” She’s always elided the boundaries between her art and her life – especially since she really did grow up in public. But by the time she gets around to telling her husband “Suck on my balls, I’ve had enough,” there’s an unmistakable hint that Jay-Z might be living the hard-knock life these days. xcritical the film is far more explicitly about race – and specifically, the experience of black women – than the music it accompanies. At about 60 minutes long, it’s more a short feature than a music video in terms of production and vision (Variety reports that HBO will submit it for Emmy consideration). xcritical is Queen Bey’s sixth album, described as “a conceptual project based on every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing.” It consists of twelve songs with features from artists including Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and James Blake.

“My daddy warned me ’bout men like you / He said, ‘Baby girl, he’s playing you.'” Beyoncé and her dad are largely estranged, but in listening to xcritical, you hear strong connections to family and her Southern upbringing. Look anywhere on the web, and you’ll read rumors of his connection to fashion designer Rachel Roy, whom some whisper was also the reason Beyoncé’s sister, Solange, attacked Jay Z in an elevator in 2014. Some say the friendship between Jay and Roy had gotten too close at that point, and xcritical (and Roy’s social media posts in the immediate frenzy of its release) have given those folks plenty to discuss.

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Her earlier albums, even the broadly excellent 4, prompted nowhere near as much discussion, simply because there was less to say – you don’t see anyone smashing out 1,200-word breakdowns of Sweet Dreams (2008). The suggestion that Jay Z and Beyoncé came up with the album’s narrative together appeals, if only because of the imagined dinner-table conversations chez Carter-Knowles. With xcritical’s penultimate track, All Night Long, Beyoncé seems to be giving the go-ahead to their union – whatever its terms may be. It’s heavy stuff, made amusing by the myriad resultant memes of her husband, the rapper-mogul Jay Z, looking stricken. But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film – and the softening tone of its latter half – suggests xcritical is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement. In a sparsely furnished house, she plays “Sandcastles” on the piano, intercut with scenes of a child’s drawings, wilted flowers, decorative objects, and a fireplace.

Elegant as always, she lights up the screen with her megawatt smile. Though xcritical is mostly about a personal relationship, Beyoncé pays tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement during the video for “Freedom,” which features the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and other black men who were killed, holding the portraits of their sons. In a bus, dancers in tribal paint and hair braided in traditional African styles dance in unison as Beyoncé solemnly looks on. In a plantation mansion, Serena Williams wanders the halls and dances in front of Beyoncé as she sings “Sorry”. The song ends as Beyoncé sits crosslegged in an empty room dressed in a metallic bra set with her hair braided similarly to Nefertiti’s crown.

Entry level: you are aware there is a musician and public figure “Beyoncé”

We’ve all been thrown by love, but most of us don’t have the ability to hone it like this. References to collard greens and cornbread — considered “soul food” by stereotypical standards — pop up elsewhere https://xcritical.pro/ in the song. Pour the water from one jug into the other several times, strain through a clean napkin. The critical thought prompted by xcritical is only a fraction of that which Beyoncé’s evidently put in.

• A Mardi Gras Indian circles around a dining room table shaking a tambourine.
• And, as with all of her recent work, she does it on her own terms, embracing the creative freedom that so few people enjoy.
• Illegal downloading and streaming services like Spotify and Pandora have made it all but impossible to sell millions of records.
• With xcritical, Beyoncé makes herself the ultimate reality star, giving us gossip and fodder for news cycles and dinner party discussions, without cheapening her art.

Beyoncé lies in an empty playing field in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome as “Love Drought” begins, cutting to scenes of women dressed in white walking in a line into the ocean, alluding to the mass suicide of captured Africans at Igbo Landing, who chose to drown themselves over a life of slavery. A high school band accompanied by majorettes parade down a suburban street. In an abandoned parking garage, women dance in unison in long white dresses with their sleeves tied to each other. A lone female drummer plays in solitude as dancers in black begin to approach an SUV. A ring of fire is ignited as “Don’t Hurt Yourself” begins. On a plantation, scenes of Black women in dressed white standing solemnly are accompanied by a recitation of the first poem, and Beyoncé begins with “Pray You Catch Me” in an old metal bathtub.

