Twenty sixteen\u2019s Lemonade<\/i> was Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s announcement that she wasn\u2019t going to take it anymore, an unapologetic catharsis about what it meant to be black, female, famous, cheated on, vengeful, empowered, and ultimately at peace\u2014in other words, what it meant to be Queen B. 2017\u2019s 4:44<\/i> was her husband Jay-Z\u2019s apology letter, his most vulnerable work in years (if not ever), a soul-searching album that mostly tossed the bravado aside and opted for humble confession instead. Everything Is Love<\/i>, the unannounced, unpromoted surprise of the summer, is the happy ending fans were hoping for, a collaboration that announces the king and queen are here to stay.<\/p>\n
Starting with \u201cSummer,\u201d the couple makes clear that there is no split on the horizon for America\u2019s biggest celebrity couple, stating in the final lines that \u201cLove is going to express itself as a form of forgiveness and compassion for each other.\u201d The song\u2019s smooth R&B makes the transition to the album\u2019s hit single, \u201cApeshit\u201d all the more jarring \u2013 where \u201cSummer\u201d traffics in the calm imagery of ocean waves, \u201cApeshit\u201d is all about the money, the fame, and the crowds. \u201cSummer\u201d is what the Carters may be in their minds, but \u201cApeshit\u201d is what they are in reality. And for fans, that\u2019s just fine, because \u201cApeshit\u201d is an unquestionable hit, drawing on the skills of Pharell Williams and Migos\u2019 Quevo and Offset to produce trap music that you\u2019ll put on repeat for days.<\/p>\n
The remainder of the album is a lot more \u201cApeshit\u201d than \u201cSummer,\u201d with tracks like \u201cBoss\u201d and \u201c713\u201d proclaiming Bey and Jay\u2019s supremacy over the culture. Tracks bounce between R&B and hip-hip, with Beyonc\u00e9 in particular showing remarkable musical range as she goes from fiery raps to soulful ballads. Jay-Z, while not stretching any new muscles, is energized in his verses, putting to bed any lingering fears that his status as a mogul has made him lose a step behind the mic. Especially in \u201cBlack Effect,\u201d his influence is felt, even as Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s talent looms larger over the album as a whole.<\/p>\n
Vulnerability rears its head again in \u201cFriends,\u201d which serves almost as a therapy session for the couple, one the listener eagerly eavesdrops on. As Beyonc\u00e9 sings about friends who \u201cpull me up \/ and never let me down,\u201d you can hear her pointedly reminding Jay-Z of his sins, only to ask him at the song\u2019s conclusion to pull her up from despair himself. Theirs is a relationship that has been down in the valley and is emerging anew, and the music reflects that.<\/p>\n
If you were to describe this album in two words, both musically and lyrically, the best description might be \u201cvictory lap.\u201d As the third part of a trilogy of transparency, Everything Is Love<\/i> sees a united Beyonc\u00e9 and Jay-Z, albeit one where the dynamic has shifted once and for all to Bey as the hero and star. She gets all the great lines, she gets all the sympathy, and she gets all the praise \u2013 but as long as Jay-Z gets to play too, all is well. After all, it\u2019s not about Jay-Z or Beyonc\u00e9 anymore, it\u2019s about the Carters. Long live the king and queen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":33539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[10213],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45360","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-carters","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45360"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45360"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}