WHY BEYONCÉ’S ‘LEMONADE’ IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY
The landmark record earned a deserved album of the decade nod thanks to its unapologetic vulnerability.
“Lemonade” was named album of the decade by the Associated Press earlier this month. When I first heard Beyoncé’s album three years ago, I was unemployed and a delivery food driver for the app Favor. It was late spring in Houston, which meant long, sticky days trying to navigate the unending stretch of traffic and unfamiliar streets.
I had been away from the city for five and a half years for a combination of college and grad school. A part of me just wanted to get out of my hometown. I was applying for jobs and I felt like the months spent in Houston were just in-between time.
I also was going through a breakup, which is the perfect state to listen to the album. As I drove around and realized how much my hometown had grown up, Beyoncé became the centerpiece for my summer of healing and new beginnings.
“Lemonade” still resonates three years later. Her documentary “Homecoming” released earlier this year on Netflix about her Coachella performance was met with widespread acclaim, and the hashtag #Beychella filled my timeline. When Taylor
Swift’s Billboard Music Awards performance veered a little too close to Beyoncé’s Coachella one, I watched as fans quickly roasted the pop star on Twitter. In 2018, I went to Beyoncé’s concert at NRG Stadium and fans screamed every lyric from “Lemonade” as if it came out yesterday.
“Lemonade” was monumental, but why are we still just as obsessed with it in 2019?
Just like me
Like many other young girls, I discovered Beyoncé through Destiny’s Child. I bopped along to “Say My Name.” I tried to figure out exactly what a “Bug a Boo” was. Even though I didn’t have a pager (and never would), I pretended that I did.
I felt a connection to Beyoncé because, like her, I’m a Houstonian. I grew up going to church in the Third Ward. I related to her songs about independence, heartbreak and falling in love. I choreographed dances to songs for the talent show with my friends. We wore camo and thought we were Destiny’s Child in their video
“Soldier” as we danced on stage. Seeing her perform “Irreplaceable” at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo made me think I was the luckiest girl in the world.
There was something inspiring about seeing just a regular Texas girl become an international superstar. Even though I’ve never met Beyoncé, in all delusional honesty, it feels like I have.
Her songs made her feel like a friend you could call up at any moment. Since she was from my hometown, it made her more accessible even though she didn’t live in Houston anymore. Whenever my friends brought up Beyoncé, I would always throw in the “You know she’s from Houston, right?”
Soundtrack to life
When Beyoncé’s HBO documentary dropped for “Lemonade” in 2016, I knew I finally found my break-up soundtrack.
The album just got me. For the first time, the woman I always looked up to was now dealing with similar pain. I realized that none of us, no matter our status, fame and fortune can fully escape heartbreak. In our culture of perfect images constructed on social media, it was humbling to see the insecurities and imperfections of one
of the most iconic artists rise to the surface.
As silly as it sounds, hearing Beyoncé be vulnerable about her pain made me want to be open about mine, too. For the first time, I realized pain and healing might be simultaneous.
Maybe, there was a way to feel both heartbroken and strong. Maybe it was okay to not have all the answers. Maybe there was a way to be disappointed but slowly pick up the pieces.
I could feel the joy in her music video for “Sorry” as she and Serena Williams danced and she uttered the words, “I ain’t thinking about you.” But I could also hear the brokenness in her voice as she belted out “Sandcastles,” which is about her coming to grips with a failing relationship.
That was the magic of this album. “Lemonade” had songs for when you needed to break down and when you needed to be built back up.
I think the reason why we all gathered on our couches to watch the Netflix documentary and screamed when “Lemonade” came to Spotify (three years later) is because the album showed us Beyoncé in all her forms, from gloriously swinging a bat in the street in “Hold Up” to snippets of home movies of her family in “All Night.”
The album also celebrated African American culture in a way I had never seen before.
From the hot sauce to Texasbama, the southern black roots felt throughout the album were inescapable.
“Lemonade” was Beyoncé saying to the world, “This is me, scars and all, and I don’t make any apologies for it.”
I don’t think any of her fans are ever going to forget “Lemonade” and the summer they spent driving around listening to it. I’ll remember it as the time I truly started being OK with my flaws.
After all, if Beyoncé could come to grips with her own humanity, then I could too.