Beyonce and Jay-Z, Everything Is Love, review: A fascinating third chapter into the superstar's marriage
When did Beyoncé and Jay-Z become the John and Yoko of hip-hop? Pop’s reigning power couple have become so self-referential their oeuvre has become a public dissection, discussion and triumphalist vindication of their marriage. Mind you, Beyoncé can sing a bit better than Yoko. Well, she can sing a bit better than just about everyone.
It is Beyoncé's voice that illuminates and lubricates Everything Is Love, the joint album that the powerhouse R’n’B diva and her rap mogul husband released without warning on Saturday. Announced during the final London show of their co-headlined stadium tour On The Run II and released exclusively via their streaming platform Tidal, it is effectively the third album in a soap-operatic series about the ups and downs of their relationship.
Beyoncé's Lemonade fired the first shots across the bows in April 2016, a staggering pop masterpiece about marital discord and black womanhood. Mixing art and life by specifically addressing the very public rumours about the state of her union with Jay-Z, its bravura honesty brought out qualities of depth and focus in Beyoncé that had only been hinted at before.
Jay-Z, to his credit, responded last year with 4:44, a self-lacerating mea culpa that confessed his infidelity, examined his masculinity and pleaded for a second chance with the woman he loved. Nominated for eight Grammys (although it failed to win any) it was the most mature and philosophical album of his outstanding career and arguably one of the most grown-up albums ever heard in rap.
Everything Is Love reunites the couple in a declaration of their enduring amour. It is the climax of the most grandstanding showbiz couples therapy session witnessed since Double Fantasy in 1980. On closing track Lovehappy, Beyonce sings across an old school soul sample: “Love is deeper than your pain and I believe you can change.”
The album makes for a fascinating document. Fans will be delighted by the references to events they are already be aware of thanks to social media. We hear about the early days of their courtship (Jay-Z: “We played it cool at the pool at Cancun VMA / Confidence you exude makes the fools stay away / Me, I played my room, let the fools have they say / Fate had me sitting next to you on the plane / And I knew straight away”), the rumours of Jay-Z having an illegitimate child (“Billie Jean in his prime / For the thousandth time, the kid ain’t mine”), their move from New York to Los Angeles (“I had to change the weather / Move the family West, but it's whatever / In a glass house, still throwing stones”) and the renewal of their vows (Beyonce: “You f----- up the first stone, we had to get remarried” Jay-Z: “Yo, chill, man” Beyoncé: “We keepin' it real with these people, right? Lucky I ain’t kill you....”).
Their relaxed interchanges are peppered with amusing pop culture references to Jay-Z’s awards snub(“Tell the Grammys f--- that zero for eight s--- / Have you ever seen the crowd goin' apes---?”), the couple's inclusion in Forbes rich list (Beyoncé: “My great-great-grandchildren already rich/ That's a lot of brown children on your Forbes list”) and their disputes with rival streaming services (Beyoncé: “My success can’t be quantified / If I gave two f---- about streaming numbers, would’ve put Lemonade up on Spotify”).
There is a lot of fun to be had here. But it is hard to escape the sense of brand management too, as the emotional turmoil that infused those two earlier albums is queasily resolved in declarations of undying affection. Like John and Yoko, The Carters can be just a bit too pleased with their self-mythologised love. But this being hip-hop, the way they tend to express affection is through brand names and lifestyle boasts (“Sittin’ dock of the bay with a big yacht / Sippin’ Yamakazi on the rocks”).
Only one track, the punchy Black Effect, sees the happy couple unlock their gazes from each other's eyes for long enough to address problems lesser mortals might face. With its sharp references to police brutality, false arrest and the shooting of Trayvon Martin, it puts Beyoncé and Jay-Z at the forefront of Black Lives Matter. John and Yoko were pretty good at tackling hot political issues, too.
In comparative musical terms, though, you could amusingly question who is the Beatle in this particular studio set-up. As a hip-hop album, Everything Is Love should play to Jay-Z’s strengths. And while he is on fine form throughout, it is his wife who does the heavy musical lifting. Beyoncé impressively matches her superstar rapper husband in terms of lyrical swagger, rhythmic flow and verbal bounce. That she does it to a backdrop of samples constructed around her own extraordinary singing lends the record's mantric grooves the luxurious sheen of high-end pop.
The result of using that remarkable voice both as back and foreground is to turn Jay-Z into a guest on Beyoncé’s album. A man who seems to have risen above rap’s customary ego plays, Jay-Z sounds genuinely comfortable in this setting, but it is Beyoncé who thrives. Production throughout (from a wide range of hip-hop beatmakers) is sleek, modern and dynamic but it takes a producer of Pharrell Williams's confidence to dare slather such a rich voice in effects reserved for more pedestrian singers. The way Beyoncé’s vocal can suddenly lift out of the electronic monotone and into the ether at the end of phrases becomes a special effect in itself.
These are not pop songs, though. Everything Is Love certainly doesn’t have the musical expansiveness of Lemonade. There are neither ballads nor bangers, and not much in the way of melodic song construction at all. Rather, these are snappily repetitive beats on which the stars can put across their message as a form of hip hop conversation. Beyond the fascination that holds, Everything Is Love offers the opportunity to hear Beyoncé add another string to her already well strung bow. Hip-hop has been an effective element of her career even since the girl band glories of Destiny's Child but this is the moment where Beyoncé really gets to demonstrate that she has the skills to be a world-beating rapper. I suppose it helps that she has one of the greatest rappers who ever lived in the role of her number one cheerleader.