Citation:

Since the release of her self-titled fifth album in 2013, each Beyoncé volume has leveled up in some way — yet Lemonade bests them all in storytelling, revelation, and cultural resonance. In all she’s accomplished, she has yet to meet the world as vulnerably as she does here, laying bare the trauma of her very famous husband’s infidelity to their marriage and the empire they built upon it. Still, the shock and intrigue from that ends up trailing far behind the defining ethos Beyoncé constructs from her despair.

It starts with intricate songs that span time and genre, from the sugary, Soulja Boy-sampling reggae of “Hold Up” to the hard rock “Don’t Hurt Yourself” with Jack White to the country yarn “Daddy Lessons.” From there, Lemonade is foundational to the wide arc of studied genius we’ve come to expect from Beyoncé in subsequent years: For instance, the disrespect she and the Chicks faced performing “Daddy Lessons” at the 2016 Country Music Awards informed her hard pivot South eight years later on Cowboy Carter. Perhaps Lemonade incentivized the utter excellence of every work that followed because of its stunning losses at the 2017 Grammys — her third time losing Album of the Year, with another loss to come. For many, that night crystalized that being the best as a Black woman might never be enough. Yet, she continued to be just that.

Lemonade has always been is more than just an album. It’s a music film as layered, gorgeous, and haunting as a canonical drama, a matrix of generational heartbreak, a celebration of legacy, and a hand-drawn map to the intersections of many Black women’s interpersonal and political lives. That last aspect was especially palpable when “Freedom” became Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign theme. In 2016, the defiance and Black radical aesthetic of Lemonade’s hit single “Formation” was so bold that some police unions spitefully called for a boycott of Beyoncé — Lemonade soundtracked a shifting world, and rocked it too. While valid concerns exist as to whether she actually lives out the values of the social iconography she’s channeled or fundamentally contradicts them, the merits of Beyoncé’s artistry are undeniable. Put simply, Lemonade solidified her status among the best musicians of all time.

Beyoncé gave us everything with those visuals. And people paid that project dust. It’s not surprising that she’s not giving us much now.

I woke up in the morning…. And made my day

I‘m rewatching the Beyoncé Bowl on YouTube and almost choke singing, "Wildfire burnt his house down.“

What do you all think about Beyoncé living in LA and the devastating fires across the city just weeks after State Farm canceled thousands of fire coverage for those Palisades homes? Does anyone else think that’s weird?

And the mainstream is going to act like it was always a big thing. Just like she created name-Chella with Beychella.

🚫🩹🤕

Hi, i just wanted to know is there a website/link/PDF scans of the how to make lemonade boxset book? Its WAYYY too expensive to buy so i would be happy with scans of the book 😭

Hi! To anyone who got this set, how's it going? We recently got this and sort of intimidated how to start. Would love to see everyone else's progress. Or the finished product if you have it.

Thanks to my toddler, I believe Beyonce is referencing "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain." So I knew this song was about the rapture. But when I did some research, I learned this popular folk song is a rendition to the negro spiritual, "When the Chariot Comes." It is believed that it was code for the Underground Railroad. And the "she" is a reference to the Chariot. We have seen her driving a bus in the Amen visual during the tour and other vehicles in "I'm that Girl." She sings running through the river in "Riiverdance," which was a common method to escape to freedom during slavery. "She'll be coming around the mountain," originally being a negro spiritual falls in line to reclaiming our history and our culture. The rapture reference also makes sense for the transition to Renaissance and her singing lift off during the tour. Not to mention in the song, "When the Chariot Comes," it ends by she will take you through portals. We also see the imagery of portals in "I'm that Girl" visual.

Does anyone know which did the makeup for this shoot? Of course there are multiple different looks. I've realized she looks top tier without full coverage lipstick, only glossed over and sheer. The most popular album cover and cd booklet photoshoot as far as I see is for Dangerously in Love. Shot by Markus Klinko.

As the title says.

