Beyoncé plunges from the side of a building, disappearing into a seemingly limitless pool at the moment the asphalt rolls out its welcome. She floats through submerged rooms, tailed by the words ‘Are you cheating on me?’, before thrusting its doors open and allowing the water to escape in a torrent. Smiling as Hold Up kicks in, she takes a baseball bat from a kid on the street and sets about wreaking havoc on parked cars. This is the denial stage of ‘Lemonade’. There are more fireworks just around the corner.
‘Lemonade’ is a double feature about human emotion and near superhuman execution. As a collection of pop songs it's deeply ambitious, uncompromising and at times way beyond the reaches of many artists, with its visual accompaniment at turns colourful, gleeful, troubled and upsetting. Always, without pause, it’s arresting. But its heart is suspicious, wounded and then broken, before being patched up.
Beyoncé has surprised us before with a visual album, back in 2013, but 'Lemonade' draws a line between the two. That self-titled record's romance and endorsement of marriage takes a few shots early on here and only just manages to make it back out into the open by the time the album reaches its conclusion.
Beyoncé’s response to Jay-Z's alleged infidelity, and the tabloids' favourite rumour generator, Becky With The Good Hair, is rendered so vividly as to make that doubt and anger the driving force of each vignette at the top of the record. Hold Up takes no little delight in juxtaposing its dancehall step with razor-sharp words. “I don’t wanna lose my pride, but Imma fuck me up a bitch,” Beyoncé sings. “What’s worst, looking jealous or crazy?”
Don't Hurt Yourself, on which Jack White's jittery 'Lazaretto' style gets a thunderous makeover, perhaps runs hottest: "Who the fuck do you think I am? You ain't married to no average bitch, boy." Here Beyoncé also begins to weave the personal and political together. Her experience becomes a lightning rod as she invokes the words of Malcolm X: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”
Beyoncé treats ‘Lemonade’ not solely as a personal project, but uses it in order to throw the spotlight on black women, the prejudices they are fighting to overcome, their triumphs and tragedies. It wouldn’t function without the words of poet Warsan Shire, while the film is punctuated by appearances from the tennis great Serena Williams, soul duo Ibeyi, Academy Award nominee Quvenzhané Wallis and model Winnie Harlow. During Forward, a heart-rending duet with James Blake, the camera lands on Sybrina Fulton, Lesley McSpadden and Gwen Carr with pictures of their late sons: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The song and scene are characterised by a collective sense of loss.
Formation, performed at the Super Bowl with a dance troupe styled after the Black Panthers, and the Kendrick Lamar-featuring Freedom are polemical, combining real world grit with furious optimism. Both are among Beyoncé's finest moments, but such is the construction of ‘Lemonade’ that they are run close by the stellar openers and the reconciliatory All Night. As Jay-Z, Blue Ivy and snapshots of their family life enter the frame towards the end, the anger that has gone before refracts into new shapes.
Beyonce Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Tue June 28 2016 - SUNDERLAND Stadium Of Light
Thu June 30 2016 - CARDIFF Principality Stadium
Sat July 02 2016 - LONDON Wembley Stadium
Sun July 03 2016 - LONDON Wembley Stadium
Tue July 05 2016 - MANCHESTER Old Trafford
Thu July 07 2016 - GLASGOW Hampden Park
Sat July 09 2016 - DUBLIN Croke Park
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