Texas hasn’t gotten its due as a major piece in the complex puzzle of American art. We’re here to rectify that. Every two weeks, H. Drew Blackburn will conduct a thoroughly scientific analysis of the 254 essential (one for every county) books, movies, tv shows, albums, podcasts, songs, and magazine articles — you name it — that best exemplify the Texas spirit. These texts, products of immense talent, dig into the marrow of our being. When it’s all said and done and we’ve built The Texas Voyager collection, we’ll (figuratively) head to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and shoot it beyond the atmosphere, into the cosmos. A wise person once posed the question: “What if the aliens are hot?” Hold onto that hope — this is our chance to impress ‘em.
I don’t consider “Work it Out,” from “Austin Powers in Goldmember” Beyoncé’s debut single.
It is on paper, but let’s be real here: That’s just a little exhibition before the big game. Her proper debut single is “Crazy in Love,” the track that also opens her first solo record, “Dangerously in Love.” Those blazing horns borrowed from “Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)” by the Chi-Lites, that infectious chorus, and the “uh oh” dance that went along with it, made one thing clear — this woman was going to be a star for a very long time. While writing this, something clicked for me that hadn’t really clicked before. The first voice you hear during Beyoncé’s first massive hit (it spent eight weeks as the number one song in the country) — and, in effect, the first one you hear on her first album — is actually the love of her life, her then-beau and now-husband, Jay-Z.
To talk about Beyoncé without mentioning Jay-Z would be to tell an incomplete story. Above all, Beyoncé is a lover. She’s doing all sorts of things with her love. One day it’s dangerous, the next she’s putting it on top. Sometimes she’s drunk in it. Sometimes it’s facing a drought. It’s everything. If we want to understand Texas’ most important and gifted musician, we have to get square with the fact that her heart will always be held by another.
Now, that caveat in-hand, the pursuit of this project is to find the Beyoncé album most worthy of Texas Voyager status. To be clear, that doesn’t necessarily mean her best work. That would be “Act I: Renaissance,” a musical triumph on par with classics like “Songs in the Key of Life” and “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which you will hear about here at some point. Although Americana and country music have strong Texas ties, that isn’t all we have to offer, so it also doesn’t automatically mean “Act II: Cowboy Carter.” Yeah, it’s the best Beyoncé album for your Boomer mother, but it’s too simple of a choice. We’re here to be deeply scientific. Instead, the album we’ll put on the Texas Voyager today is the one that tells a fully realized story of the most important romance of Beyoncé’s life. The one about how her heart was broken and how she mended those pieces, turning lemons into “Lemonade.”
“Lemonade” marked a major shift in Beyoncé’s status as a global icon. It deployed the surprise-drop formula used during the release of her self-titled record from 2013, which started a trend in music marketing, but “Beyoncé,” with its accompanying visual-album, demanded audiences see her as something dangerous and extraordinary — a talented, avant-garde artist with an unlimited budget and more resources than any artist in the world could dream of. Creating dozens of earworms is one thing, but from the self-titled album on she would create moments — art that’s thought provoking and steeped in tradition. Collaborations with bright poets, authors, designers, and filmmakers. “Lemonade” upped the ante and stunned the world when the film was released through HBO on April 23, 2016. It featured underground titans like the poet Warsan Shire and documentarian Kahlil Joseph, and it got personal in a way we hadn’t seen from her at that point. How could anyone forget? This is when we all found out Jay-Z cheated on Beyoncé — with Becky with the good hair.
The revelation was shocking. In that moment, many of us thought we were witnessing a break-up album, one starring the most powerful power couple around — a generation’s greatest rapper and a generation’s greatest pop icon, who spent about fifteen years painting a picture of a perfect life in the public eye. But the substance behind “Lemonade” reveals something thornier, deeper. It telegraphs flaws, contradictions, anger, strength, and pain. Beyoncé drops the golden smile and gets sincere. It confronts the main character in love — the ego, which is the driving force behind every decision we make, especially in interpersonal relationships. Jay-Z’s ego kicking into overdrive is what made him think having an affair was a good decision. The dissolution of Beyoncé’s led her to share her story with all of us in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. The era of Beyoncé’s sixth studio album is really Beyoncé’s first completely authentic and human moment, where we got a quick peek behind the gilded facade and saw what lies beneath.
We saw her wear her Texas roots and musical influences on her sleeve, as the record incorporated elements of rock, hip-hop, country, Americana, and gospel along with R&B. She relished in her Blackness on the world’s biggest stages — paying homage to the Black Panthers at the Super Bowl and during her legendary headlining gig at Coachella.
In the New Yorker, Doreen St. Félix called the performance — now preserved as “Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé” on Netflix — “an education in Black expression,” pointing out that “the lessons that Beyoncé received while growing up in Houston were the lessons that her parents received through the pride movements of the seventies.” I’m sure her children, Rumi, Sir, and Blue Ivy will get these lessons too. And their children, and so on and so forth. St. Félix goes on to say that the set was her “most comprehensive retrospective, underscoring not only her Southernness but the global Black vernacular that continues to shape her.” More than an education or an expression of her Blackness, the moments when she belted out “Lift Every Voice” and referenced HBCUs were a declaration of love.
As a card-carrying Beyhive member, I get a sharp pang when I see “Lemonade” celebrated on lists above the rest of her work. As a stand-alone album… better than “4”? Than the self-titled record? Than “Dangerously in Love”? As we’ve already established, “Act I: Renaissance” is one of the greatest records ever made, Grammy recognition be damned. To the average Beyoncé connoisseur, “Lemonade” could feel like the lazy option, or even a disrespectful way to commemorate the work of an artist that is anything but lazy.
I think to myself, “do you fools listen to music or do you skim though it?” But it’s the obvious answer for a reason. We never felt closer to Beyoncé than we did when “Lemonade” came out. “Lemonade” feels the most right for the Texas Voyager.
Maybe I’ve been the fool all along.
(Editor’s note: This column was previously titled The Texas Canon. After learning that Chron has a similar series with the same title — which debuted first! — we’ve rebranded. We appreciate our friends at Chron bringing this issue to our attention, and we encourage readers to check out their column.)