I find myself avoiding anything Bey related cause I can’t stop crying🤣🤣🤣🤣 maybe it’s just what comes with being a Cancer, and very emotional, but it’s becoming annoying now 🤣

I can only listen to her new music, cause there’s an emotion tied to any song I’ve listened to more than 10 times, immediate tears as soon as I hear it. I’m mostly okay with her real real old music like B’day, 4, DIL, Self Titled is a 50/50, but anything Lemonade and onwards is an immediate skip, unless I fancy a good cry seesion😀😀😀😀😀😀

I’ve seen her live 3 times, every time it’s just a 2 hour long sob session😀😀😀

I was putting off rewatching her halftime performance in full, because every short instagram reel brings me to tears - finally got over myself now, turned it on, immediately lost it.

Oh and don’t even mention her Coachella performance around me😭😭😭😭😭😭 I had to remove the live album from all of my playlists, cause the tear always catch me off guard at the most inconvenient times🥲🥲🥲

Why am I like this?? Is there any way for me to work through this? I love her so much, but I had enough of this cry baby nonsense🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

I typically have the most luck on Poshmark and Mercari then I’ll check Depop, Grailed or EBay. Does anyone have any other recommendations to look for merch on? I’m specifically looking for a xxl, 2x or xxxl in these shirts below. I know it’s a long shot but if anyone has these or has any suggestions of where to look please hmu! I believe they are the :

Renaissance tour Atlanta exclusive tee

Beyonce Renaissance (album release merch drop) Mugshot tee

Renaissance world tour LA exclusive tee

Beyonce Club Renaissance tee

No mother listed (except for Reba).

I’m so sad for her but also the amount of gorgeous black art she celebrated and owned in that house is also extremely saddening to lose.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmnm2g1z74o.amp

I’ve been listening to “Tyrant,” which is my favorite song from Cowboy Carter, on repeat since the Xmas performance. I usually listen to B’s music over and over and take mental notes about things like structure, instrumental and lyrical motifs, and just how she builds on her own ideas to tell a story. When you realize how much depth there is to her art, so much other music falls short in comparison. But there was always just so much in “Tyrant” that I only bothered to analyze it recently, and shit just clicked.

So here it is: the song is written (structurally and lyrically) as well as sung (by Beyoncé, Reyna, and Dolly) to capture the cycle of how romantically scorned women become Hangmen themselves and create Hangmen out of the women their actions harm.

First, the structure: “Tyrant” is a story within a story. The main portion is bookended by a speaker (played by Reyna) imploring the Hangman to tell her how she became what she is (“How did you turn your heart to stone?”); the speaker asks because she wants to become like the Hangman herself (“I hated you once, I envy you now…). The bulk of the story, however, is placed between this intro/outro, and it narrates the devastation that the Hangman causes as well as the fallout. In other words, it’s a non-linear narrative (and the non-linear element is super important) showing us how, exactly, the Hangman turned her own heart to stone, and how the speaker from the song’s intro is transformed as well.

This is an outline of the song’s major sections:

Intro

Prechorus A (“Oh she got that woah there…”)

Chorus (“She’s a tyrant…”)

Verse (“Send me some shots…”)

Chorus (“Tyrant every time I ride it…”)

Bridge (“How did you get used to the haunting?…”)

Prechorus B-1 (“Oh, she got that woah there…”)

Prechorus B-2 (“Diggadon’t, diggadon’t…”)

Chorus (“Tyrant every time I ride it)

Outro

Second is the singers and their characters: we start with Dolly, whose presence resonates because she once told a different version of the same tale in “Jolene.” But each of the sections above is either led/sung solo by Reyna, led/sung solo by Beyoncé, or is a harmony between them. Reyna takes lead during the intro/outro and harmonizes with B starting from the second prechorus until the end. Beyoncé sings everything else solo. What’s important to note is that Reyna and Beyoncé both sing, at different points in the song, as the Hangman and as the woman betrayed. That is, both of them play both characters in the same song. Reyna plays the harmed woman in the intro/outro, but she harmonizes as one of the Hangmen at the end. Beyoncé plays the harmed woman in the prechorus and bridge, but she sings from the Hangman’s voice everywhere else (and a little bit in the prechorus too). So how do we make sense of these changes in perspective?

