Jay also slams the Grammys and the Super Bowl in “Apesh–,” referencing both his refusal to perform during the 2018 halftime show, and him receiving zero Grammy awards despite eight nominations earlier this year: “Tell the Grammys f- that 0 for 8 s- / Have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apes-?”įor her part, Beyonce throws shade at various unnamed b-hes and hoes, and in “Nice,” at Spotify. There are also references to lyrics from other rappers ranging from Lil Wayne and Chief Keef to Mos Def and Notorious B.I.G., and also some shade apparently thrown Kanye West’s way in “Friends,” with a reference to Jay’s non-attendance at his wedding (“I ain’t goin’ to nobody nothin’ when me and my wife beefin’/ I don’t care if the house on fire, if I’m dyin’, I ain’t leavin’”). We get more mea culpas from Jay, more warnings from Bey, and he takes a wistful look back at their long courtship, recalling when they first spent time together on a flight back from a 2000 MTV appearance in Mexico (“We played it cool at the pool of the Cancun, VMA… Fate had me sittin’ next to you on the plane/ And I knew straight away”). As always, they’re dense with subplots and deep references and social-media feeding Easter eggs, but they’re also self-referential and uncharacteristically (for Beyonce, anyway) self-obsessed. The album covers a wide variety of styles - from a banger like the single/video “Apesh–” to the soulful “Boss” to the softer “Friends” and “Heard About Us” - over an uncharacteristically brief 40-odd minutes and 10 songs (including “Salud,” a “bonus track” that does not appear in the album’s sequence and is exclusively available on Tidal).
Both artists’ high standards guarantee that the songs are musically and melodically on point, with a top-shelf team of collaborators that range from established (Pharrell, Cool & Dre, Boi-1da) to left-field (TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, who worked on Solange’s 2016 opus “A Seat at the Table”) to relative newcomers (Vory, Jahaan Sweet and Sevn Thomas) Migos guest on “Apesh–.” Jay’s flow and lyrics are smooth as ever, and Beyonce - who never releases an album without giving herself new challenges - is rapping far more often than before, trying on a couple of new voices and even, on “Friends,” using autotune to twist her vocal into new shapes. The closing track “LoveHappy,” with a classic soul sample from Phoenix Express’ 1971 song “You Make My Life a Sunny Day” (via Killer Mike’s “Ric Flair”), is a victory lap, with Beyonce singing, “Sometimes I thought we’d never see the light … Damn, look at us now / We came, and we conquered, now we’re happy in love.” It’s probably no coincidence that this family affair dropped during Father’s Day weekend.īefore we dive deep into the narratives, most importantly, how does it rate as an album? Solid and generally satisfying, but not the best from either. Their participation in the visuals, the album’s first video (for the song “Apesh–“) and even the vocals, is almost completely 50-50: If one takes the lead for a song or two while the other adds a verse or hook or bridge, they swap roles for the next. That message of familial parity carries over to the way the two share the spotlight.