![]() ![]() Here, he raps in conversation with Beyoncé, professing directly to her and giving her the chance to interject. While Jay’s raps on 4:44 were confessional, they were rapped in whispers, as if recounted to a shrink or recorded into a phone mic for a voice memo. In its verses, one of the greatest rappers of his generation finds an able rallying partner. Though there will always be a pop tint to anything Beyoncé does, Everything Is Love is largely a rap album. ![]() Dre’s “Still D.R.E.” in the hook on “713,” she’s tracing this lineage, adding weight to her earlier “Nice” claim “Freestyling live, blueprint from my Jigga who never writes.”īeyoncé, Jay-Z Collaborators Detail How 'Everything Is Love' Came Together When Beyoncé repurposes lyrics Jay thought up for Dr. (Their daughter, Blue Ivy, pops up constantly like a recurring character.) Their depiction of an enriched black life, via a triumphant Rap-&-B windfall with nods to Chief Keef, Shawty Lo, Common, and Biggie and homages to Kalief Browder, Trayvon Martin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, extends beyond their immediate family to those they’ve influenced and who’ve influenced them. They focus on each other first and their kids, being respecting partners and indulgent parents. The most glaring analog for such a statement is Watch the Throne, Jay’s collaborative album with frenemy Kanye West, which Beyoncé references offhandedly on “LoveHappy.” Both albums reconcile relishing extravagant black wealth with mourning a broken American political system, hoping listeners find visions of a freer black planet in their revelry, but only Everything is Love foregrounds family matters. They let Quavo ad-libs echo through the Louvre as they pose before the Mona Lisa in the “Apeshit” video, a fitting metaphor for rap’s infiltration of predominantly white spaces.Īs “Black Effect” makes obvious, and “ApeShit” conveys more understatedly, the Carters can’t and won’t forget their place in the black community, even as the continue to climb the highest rungs of white society. Bey’s wearing 35 chains and demanding to get paid in equity. ![]() Jay challenges the SEC and seeks a commendation for the part he played in freeing Meek Mill for good measure. In celebrating their reconciliation, the Carters take a victory lap hand-in-hand, and they have more ways to stunt than most, performing outsized rap boasts few others can match: saying no to the Super Bowl (“You need me, I don’t need you”), going to war with the Grammys, ignoring Spotify (“’Cause my success can’t be quantified”), dismissing Trump attacks (“ Your president tweeting about Hov like he knows us”). Pairing piano plinks with 808 bass, “713” takes their love to the streets. The Pharrell-produced “Nice” strips the fluorescent sheen off Lil Uzi Vert’s “Neon Guts” for something decidedly less animated but no less satisfying. “ApeShit” converts a Migos demo into a glitzy high-end trap boomer. “And we started making music together.” In teaming up and completing this personal triptych they show mediation can be a tonic.Įvery Awful Thing Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second Termīeyoncé and Jay co-produced every song, but Cool & Dre, Pharrell and Boi-1da distinguish exactly what the album sounds like – at times classicist and often trendy but usually stunning. “We were using our art almost like a therapy session,” Jay told the New York Times. But it isn’t quite reconciliation or vindication until they come together. ![]() The ultimate power couple has been finding resolution and absolution through an active artistic process that’s apparently been as therapeutic and corrective for them as it’s been enrapturing for everyone else. It’s an act of reciprocity.Įverything is Love is the refreshing final chapter in a trilogy of albums that includes Beyoncé’s unburdening 2016 odyssey Lemonade and Jay-Z’s 2017 conscience-stricken apologia 4:44, glimpses inside a strained marriage from both sides. In its embrace of cooperation, it finds strength in presenting a unified front and rallying against common enemies. Released in the second week of their On the Run II Tour after a show at London Stadium, the album realizes the power in learning from our failings. “I got real problems just like you,” Beyonce grumbles on “Boss.” They’re people, too, they suggest-people who can shut the Louvre down on short notice to film a music video, but people nonetheless. It’s a gesture Beyonce telegraphed with the unofficial campaign slogan of her Formation Tour: “God is God and I am not,” and it’s a guiding theme of Jay and Bey’s new surprise album, Everything Is Love, which they’ve released as the Carters. Lately, though, they’ve shown signs of trying to balance their massive public profiles with a desire for accessibility and superstar demystification. Beyoncé and Jay-Z have closely guarded the particulars of their private lives for years. ![]()
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