JAY-Z’s ‘4:44’ and Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I have read and seen all there is to know about Lemonade. From the powerful, encouragement to get in formation, to the soothing and heartbroken tale of infidelity, pain, and anger. Beyoncė showed a side of herself that is rarely seen by the people in the public: vulnerability. Lemonade is a testament about reconciliation, an ode to black women and a deep personal love story, centered on black history, culture, black empowerment and featuring amazing poems from Warsan Shire including “For Women Who Are Difficult To Love,” “The unbearable weight of staying,” and “Nail Technician As Palm Reader.” It’s a wonderful story with a conclusion that shows that love can conquer all. That is until Jay-Z releases his own album. On Friday, June 30,2017, Jay-Z dropped his response, 4:44. A year after Beyoncé’s Lemonade, 4:44 expresses how Jay-Z is coming to terms with what was said about his marriage and where he wants to go in the future. I took the time to watch both albums again and compare Jay’s album to his wife’s while also using Adichie’s We Should All be Feminists essay as a reference of what marriage should be and what it is in society today.
“The language of marriage is often a language of ownership, not a language of partnership” (Adichie, 2014,p.29) Adichie made this point clearly in her essay. At times, it seems as if both sexes have their own agenda of what they think marriage is. While Beyoncé gives her own definition, Jay -Z has a different one before coming to a clear conclusion.
- Pray You Catch Me vs Kill Jay- Z
2. Hold Up vs The Story of O-Jay
3. Don’t Hurt Yourself vs Smile
4. Sorry vs Caught Their Eyes
5. Daddy’s Lessons vs 4:44
6. Love Drought vs Family Feud
7. Sandcastles vs Bam
8. Forward vs Moonlight
9. Freedom vs Marcy Me
10. All Night vs Legacy
Kill Jay-Z is correspondent with Pray You Catch Me. While the latter is about how love can turn toxic and break us, Jay-Z uses this song to explain the incident in the elevator in 2014 at the Met Gala between him and his wife’s sister, Solange. On the song, he raps, “You egged Solange on / known’ all along / all you had to say was wrong.” Later in the song, he also calls on himself to be a better man by saying, “But you gotta do better, boy, you owe it to Blue.” The song also references Eric Benet, who notoriously cheated on Halle Berry saying, “You almost went Eric Benet / let the baddest girl in the world get away.” From Jay-Z’s words himself, he describes this song as the killing of his ego, allowing himself to be honest and vulnerable.
I’m reminded of Adichie’s point, about respect between men and woman. “Both men and women say: I did it for peace in my marriage. When men say it, it is usually about something that they should not be doing anyway…When women say ‘I did it for peace in my marriage’, it is usually because they have given up a job, a career goal, a dream” (Adichie, 2014, p.31). Jay-Z knew what he did was wrong but did it anyway, knowing how he hurt B; however,Beyoncé gave up her sense of self, a peace of mind trying to save a family that was on the verge of breaking.
The Story of O-Jay, personally one of my favorite songs from the album, has to deal with the highs and lows of success, especially as a black man in America. While I appreciate this song and its encouragement for financial success, I’m confused how he went to apologizing to trying to uplift me. Hold Up is about a woman being reborn and claiming her power back and not caring how crazy she looks while doing it. Still, the jump from Jay-Z apologizing in the first song to this is somewhat baffling and rushed if you asked me.
Smile, another great song that tells you to smile and enjoy things in life. This song opens a private fact that Jay-Z’s mother is a lesbian and how he accepts her no matter what (insert an “awww” moment from me when I watched the video and cried a little). “Bad times turn to good memories” he raps, but his attention to me feels rushed. Especially since “Smile” correlates with “Don’t Hurt Yourself” which is about the burden of keeping it all together for someone you love who doesn’t treat you with respect. I love exploring his secrets behind closed doors but at the same time, I wanted more attention given to his wife.
