It is an interesting album. And I didn't really absorb it until I listened to it the second time. But I wanted to hear it a 2nd time all the way through so hey. And I'll play it again soon.

I have a Prince discography review going. I'm at Purple Rain but I might go back and listen to the Time too since I view it as a bonus disc to the Dirty Mind/Controversy/1999 'box set'. I'm also doing DJ Quik review too. Rosecrans pushed me back to Quik's Groove 3/Summer Breeze/Safe+Sound. I'm now at Rhythm-Al-ism...it is crazy to think he dropped that in 98. I used Lemonade as a break from both of those projects. I will watch the album some time this week and I'm guessing it will add to it quite a bit.

Zoomed out: at this point, I feel pretty strongly that she's doing a lot of good with some obviously strong resources. The way I'm hearing it, she's making lots of music that she 'doesn't have to make'. That sounds mean and maybe even unfair but that isn't what I'm getting at. She's a huge star and has been for quite a while. She could easily sit on it and make rando songs about absolutely nothing for 10 songs at a time 5x a decade, but she's pretty clearly going for something 'more' that 'means something to her'.

The best news for me is that this is an 11-song 'concept' album with Formation tacked on the end. AKA I was not in line with Formation as a song. And that was BEFORE it and Beyonce become a whole thing for horribly uninformed arguments, lazy 2016-level 'outrage', and 'we'll take this as our excuse to counter hate with hate' black unity to come out of all of their boxes.

It's like Ring the Alarm: The Album. And the lyrics are jarring because they hit and...well...you can easily believe that she's talking to Shawn on some if not all of it. I watch pro wrestling though. With that, I understand that I could be getting 'worked' on false context and I'm fine with it. Taking the sentiments as they are delivered without the need to validate/substantiate them as 'real' or all about her hubby or her singing as her mom, I can't get enough of Freedom and All Night...especially as the 'for now' conclusion to the 'story' she seems to be continuing throughout her discog.

And Just Blaze + Kendrick is just cheating on me...no way I'm not gonna dig that. And singing about working through it to a point where you can throw something on somebody over Spottie Oddie? Cut it out, B. Cut it out! I've made that song so meta in my mind already that its not even funny. I love it. And it is the hit here. That and Hold Up.

It is unfortunate that folks have 'decided' on her based on prior output or stuff other than the actual music. But hey...we clearly don't learn from how we did our handful of black megastars years ago. And I thought the whole Tupac thing got us over hating on acts mainly because some of their fans were for sure and impressively idiotic. But oh well...maybe not.

After a few listens, Lemonade is an emotional album with some stank on it. To me...she's easily much closer to living up to most projections folks put on her when her inevitable solo career finally started with Crazy In Love. Or at least I 'buy her as an artist'. For some reason, pop acts have struggled with that. And in this era, it is damn near impossible to be mostly loved for an extensive period of time. Heroes get made into villains all the time.

It's like becoming huge somehow means you aren't as 'real' as some unknown person cooing over spare guitars with syllable-heavy writing on mixtapes. Has the love for the hiphop 'come from nuthin' story really ruined us that bad? And filling up ARENAS with folks knowing, 'feeling', and caring about your lyrics is somehow trivial or cheap. Sometimes I struggle with the late-90s to now feeling like the underdog hour where if you get 'too big', the hate comes so hard. It's like MJ hurt folks and everyone coped by vowing to not let anyone else ever get big. Or maybe it was Pac/Big getting themselves shot? Or maybe Kells was the last straw. Or maybe it is just the volume of information out there and the way the innanet unites folks who feel the need to dislike stuff ESPECIALLY if they get the feeling that 'too many' people like something. I don't know...some other time...

>Beyonce got Just Blaze on there.
>Diplo
>Weeknd.
>Jack White.
>Mike Dean.
>Oh yeah, Kendrick on the Just Blaze beat.
>Spottie Ottie sample. so Organized Noize.
>James Fauntelroy.
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>Her engineers are some of the best.
>Her records always sound stadium status.
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>and she shot the whole HBO thing in my hometown of New Orleans
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>it looks like. Solange made B fall in love with Nola.
>