Beyonce's New Album Burns Jay for Cheating

The rumors were apparently true
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 24, 2016 9:35 AM CDT
Beyonce's New Album Burns Jay for Cheating
Beyonce and Jay Z watch during the first half of a game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Wednesday, March 2, 2016, in Los Angeles.   (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill))

For those betting Jay Z's infidelity drove Solange Knowles to famously swing at her brother-in-law back in 2014, the rumors were apparently correct and no other than Beyonce herself is tackling the matter in signature explosive and visually arresting style: Her sixth album, Lemonade, debuted Saturday night along with a one-hour HBO video special of the same name, Amy Zimmerman writes at the Daily Beast, and in the "deeply immersive experience," Beyonce goes "from jealousy to suspicion to outright war." She sets literal fires and stalks down a city street, baseball bat in hand, bashing anything in her way. "Too subtle?" asks Hardeep Phull at the New York Post. "Well, try the next scene, in which she drives a monster truck over a row of cars, completely obliterating them."

But even as Beyonce takes a stand as a wife betrayed, she also takes a stand as a black woman. "Oh yeah, if you thought Lemonade wasn’t ALSO going to be a manifesto about black femininity and racial identity in America, you thought wrong," writes Zimmerman. She takes the viewer further into the depths of her rage—going so far as to chuck her wedding ring at the camera—before coming out the other side with an apparent reconciliation. "She’s wearing her ring again, and he literally kisses her feet," writes Zimmerman. "Let’s just take a minute here to acknowledge the sheer badassery of a woman who convinces her husband to grovel on-screen in an album that’s all about his lying, cheating ass." Want more? People offers up a reel of GIF highlights from Lemonade. (More Beyonce stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X