Beyonc’s Lemonade album explained, from beginner to ‘Beyhive’

How can I watch Lemonade? Did Jay-Z cheat on Beyonc? Who is Becky with the good hair? Are Jay-Z and Beyonc even married? Its not too late to catch up

By now, as a person who breathes oxygen and sometimes does so while browsing the internet, you will know that Beyonc has put out a new album, Lemonade. A week after its release, that may well be all you know.

Dont worry. The tens of thousands of words on the subject may have led you to believe otherwise, but its not too late to catch up, even if you last remember Beyonc looking so crazy right now in denim shorts. (Which was, er, 13 years ago.)

Heres what you need to know to get through the coming days possibly weeks of Lemonade analysis, broken down by your level of interest, commitment or nigh-on total lack of either.

Entry level: you are aware there is a musician and public figure Beyonc

Lemonade is Beyoncs sixth album: 12 tracks, accompanied by an hour-long film, which premiered in the United States on Saturday on HBO. It is available only on the streaming service Tidal or for purchase through iTunes. It will likely be on Apple Music and Spotify in time, but for now youre best off signing up for a free Tidal trial.

Released with next to no advance warning, Lemonade is said to have disrupted the album cycle, but Beyonc first did this in 2013 when she put out 14 songs, each with its own video, with not even so much as a save the date. Its more accurate to say that there is no album cycle.

But when Beyonc is walking down a street demolishing parked cars with a baseball bat, youre not going to be talking about that at the pub.

As youll have likely heard, Lemonade is about infidelity. In Dont Hurt Yourself, she throws her wedding ring at the camera while snarling a final warning: If you try that shit again, youre going to lose your wife.

Its heavy stuff, made amusing by the myriad resultant memes of her husband, the rapper-mogul Jay-Z, looking stricken. But his appearance with their daughter, Blue Ivy, at the end of the film and the softening tone of its latter half suggests Lemonade is not a critically acclaimed divorce announcement.

Rather more poignantly, its about the experience of black women, the most disrespected person in America, to quote Beyonc quoting Malcolm X in the feature film. The title is drawn from Jay-Zs grandmother, who is shown in the film at her 90th birthday party: I was given lemons and I made lemonade.

Now that we find ourselves at the intersection of the tabloids concerned with whether or not Jay-Z cheated and, if so, with whom, and the writerly press close-reading the lyrics, you can stop reading and still seem informed on the subject if when it crops up at the weekend.

But if you fear being pushed further into the Beyhive the name given to the Queens fanbase and coming up short, read on.

Level one: you can broadly approximate the Single Ladies dance

As recently as 2013, Beyonc was telling Vogue she guesses she is a feminist because she believes in equality. A year later, she performed at the MTV Music awards in front of FEMINIST in lights.

Just as sampling Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies TED talk established Beyoncs credentials as a public feminist, her Superbowl Halftime Show when she sang about her negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils, flanked by dancers wearing Black Panther berets, concluding with a Black Power salute signalled a newly politicised chapter of her career.

(Her performance of the song Formation at the Superbowl prompted a protest against the musician and the NFL which shes referenced in her new merchandise line. Your best revenge is your paper, as its lyric goes.)

Beyoncs going all political comes much to the dismay of Piers Morgan, who reminisced in a column in the Daily Mail about a simpler time when the pair of them enjoyed scones. Honestly, you dont need a link the title (Jay-Zs not the only one who needs to be nervous about Beyonce, the born-again black woman with a political mission) is enough.

Level two: you coughed up for tickets to the Mrs Carter world tour and one item of merchandise

Lemonade the film is far more explicitly about race and specifically, the experience of black women than the music it accompanies. At about 60 minutes long, its more a short feature than a music video in terms of production and vision (Variety reports that HBO will submit it for Emmy consideration).

It features the work of British-Somali poet Warsan Shire; the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding photographs of their dead sons; and cameos from Serena Williams and a number of young, black celebrities, such as Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg and Quvenzhan Wallis.

Its impact was clear from the response on Twitter, where the #LEMONADE hashtag was fuelled by expressions of joy and almost gobsmacked disbelief at such a high-profile piece of art made by black women, for black women.

Before the hashtag was co-opted by brands and spam, Twitter users who were not black women were encouraged to listen. This prompted some grumbling about not being allowed to talk about Lemonade, particularly from men who might not have felt moved to comment on a Beyonc album at all, had they not been told that what they said didnt matter.

White people can recognise things in Lemonade and take those parts for themselves, while recognising they are not the audience, one Twitter user said. Just like black women have been doing with most pop culture for years.

Level three: you have seen the HBO Beyonc-produced documentary about Beyonc, Life is but a Dream

The attention Beyonc notoriously pays to her image (GQ reports she has every existing photograph of herself in a climate-controlled storage facility in her office; she reportedly has a rule about never appearing under blue light) is often dismissed as diva behaviour. This is partly because of stereotypes about powerful women and partly because of a song in which Beyonc said she was a diva nearly 40 times.

Either way, you dont get to be the biggest pop star in the world by not paying attention to whats being said about you and Beyonc knows just how much to give away.

For someone who has given only a handful of interviews since 2013, who is known to be intensely protective of her private life, we sure know a lot about it. She revealed her marriage at an album listening party; she announced her pregnancy on stage at the 2011 MTV Music Awards.

When Lemonade seems to offer an unfettered view into her personal life, its possible even prudent to wonder whats being obscured. Its apparent authenticity is its selling point, writes Pitchforks senior editor Jillian Mapes but theres a quality to it that also invites skepticism: that desire to basically art-direct your own sobbing self-portrait.

Who is Becky with the good hair, cited by Beyonc as the other woman in Sorry fashion designer Rachel Roy? Rita Ora? Does she even exist? Did Jay-Z cheat on Beyonc? Is their marriage a contractual agreement quantified in guest verses, public appearances, and world tours? Could Blue Ivy be a hologram?

The suggestion that Jay-Z and Beyonc came up with the albums narrative together appeals, if only because of the imagined dinner-table conversations chez Carter-Knowles. But as Mapes concludes who cares whats real. With Lemonades penultimate track, All Night Long, Beyonc seems to be giving the go-ahead to their union whatever its terms may be.

Master level: youre a fully paid-up member of the Beyhive

The critical thought prompted by Lemonade is only a fraction of that which Beyoncs evidently put in. Her earlier albums, even the broadly excellent 4, prompted nowhere near as much discussion, simply because there was less to say you dont see anyone smashing out 1200-word breakdowns of Sweet Dreams (2008).

In Formation, released in January, she sings about hot sauce in her bag and having mutually gratifying sex with her husband; three months later, in Lemonade, the baseball bat with which shes venting about his infidelity is discreetly labelled Hot Sauce.

With Beyonc, you can never be sure whats the gun thats going to be let off in the second act. And thats what makes her work her career so rewarding to consider. Commenters may disagree but youre still reading, arent you?

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/29/beyonce-lemonade-jay-z-explainer