And so drops the latest instalment in the world’s most popular and bling-ridden sonic soap opera. Last time on The Carters, 2016’s celebrated Lemonade album found the previously drunk/crazy in love Queen Bey processing her husband Jay-Z’s high-profile infidelity through the stages of discovery, denial, anger, retribution, acceptance and reunion, a journey told in tandem with that of the emancipation and empowerment of black women. Jay’s 2017 response, 4:44, acted as a bow-scraping mea culpa, paving the way for a joint tour and surprise album Everything is Love – a renewal of vows that smacked heavily of the scowling, post-scandal “I’m standing by him” press interview.
If the cover of Lemonade – Beyoncé head down and hiding from the world behind luxuriant furs – spoke to her broken mindset in the wake of discovering the existence of Becky with the good hair, the title and sleeve of her seventh album, Renaissance, suggests a proud comeback for the empress of self-worth. Clad only in the zip of an invisible diamond onesie, she sits astride a cosmic crystal horse like Xanadu’s Godiva; audaciously back in the (presumably pre-warmed) saddle. After nine years and two albums of revered art-pop progress, lead single “Break My Soul” declares a fresh desire for airplay too; a brazen house banger (sampling Robin S’s “Show Me Love”) that suggests we “release ya wiggle” even as it advocates breaking free from capitalist wage slavery.
