Without mentioning West’s name, Jay explains how his real friends would understand this, namechecking the list of cronies that we’ve been hearing about since Reasonable Doubt. ![]() After West groused about Jay and Beyoncé not coming to his wedding, Jay lays it out: He had a marriage to fix, and he wasn’t going to leave his house for anything, no matter what. The icy precision of the Everything Is Love release - coming out in the middle of a Jay/Beyoncé London show, with even the video that was shot at the Louvre kept under wraps - stands in stark contrast to the chaos of West’s month of Wyoming-sessions releases.Īnd then there’s “Friends,” the song where JAY-Z certainly seems to be putting Kanye West in his place. Things have been chilly between Kanye and Jay in recent years, and the release of Everything Is Love works as a masterful, imperious upstaging. Less than 24 hours before Everything Is Love came out, Nasir - the collaboration between Nas, Jay’s old nemesis, and Kanye West, his estranged protege - hit streaming services. 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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