In a time when MTV only plays music videos after the shocking deaths of legends… In a life where BET is without a Rap City, 106 & Park, or Uncut… It is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter who has the world watching music together again.

In Thriller-esque fashion and with HBO* as her vessel, Yoncé has served up a rich helping of LEMONADE for the masses to consume, proving once again that she is always on time.

#RIPPrince

LEMONADE is like a Buzzfeed article in long form, laying out the phases of processing hurt and heartbreak. It is easily Beyoncé’s most cohesive project, her most self-aware and, arguably, her most impactful.

With obvious African, Caribbean, and Deep Southern influences throughout the music and visual component, Beyoncé has really given us an overwhelming lot to take in. The video, rooted in the marred and complex history of Blackness, highlights topics like betrayal, self-love, and being a brown-skinned woman in a world where it’s difficult to be one. Even for Beyoncé.

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“I’m not too perfect // to ever feel this worthless” – Track 2, HOLD UP

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LEMONADE starts with what sounds to me like chants and harmonies from a work song, which were sung by African-Americans during slavery as a way of “withstanding hardship and expressing anger and frustration through creativity”**, and that’s what I feel the album demonstrates.

Beyoncé is at her darkest on LEMONADE, splaying some of her rawest thoughts and emotions out for everyone to see and feel. She weaves viewers and listeners through different stages like denial, anger, emptiness, and redemption where she narrates a story of endangered love as if she’s lived it herself.

In the first few songs, Mrs. Knowles-Carter channels the spirit of a lovesick woman and takes us through the frustrations of suspected infidelity, deception, and disrespek.

For the first time, it’s as if Beyoncé has truly let the world into her home, her bedroom, and her well-protected private life. The lyrics seem so personal that I almost feel like an intruder, like I shouldn’t be hearing what I’m hearing.

The peak of anger is reached on “DON’T HURT YOURSELF” featuring Jack White (yas yas), which contains some of the more pointed lyrics on the album. Lines like “keep your money // I got my own // Give a bigger smile on my face // bein’ alone”  have people practically dubbing Beyoncé the president of the She Woman Man Haters Club. However, songs like this are sooo necessary because what she sings about is real. Many women (and men) experience pain as a result of love, and Beyoncé is showing that she’s no exception.

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“Nine times out of ten, I’m in my feelings // but ten times out of nine, I’m only human” – Track 7, LOVE DROUGHT

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Never before has Beyoncé appeared so touchable. Her problems so… earthly and common. For a woman who I sometimes think is a robot, LEMONADE is a tremendously courageous leap away from many of the shallow tunes we’ve heard from Beyoncé in the past. Her bravery and strength is admirable. Her vulnerability is a sign of true autonomy.

In “LOVE DROUGHT”, Beyoncé asks herself “what did I do wrong?” It’s a question many of us ask ourselves when something doesn’t go the way we want, but often, the fault does not lie within the victim. It is the one inflicting pain who should self-evaluate and maybe examine the chorus of “DON’T HURT YOURSELF”. *side eyes*

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“What is it about you // that I can’t erase, baby // when every promise // don’t work out that way?” – Track 8, SANDCASTLES

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After Beyoncé questions why her man could do her so dirty when she’s treated him so well, the process of forgiveness begins, and she works toward moving past the situation.

By incorporating mothers of victims of police brutality, along with other black women who appear to have lost men in their lives, Beyoncé is showing that everyone experiences heartbreak, disappointment, and grief in different ways. Love comes in many forms and relationships, but the effects of it are not uncommon.

Love is what everyone desires and needs, but learning to live with the unglamorous aspects of it is just a part of being human. In this story, Beyoncé chooses to overcome and move forward instead of falling victim to the chains of insecurity and resentment.

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“I break chains all by myself // Won’t let my freedom rot in hell // I’ma keep running // ’cause a winner don’t quit on themselves” – Track 10, FREEDOM

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In the latter half of LEMONADE, we are shown that LOVE, a thing that can bring you pain, can also bring you happiness. It triumphs all. Beyoncé emphasizes this with songs like “SANDCASTLES”, “FORWARD”, and “ALL NIGHT”.

By the end of the album, we’ve completed an arc that shows how women can and do experience everything on the spectrum and, sometimes, multiple things at once – like the elation Beyoncé feels while smashing windows and cars with her bat, Hot Sauce, during “Hold Up”. We can be angry, forgiving, hopeful, jealous, and all of the other previously mentioned adjectives. We are everything.

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“True love breathes salvation back into me // With every tear came redemption // And my torturer became my remedy” – Track 11, ALL NIGHT

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In a society that constantly tries to define, label, and categorize us, Beyoncé is reiterating Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” and every trope like it. Not only are we everything, we are entitled to feel everything. We don’t need permission.

My story may not align perfectly with Beyoncé’s, but she’s evoked more empathy from me with LEMONADE than any of her other albums. It is a message that everyone can pull from, but its intention is directed to women – more specifically, the “most disrespected… most unprotected… most neglected person in America”, The Black Woman.

The uplifting of women of color is very necessary. To see women from all over the brown-skin color wheel on a project with Beyoncé-level exposure is so important, and to see a figure like Beyoncé display an exemplary process of love and strife breeds hope.

Our fairest Queen has reached an unprecedented level for herself, womankind, and Blackness. In a time when the thirst for empowerment and encouragement is at an all-time high, our need has been partially quenched by Beyoncé’s awakening and refreshing LEMONADE.

Keep it going.

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NOTES

*HBO has some of the greatest programming of ALL TIME.

**from The Antebellum Period by D.D. Volo (Greenwood, 2004); pg. 278