Released: April 17, 2019

Songwriter: Beyoncé

Producer: Derek Dixie Beyoncé

I grew up in Houston, Texas visiting Prairie View. We rehearsed at TSU for many years in Third Ward. And I always dreamed of going to an HBCU. My college was Destiny's Child. My college was traveling around the world and life was my teacher. I wanted a Black orchestra. I wanted the steppers. I needed the vocalists. 'Cause I wanted different characters—I didn't want us all doing the same thing. And the amount of swag is just limitless, like... the things that these young people can do with their bodies and the music they can play and the drumrolls and the haircuts and the bodies and the... it's just not right. It's just so much damn swag

Beyoncé

In the twenty-first century, no pop star was as poised, as polished, or as generally fierce as Beyoncé. She scored early success with Destiny’s Child, who started out as a sexier and sassier (if less adult) version of TLC, then steadily became more and more of a vehicle for Beyoncé’s operatic vocals and general diva-tude, which may have been the plan all along.

Whether appearing in TV spots, co-starring in films like Dreamgirls, or killing it every night on stadium tours, Beyoncé was omnipresent in the 2000s. Almost everybody, Beygency member or otherwise, loved shiny, hip-hop-fueled hits like “Crazy in Love”, and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”. Moving into the 2010s, Beyoncé fights on, gaining more and more traction in pop culture with her work and music.

She has made a significant impact upon the music landscape in general with her recent albums 4 and BEYONCÉ, which explored complex themes like motherhood, feminism, marriage, sexuality, and doubt in a greater depth. With Lemonade, she went a step further—the fierce, intimate exploration of marriage, infidelity, and forgiveness was her most personal and musically daring album yet.

From the album