Thursday, May 12, 2016

Oh Yes, She made Lemonade


Beyonce's Lemonade is the best thing she has ever made. I honestly feel too emotionally connected to this album to even write anything interesting about it, this is just going to be straight up gushing, but that's fine. Sometimes that's all that is appropriate.

Awe is the word I keep going back to. Listening to Lemonade, I've held my mouth agape fish style, shed tears, rocked out, and felt my heart swell to capacity. I've even been pushed to keep going through a mini hard time just by repeating her mantra, "Ima keep runnin, cause a winner don't quite on themselves."

Beyonce is the queen. Everyone knows that. She has always been on a high pedestal, blowing kisses down to her followers. On this album, she brings that pedestal crashing to the ground on her own terms. She is standing right in front of you, heartbroken, defiant, honest, and more beautiful than ever.

If that wasn't enough, this is also the best she has ever sounded. Her polish and pose are still as evident as ever, but what is on display here is her heart, and she is singing it out, with some of the most soaring, and gritty vocals we've ever heard from her. Each song is brilliant on it's own. Beyonce is genre bending more than ever before. She and her mighty collaborators, Jack White, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Big Freedia, etc., are bringing together pop, rock, funk, and even country in new exciting ways. It's almost impossible to stop listening.

The visual album is a magical mystery tour into the soul of Beyonce, the soul of the south, and the soul of the black female experience. She will have you knowing by the end she is indeed no ordinary woman, that we are indeed no ordinary women. One of the most powerful lines on the album comes in the collaboration with Jack White, "Don't hurt Yourself." when she utters "if you love me, you love yourself. Love god herself."

This album is nothing short of a masterpiece. I would say her masterpiece, but I know she has so much more slaying to do. Slay on slayer.