I never understood Beyoncé’s rationale behind choosing the name ‘Lemonade’ for her album. To me, it was not a particularly striking name until I realized its deeper meaning and significance in lecture. The name of the album alludes to the old proverb, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, and is inspired from Hattie White, Jay-Z’s grandmother. Beyoncé received ‘lemons’ from Jay-Z’s disloyalty and lies, and she emerged with ‘lemonade’ in the form of her magnum opus. The choice of this name reflects her personal heartbreak, and the oppression and discrimination of black people throughout history. The feature which struck out the most to me was Lemonade’s use of visual, lyrical and musical elements to explore black pride, stereotypes of black women, infidelity, and the persecution of both women and the black community. It is interesting how different interpretations can arise if one focuses on only one aspect of her portrayal. It is truly a ‘visual album’, because the video adds a whole new dimension of meaning.
Pray You Catch Me, the mellow opener of the album, begins with just vocals, chords on the piano and a very simple beat. The tone and rhythm convey her sadness and dejection on finding out the person she loved has cheated on her. The first few shots show her in a hooded jacket, ensuring that her hair is not seen. This symbolises society’s criticism of black women’s natural hair and how this unrealistic expectation negatively impacts these women. She has lost her self-confidence as a result of her lover’s deceit. While she is not entirely sure, she has some intuition that the person she loves is hiding something and actually hopes that he finds her snooping. The scene of Beyoncé jumping off the roof was particularly chilling, portraying the effect that betrayal has on her. Instead of falling to the ground, she is submerged in water and trapped. While in the water, she blames herself for what happened and tries to be ‘softer, prettier and less awake’. She further goes on to describe how she abstained from sex and “plugged her menses with the Holy Book”.
She wants to be purer because of the stereotypical view of women being these chaste and flawless beings. The monologue describes her hapless state and how troubled and shattered she’d become. However, she finally realizes that going through this guilt trip is not worth it opens the door to her freedom, letting all the water (a personification of her insecurity) just flow out. Hold Up is representative of her being uncaring now (with a very explicit reference to this in the video) and the tune and rhythm are indicative of this too, as they are upbeat. She would rather be crazy than jealous of a man who is unworthy of her love. Beyoncé smashes multiple cars with a baseball bat, tackling the stereotype of women lashing out when they have been cheated on. In the end, she wreaks havoc by driving over all these cars with a monster truck. Through this imagery, she is shattering both her insecurities and dogmatic stereotypes associated with women.
In Don’t Hurt Yourself, the most powerful song in the album, Beyoncé conveys raw anger and the choreography, visuals and music all seamlessly merge to convey this message. As a drummer, the beat was what I noticed first and discovered that it was a Led Zeppelin sample. Beyoncé’s use of samples (although by no means extensive) adds weight to her claim in an artistic sense captures “what many consider to be hip-hop’s central and essential musical practice.” Here, the Led Zeppelin sample is used to bring forth rage and power. In the very first stanza, Marshall says, “The art of sampling, …, is akin to a firstborn child-one that artists have loved dearly, nurtured, and watched grow. Because of copyright-infringement litigation, many artists, with deep regret, have had to give up their firstborn.” Beyoncé’s power and influence have allowed her to keep her firstborn, unlike many other artists. The authenticity of her music is defined by her experiences and the content, as opposed to the music itself.
From the first line, she makes it very clear that she is not to be taken for granted. She will not accept any more lies and is no longer dejected and sad; just angry. She is “the dragon breathing fire” and issues a final warning. The political flavour of this album becomes evident just before the chorus, as a section of Malcolm X’s speech on black women is played, with X proclaiming that “black women are the most disrespected/unprotected/neglected people in America” with a video of black women in the background. The women in the clips are a stark contrast to X’s words since they are all happy are smiling, despite being neglected. Beyoncé is portraying that they always smile and get through life’s challenges even though they are disrespected and unprotected, always making “lemonade”.
Don’t Hurt Yourself transitions into a slow and eerie melody played on a music box, a stark contrast to the rest of the song, which is apathetic. This tune is actually the beginning of Swan Lake, a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is about Odette, a beautiful princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. The ballet explores themes of love, betrayal and loss. I strongly believe that Beyoncé chose this particular symphony to illustrate both a personal message and something deeper.
She perceives herself to be Odette and the sorcerer to be Jay Z. His betrayal is like a curse as it casts a shroud of loneliness on Beyoncé and she feels as if the life is taken out of her. In the perspective of Swan Lake, this can be interpreted in another way; the black community is Odette and the society which has persecuted them for centuries is the evil sorcerer. Almost everything they held dear was snatched away from them by centuries of slavery and brutality. In the original ballet, the princess regains human form only for a brief period of time at night. The “human form” for the black community is their music; the only thing the slave owner could never truly possess. As discussed in Ronald Radano’s article, their form of music transcended their persecuted state and became a representation of how their masters could not own them entirely. Beyoncé’s use of Swan Lake here conveys an incredible amount of depth here.
The album culminates with Formation, which is very interesting because she launched this single before the entire album, but it appears at the very end. All her art up until this point has been R&B/ dance music but she wanted to switch this opinion and break free of this perception of her music. The strongest political messages come up in Formation. Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the black community in New Orleans and how they still have not recovered even today, because of racially discriminatory housing practices is referenced right from the first scene, where Beyoncé is on top of a New Orleans police car, in the middle of the flood. There’s also a frame with the message “Stop shooting us” clearly directed towards the police. Like in Pray You Catch Me, Beyoncé alludes to black women being criticised for their natural hair. This is seen when a couple of women are at a wig shop, trying out different wigs to cover up their hair. With the line, “My daddy Alabama, momma Louisiana; you mix that Negro with that Creole, get a Texas-bama”, Beyoncé is emphatically proud of her heritage and calls on all black people to own their roots and never be ashamed of where they came from. The song is uplifting and calls on women to “get in formation” and rebel against those who are trying to bring them down.
This particular line, which is a central theme of the song, reminded me of our discussion of Fight the Power. The video we viewed was of a woman dancing powerfully and with a lot of energy to signify the fury of the Public Enemy song. Formation is also choreographed in a manner which is aggressive and puts Beyoncé in the spotlight. She wants to unite all black women to fight, echoing the theme of “When you’re black you have to fight”. She is rising above all the disapproval and defining her music the way she wants sees fit. She aims to be the voice of black women and defies genre norms associated with her music with Lemonade.
Beyoncé is making a powerful statement about her music; it is no longer just entertainment; it is a form of empowerment.