"Hold Up" in Beyonce's Lemonade Album-RM (Arts and Cultural Blog)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeonBmeFR8o

"Hold Up" By: Beyonce, Released: April 23, 2016

Beyonce’s 2016 Lemonade album takes listeners through a vast journey of heartbreak, infidelity, self-discovery, and personal struggles. This album will forever be remembered as it is truly original and nothing like it has been produced before. A lot of her album consists of her internal struggle with Jay-Z’s infidelity. She moves through questioning herself and her denial, her anger towards him, and her eventual forgiveness. She also makes it clear that she deserves better and that this kind of behavior is unacceptable. She is arguably one of the largest influencers in the world and this message will help give women the strength to know their worth when facing adversities in their own relationships. She also addresses specific struggles that African Americans face in America such as police brutality in several of her music videos through featuring the mothers of men shot and killed by police as well as several depictions of police cars. In one depiction Beyonce is laying on top of a police car in water as it slowly sinks. This imagery depicts that there is more to do in order to win the war against police brutality but that we can make a difference.

When focusing on the song “Hold Up” from Beyonce’s 2016 album Lemonade there is a lot that can analyzed. In this song she is questioning whether she is crazy for suspecting Jay-Z of cheating on her. In the third verse she sings “What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy? Jealous or crazy? Or like being walked all over lately, walked all over lately/I’d rather be crazy”. This says a lot about the stereotypes that women face in relationships. She said she would “rather be crazy” than jealous which alludes to the fact that jealousy is a often a trait that is automatically assumed of women in relationships, more specifically women dating men and is seen as a negative one, even when their skepticism is justified. In the fifth verse she sings what if you “Never had the baddest woman in the game up in your sheets/ Would they be down to ride?/ No, they used to hide from you, lie to you”. She is essentially stating that she made him who he is today in his professional career and that he owes his success to her. She is making it very clear that she deserves better and that he should be grateful for a multitude of reasons that they are married. Because of her huge influence, these lines will give women the strength to stand up for themselves and know their value in their own relationships and other areas of life.