Lemon-aiding Social Progress; Beyoncé's New Release Reflects on Love, Power, and Politics

By Aalia Thomas and Surreal Lewis

5.6.2016

When Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade, was released out of the blue in April, it was met with a whirlwind of social media craze. Everyone is dying to know who Jay-Z cheated on her with, what the title means, and who is “Becky with the good hair?” The similar, unanticipated release of Beyoncé back in 2013 had fans dancing around in their bedrooms when it dropped, but the theatricality and aesthetic brilliance of Lemonade take this album a step farther, keeping fans and critics alike transfixed by their screens. Dynamics of race, gender, and socioeconomic status are woven into its compelling narrative of betrayal and forgiveness. Yes, Lemonade raises questions of infidelity and drama, but it’s about so much more than that. Lemonade is a celebration of the black woman in America.

       That’s not to say that it isn’t for anyone else. Anyone can relate to the stories that Lemonade tells of distrust, heartbreak, and rebuilding relationships, and anyone can enjoy Beyoncé’s artistry. Lemonade masterfully expresses the paradoxes and dilemmas that love presents. It moves through stages which are presented periodically throughout the album, starting from “Intuition”, “Denial”, and “Anger”, and flowing through “Apathy” and “Emptiness” before it finally reaches “Forgiveness” and “Resurrection.” It has that rare multidimensionality which acknowledges that you can love someone and still see their flaws, that you can want someone and still know that you deserve better, that you can be hurt badly and still find it in yourself to heal.

          That being said, Lemonade doesn’t try to hide in any way that it is an album made by a black woman for black women. Each scene is filled with black women- staring unabashedly into the camera, performing mysterious rituals- dressed alternately in antebellum and tribal clothing to evoke Southern and African roots. The poetry of Somali-British writer Warsan Shire, which Beyoncé recites in the spaces between her own songs, elevates her personal story of marital strife to a tribute to the struggles faced by generations of mothers and daughters.

The effort to empower and celebrate black women is perhaps most obvious in Beyoncé’s use of an audio clip from one of Malcolm X’s speeches, in which he states: "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." In many ways, this is still true, and that’s part of why Lemonade is so important to black women. The quote recognizes their strength in the face of vulnerability, again acknowledging the contradictions that are so central to the album.

        The album’s title, Lemonade, also draws from themes of the empowerment and beauty of black women. Beyoncé speaks of her grandmother, who has passed down a recipe for homemade lemonade for generations. This lemonade is about more than just sugar, water and lemons, but about how her grandmother, in Ms. Shire’s words, “spun gold out of this hard life. Conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live.” Lemonade is a metaphor for the resilience and power of black women in America. They’ve been at the receiving end of some of the worst injustice experienced by anyone in this country, yet black women have stood strong in the face of hardship for decades. Beyoncé’s grandmother spent her life drawing from the “things left behind” in order to create this recipe for freedom and strength, and passed it down to her daughter and granddaughter to use in their lives. Lemonade is a demonstration of that recipe.