It’s about the way they present it to the world. With stars on the level of Beyoncé and JAY-Z, it’s never just about the music, or about the story that the lyrics tell. As gamesmanship, this is a tiny masterpiece. On a certain level, it’s beautiful.Īnd beyond the simple storytelling of the album, there is also the subtext. It’s a document of a marriage saved, of a love rekindled. “Long way to go but we’ll work it / We’re flawed but we’re still perfect for each other.” It’s the moment that the past two years, the past three albums, have been building toward. “Baby, the ups and downs are worth it,” Beyoncé sings, reassuringly. The two of them trade off verses and even lines, rapping and singing about each other, showing warmth and chemistry. Everything Is Love is a true collaborative album, with neither half of the couple taking the lead. It’s a happy story: a couple going through hell and then falling in love all over again. As storytelling, this is a perfectly satisfying ending. Now we get the ending to that story, the reconciliation. So we got the accusation, and we got the apology. It was a side of Jay we’d never seen before: a larger-than-life figure brought down to earth, his painful humanity obvious to all. Last year, with 4:44, JAY-Z gave us the other side of the story: The man who’d committed the wrong, penitent, begging forgiveness, laying his own flaws and failings before his wife and the rest of the world. She whisked us all along, dropping hints and venting rage, wrapping her own personal family struggles up with images of black strength and femininity. She was a wronged woman, furious and vengeful and ultimately forgiving. Two years ago, Beyoncé gave us Lemonade, an album of starting depth and intimacy and urgency. For the past few years, the most famous and beloved couple in the recent history of American popular music have been telling us a story, and it’s been a riveting one. The best part of the trilogy is never the ending.
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