Jay-Z vents about peers who’d “rather work for the man than to work with me,” likely referring to Apple partisans such as Drake. “If I gave … two fucks about streaming numbers / Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify,” Beyoncé spits. The album arrives exclusively on Jay-Z’s streaming service, Tidal, and though that company hasn’t enjoyed much positive buzz, it’s clear that any hope for success it does have rests on the combined draw of the Carters. On the lyrical diss list are the Grammys (which invites black stars for ratings while denying them the biggest prizes) and the Super Bowl (Jay-Z says he declined a halftime gig, and in light of the NFL’s anti-protest policy, he doesn’t have to elaborate on his contempt). Within the entertainment industry, the Carters have steadily tried to build their own fiefdom to compete with the old order established by white men. The notion that a flourishing career can mean a safer home deepens even the pettier score-settling on the album. Today, by contrast, “it’s not lost on me, music has my kids sound asleep.” And amid the wafting reggae of the opener “Summer,” the first of the aforementioned throat-tightening moments arrives when Jay-Z’s mind wanders from his present reality of sex on a plushly appointed beach to the gunfire that rang out in the projects where he grew up. In the high-concept-yet-visceral “Apeshit” video, the couple critique the overwhelming whiteness of the holdings at the Louvre-the actual Louvre-with a troupe of black dancers. Marriage may be a traditional institution, but the Carters present it almost as a weapon of revolution, allowing them to strike out against other institutions-first among them racism and its pernicious symptom, black poverty. Its nine songs (plus one nonalbum single) offer solid summer-fun fodder whose infectious glee comes with moments of throat-tightening emotion-not unlike at a wedding party. Now, their joint narrative arc-a masterful conflation of art, commerce, and gossip-has culminated in a second arena tour and a surprise full-length album.

After marrying in 2008 amid successful individual careers, Jay-Z and Beyoncé embarked on a 2014 arena tour beset by rumors of Jay-Z’s infidelity that appeared to be confirmed by two separate confessional albums, her Lemonade in 2016 and his 4:44 in 2017. Jay: “Yo, chill man.” Bey: “We keepin’ it real with these people, right?”)Įverything Is Love represents the long-awaited with-our-powers-combined capstone from the megacouple who, in their album credits, call themselves the Carters. Beyoncé’s reply: “Yeah, you fucked up the first stone, we had to get remarried.” (Adorably, it continues. “He went to Jared, I went to JAR out in Paris,” Jay-Z raps. Even the fact that they nearly broke up comes off as a form of conspicuous consumption. On Everything Is Love, the joint album the couple surprise-released on Saturday, their union again glitters as a luxury item as covetable as their Alaïa boots and Aruba vacations. The marriage rate remains low, but Jay-Z and Beyoncé are doing their best to keep wedlock fashionable.

Video of jay z and beyonce arguing