The whole song, I think, is about the rebirth of women from one archetype (victim of betrayal) to another (Hangman). What happens between Beyoncé and Reyna’s characters is just one spin around the circle of a Hangman’s victim becoming a Hangman herself and “setting a match” to another woman’s life. The closer you look, the more you see how the song’s non-linearity captures the repetition of these events.

So that’s the background. Let’s break it down.

Reyna (her character, that is) is the victim of Beyoncé’s Hangman in the intro. We know because she addresses the Hangman directly. When the beat drops and Beyoncé starts the prechorus, she narrates the Hangman’s arrival in town, but she switches between her once and future roles as victim and victimizer: “You can hear her body howl” and “I feel her eyein’ me like owls” is Beyoncé (her character) just before some even earlier Hangman has caused her anguish; “Don’t pay me in gold” and “Back outside, I’m on the road” is Beyoncé right before she does the same to Reyna, at a later point in time. But the shifts in perspective and time aren’t actually shifts at all: they signify the cycle that Beyoncé is both part and perpetuator of.

Every instance of the chorus is sung from the perspective of a Hangman as she spells destruction for other women. In the chorus, the Hangman is in the act of sex with another woman’s man, riding him, a tyrant over the man’s body and, later on, dictating who his woman will become as a result of the betrayal. The chorus captures the moment when the cycle is begun again.

The verse after the chorus is also sung squarely from the perspective of a Hangman. At this point, the speaker, having lived through her betrayal and transformed into the woman who traumatized her, has come to embrace and revel in her ascent as an agent of pain: “That’s so sexy and I know it, and I ain’t afraid to show it/Baby, I’m goated, baby, I’m glowin’/Hey, hey, on the run, run/Tap me on the shoulder when you reload the gun.” What’s missing, though, is the moment of transformation. When does the woman from the prechorus, who heard the Hangman’s body howling and who was being watched like owls, become a Hangman herself?

The chorus repeats and then segues into the bridge. This, to me, is the most important moment in the song, because it’s here that we hear Beyoncé make the same exhortation of her Hangman that Reyna makes to Beyoncé in the intro. “Hangman,” she sings, “teach me how not to cry.” This line captures the moment when Beyoncé shifts identities, when her own heart turns to stone. And she sings it over and over, three times, the repetition an echo of how woman after woman has died and been reborn at the hands of their Hangmen.

At this point, we, the listeners, have heard the full story. We know how it goes, even if we’ve had to add the pieces together across time. The prechorus starts again, the Hangman come to town, but as Beyoncé sings, Reyna joins her, taking the top of the harmony, the pitch of her voice above Beyoncé’s suggesting the rise of a new Hangman. What happened to Beyoncé, we can surmise, has happened to Reyna, and the two continue to harmonize through the last chorus and the outro. Reyna’s voice added to the mix here tells us that the woman in the intro who begged the Hangman “just tell me how” has learned what she needed to, joined the ranks of Hangmen, and has found her own twisted but undeniable sense of empowerment from it.

I know there are many people affected who cannot afford to rebuild / lost everything. It’s so sad and scary and devastating. Thinking of anyone here that might affected too <3

I keep seeing lists of celebs who have lost their houses or evacuated. is Beyoncé gonna let us know she is okay?! Can we assume they got outta there?! I’m sure we can count on Ms Tina to post something!

Is this the best halo performance?

Was rewatching the glastonbury performances. Forgot how good they were, Beyonce is just a powerhouse and such an unbelievable performance for anyone let alone knowing shes pregnant. I especially loved the halo performance and think its the best she's done from memory, I was feeling a bit over halo for a bit but this performance is just chef's kiss brought back why it's such a good song.

And I noticed she's also holding her tummy during the performance so cute and amazing no one picked up on ot at the time.

Was just thinking if there is a tour coming up, chances she comes to Australia are pretty low looking at her track record.

What's the best place to see her? Has anyone been to shows in different countries? Can comment on which ones are easy to get around to venues etc as a tourist.