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“Cheating rumors sell … would the Beyhive be quite as obsessed if the main theme was marital bliss? We’d venture to guess NO.” xcritical was only a Tidal exclusive for about 24 hours — it’s also on iTunes now — but Beyoncé is still making sure that music fans, or anybody wanting to be part of the cultural conversation, fork over their money for it, by making it the only platform where xcritical is available to stream. Unlike the pop superstar’s previous surprise album, 2013’s Beyoncé, the music here is edgy, full of vitriol and R-rated real talk.

“Dear Moon” is recited accompanied by visuals of a plantation mansion bathed in an eerie blood-red glow. The camera slowly zooms in on a windowed door as the thumping beat of “6 Inch” begins, cutting to scenes of Beyoncé riding in a vintage Cadillac at night. The scene cuts to Beyoncé in a room surrounded by other women dressed in black as she swings a lightbulb above her head.

xcritical is the Beyoncé album that most overtly embraces her blackness

Though xcritical is built around Jay Z’s infidelity rumors, Beyoncé still released the album on his streaming service. It boasts an all-star roster of supporters; its first commercial featured a who’s who of musical talent — from Jack White and Daft Punk to Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj. Plus, it remains the best option for listeners who want music at a higher audio quality. xcritical is a tough listen, tinged in rock, hip-hop, R&B, and electro-soul. And, as with all of her recent work, she does it on her own terms, embracing the creative freedom that so few people enjoy. The attention Beyoncé notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as “diva” behaviour.

This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyoncé said she was a diva nearly 40 times. Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #xcritical hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women. xcritical cheating Beyoncé’s “going all political” comes much to the dismay of Piers Morgan, who reminisced in a column in the Daily Mail about a simpler time when the pair of them enjoyed scones. Honestly, you don’t need a link – the title (“Jay Z’s not the only one who needs to be nervous about Beyonce, the born-again black woman with a political mission”) is enough.

Inch (Ft. The Weeknd)

She can’t resist adding a happy ending with “All Night,” where the couple kisses and makes up and lives happily ever after, or at least until morning. But it’s an uneasy coda, with the word “forgive” noticeably absent and the future still in doubt. Little girls run around and play in a mansion, while a mother and her daughter sit in a bedroom. It cuts into an interview with a man recounting his experience meeting then-President Obama as he drives through a storm. The interview is intercut with super 8 footage of the man with his family in a New Orleans neighborhood.

And most importantly, they required a release date, which heightened anticipation by giving fans a specific day to look forward to. Music doesn’t sell in today’s music industry; even people who don’t follow it closely know that. Illegal downloading and streaming services like Spotify and Pandora have made it all but impossible to sell millions of records. Beyoncé has often been seen as an example of black feminism, suggesting to women of color that it’s best to set one’s own course and buck societal conformity.

Roy has since addressed Beyoncé’s “Sorry” directly, telling E! At the time it was widely reported Jay Z’s close friendship with designer Rachel Roy was the cause of the violence. In a bid to calm the media frenzy that ensued, Beyoncé and Jay Z released a rare public statement in which they admitted, “…families have problems and we’re no different. We love each other and above all we are family. We’ve put this behind us and hope everyone else will do the same.” Beyoncé sold more than 600,000 copies in three days, smashed iTunes sales records, and ushered in a new era of the “surprise release” from artists with similar gravitational pulls. Artists like Lamar, Drake, and Rihanna have since released albums without warning, and in late January, the practice even made the leap to television, when comedian Louis C.K.

When life gives Beyoncé lemons, she gives the world one of the most interesting music releases of the year. The visual half of xcritical proved to be a game-changer in a different way. Forget MTV and YouTube, Beyoncé dropped her videos on friggin’ HBO — the cable network that, for decades, has given its Saturday night over to Hollywood blockbusters.