Beyonce's mysterious, hour-long special, "Lemonade," aired Saturday night ... leaving fans in absolute awe and total confusion.
The HBO event was the debut of her visual album, now available on Tidal, packed with some masterfully-shot music videos and brutal lyrics about a cheating significant other.
A large portion of the special focused on Beyonce singing about being a scorned woman, whose man had been stepping out with a side piece. Jay Z's name immediately started trending as the videos rolled out, viewers at home assuming each track was actually about him.
Here are a breakdown of the bitter lyrics
"You can taste the dishonesty, it's on your breath," she purrs in "Intuition."
"Are you cheating on me?" she asks in "Denial," where she's seen strolling through the streets with a baseball bat, out to smash anything she can.
"Hold up, they don't love you like I love you," she sings in the same track, referring to other women.
In "Anger," she says if her man wants another woman, she'll "wear her skin over mine." Creepy, right? She also ends the song singing, "Tonight I'm f--ing up all your s--t, boy. This is your final warning. You know I give you life. You try this s--t again, you gonna lose your wife!"
Serena Williams popped up to pop her booty in "Emptiness," where Bey says, "I ain't thinking about you, middle fingers up!" The song also kicks off with her saying, "Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks."
The country-sounding track, "Accountability," begins with her musing, "Am I talking about your husband or your father?" Could this entire album might actually be about her mother and her grandmother? Bey's father, Mathew Knowles, appears in this video with Blue Ivy as well, showing they're still close, despite anything that happened between him and her mother.
For "Every Promise," we FINALLY see Jay Z for the first time, just as everyone started thinking she had him hid in a basement somewhere. "Now that reconciliation is possible, if we're gonna heal, let it be glorious," she says. Are we supposed to think he did cheat ... but it's been forgiven? Is this all just fiction? Are we reading too much into it all?
The next visual packed a powerful punch, as the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner were seen, holding photographs of their children.
- The special ended with "Redemption," showing wedding footage from her mom's recent nuptials, as well as her own with Jay. We glimpse Bey and her man getting matching tattoos, as well as adorable footage of Jay with their daughter at the Super Bowl.
There's a lot to analyze here ... and we're sure people will be talking about "Lemonade" for the next week.
One thing's for sure: Knowles and Jay Z are definitely still together, her album being streamed exclusively on his Tidal platform pretty much confirms that.
As for what really went on between them, we'll probably never know.
What did you make of the special and the new music? Sound off in the comment section!
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