At first we might have thought that Beyonce is only using the album to tell the world about her experiences with Jay-Z’s un-loyal self. Probably for publicity reasons. But then again, it’s BeyoncĂ© does she really need any more buzz? This was probably what caused it to get so much attention because everyone viewed this couple as “goals.” That just shows that we never know what goes on behind closed doors. But, in the second half of the album we start to realize they actually have a happy ending and that this isn’t the only theme she’s going for in her album.
This album is so much more than Jay-Z and to be completely honest I feel like a lot of people missed that… Actually, I know a lot of people missed that. Apart from marital infidelity, the album is structured around feminism, the black lives matter movement, black identity, and more. People might have missed these concepts if they didn’t see the visual part of the album. The visual album in itself is a sixty minute long celebration of black culture and more importantly, black women celebrating themselves. For example, in “Sorry” the women are in tribal clothing, tribal paint, and tribal hairstyles. Then we see BeyoncĂ© sitting on a throne with Serena Williams beside her. This scene is set to represent two powerful, successful, and influential women. Then there’s the song itself that represents women no longer putting up with infidelity. But, it also goes way deeper than that. Take the song “Forward” for instance, BeyoncĂ© brings Trayvon Martin’s and Michael Brown’s mothers to shift the focus from her internal issues to those that are occurring on the outside. This one seems to encourage a form a collective healing. “Formation” makes a bold political statement on both police brutality and black feminism. She filled the video with images that read “Stop Shooting Us.” She also stood on top of a sunken police car to let everyone know where she stood on these issues. Although the song itself might be just another catchy BeyoncĂ© track, the video does make some powerful statements.
Lemonade is more than I ever thought it could be. Although I previously said I’m not a fan of hers, I would never deny the fact that she is indeed talented. After Lemonade, I answered my own question as to why it is that she’s so successful. We all know Beyonce sings with her usual soul and irreplaceable skills. But, her passion, representation, and creativity is what I believe that has gotten her to where she is today. The point is even if you don’t like Beyoncé, like myself, the fact that she is using her platform to get this out to thousands of people that might not be aware of these issues is actually brilliant. Sometimes it takes people like Beyoncé to get people talking, thinking, and understanding these issues. My advice to you would be, listen to Lemonade and dedicate some of your time to watch the visuals. The visual album provides a whole other level of understanding of this narrative. Beyoncé really outdid herself with this one. And once again, this is coming from someone who isn’t a big fan of hers.
Works Cited :
- Dam, Freja. “BeyoncĂ©’s ‘Lemonade’: A Visual Tale of Grief, Resurrection, and Black Female Empowerment.” Spin, 26 Apr. 2016,
- www.spin.com/2016/04/beyonce-lemonade-hbo-album-film-analysis/