(No Video for Caught In Their Eyes)
Caught In Their Eyes, he goes back to addressing his wife and the public. Sorry definitely fits with this song. Especially the part where Jay states, “Your body language is all remedial, how could you see the difference between you and I?” “Boys and Girls are undeniably different biologically, but socialization exaggerates the difference,” Adichie states and I couldn’t agree more with it. Jay-z recognizes the differences between him and his wife: how they love, body languages, actions. But as Adichie pointed out, while we are different biologically, we are still the same. I feel Jay-Z is sincere and sorry but I still feel he has a warped view that men and women are still completely different.
4:44, the one song and video that made me rethink life. Now he goes back into full apologizing mode to Beyoncé again. This song fits perfectly against its component: Daddy’s Lessons. He bares it all in this song, even going as far to say “I apologize often womanize/Took for my child to be born/See through a woman’s eyes/Took for these natural twins to believe in miracles/Took me too long for this song/I don’t deserve you.” The rapper also said he was “emotionless” during their relationship before apologizing again. This shows the relationship between father and daughter in both songs! I was fascinated by this as Jay responded with retorts to Beyoncé’s father’s suspicious in the song, addressing he knows how wrong he is but he loves her and will become better for his daughter. However, that begs the question, is Jay-Z doing this really for his wife or just for his daughter’s sake? My grandfather once said, “Men become better to women once they have a daughter, because they fear that someone will treat their child the way they treated its mother.” Then, the lyrics on “Sorry” say, “He trying to roll me up, I ain’t picking up.” Then, on “4:44,” Jay-Z pleads to Beyoncé to answer him with, “We talked for hours when you were on tour / Please pick up the phone, pick up the phone.”
Family Feud, a stunning video that I suggest you watch. This song expresses how no one wins in a family when they fight. Jay shifts his focus more on his daughter, Blu, and says how he feels regret, knowing that he almost messed up the family and how he will be heartbroken when Blu asks him why he cheated one day. Miscarriages were also addressed in the song, with Jay believing that it was a warning from God that he wouldn’t have kids if didn’t get his relationship together. He also references Becky, stating, ““Yeah, I’ll f — k up a good thing if you let me / let me alone, Becky! / a man who don’t take care of his family can’t be rich.”
Bam, skip this song. Great song and wonderful infusion of jamaican culture, however, it was literally just Jay-Z reminding himself that despite his missteps and transgressions, he’s still the man. Doesn’t even address the slow healing process in Sandcastles.
Moonlight,a wonderful song that sheds light on the Oscars mistake of La La Land and Moonlight while also saying that the entertainment industry has a long way to go in terms of progression and culture. Please watch and interpret it for yourself as well! I had fun researching and dissecting what everything meant in this video. This song correlates well with Forward. No complaints about this song. Thank you, next.
Marcy Me,this song was about the rapper’s love for his home state, New York. Nothing really special to comment on. The song was nice but it was nowhere as inspirational as Freedom.
Legacy, the final track that correlates with All Night. I love this song because Blu is featured in this again but this song is focused about Jay’s desire to to create generational wealth from his success for his family. While I love and appreciate his newly restored dedication and love to his family, I only hope that this cycle of women being hurt in Beyoncé’s family will end and not endure for the future generations to come.
After reviewing over my notes, I feel as if Jay-Z’s apology is sincere. You can feel the hurt and pain when he thought he was going to lose his wife, as well as the exposure of skeletons in his closet that was private from the public world. However, I will say that his album felt more like the increasing of funds, generational wealth, and progression was his prime focus while Beyoncé focused entirely on her hurt and the pursuit of making it better. Not to say that Jay was not hurt but one’s pain was definitely stronger than the other. I give this album a…3.5 out of 5 stars. Listen to it yourself, and see what you think about it. Still, I only hope that he stays faithful and true for her and his children, and that he didn’t just “turn his pretence into an art” (Adichie, 2014, p.33)
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