When life gives you lemons, make Lemonade.
R&B pop icon Beyoncé launched her new visual album titled “Lemonade” during an hour-long HBO Special on Saturday.
Critics were expecting a documentary-style special when Beyoncé announced she would be reserving airtime, but were shocked when she instead revealed her full-length album, which featured videos for 12 of the 13 new songs.
Beyoncé flash-released the audio version of “Lemonade” at 10 p.m. Saturday, directly following the HBO premier.
The drop of Beyoncé’s sixth album followed February’s surprise release of the music video “Formation,” which she performed live at Super Bowl 50.
“Formation” caused a great deal of controversy on social media following its release due to background dancers donning Black Panther-style outfits accompanied by a video featuring African-Americans in a plantation mansion.
“You can taste the dishonesty/It’s all over your breath” are the words chimed in the first song of the album, titled “Pray You Catch Me.”
The lyrics set the tone for the rest of the record, which conveys a variety of themes including jealousy, revenge and betrayal.
Many believe certain tones of the album can be attributed to publicized conflicts between Beyoncé and her husband, Shawn Carter, who is more commonly known as the famous rapper Jay Z.
However, not all themes of the songs stem from Beyoncé’s marital discord.
Beyoncé, a self-described feminist, focuses on the struggles of women, specifically women of color, in her visual album.
During the song “Forward,” she features the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and others whose sons were killed in highly publicized shootings, some of which came at the hands of the police.
The Root, an American online magazine of African-American culture, describes the album as, “a burning…love letter to herself and black women – our pain, our beauty, our hard love, our betrayal, our strength – exposing herself bare like we’ve never seen her before.”
Beyoncé will debut her new music live as her Formation World Tour commences on Wednesday in Miami.
Freshman pre-pharmacy student Lexus Frazier said she was looking forward to having the chance to see Beyoncé perform live this summer.
“I’m going to see her concert in Pittsburgh at the end of May,” she said.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing her older style combine with pieces that she just released. I think she’s a great role model for girls our age to look up to, which is why I bought tickets in the first place.”
Beyoncé’s world tour will conclude in Barcelona on Aug. 3.
KATE ROBB
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