Sarah Ditum on Pop

Having a bad Bey

THERE’S A RULE FOR WRITING about Beyoncé and it’s simple: you just have to say that every single thing she does is the most amazing, medium-redefining thing ever done by anyone. For a long time, it was an easy rule to follow, because doing so involved no lies. In 2002, she left girl trio Destiny’s Child and spent a decade as the world’s premier soul diva. Then in 2013, she tore everything up with her self-titled 2013 album: dropped overnight with no warning and an accompanying video album, Beyoncé was audacious and omnivorous. The stand-out track, “Flawless”, sampled novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TEDx talk “We Should All Be Feminists”. Follow-up Lemonade fed gossip because of its assumed references to her husband Jay Z’s alleged infidelity (cue lengthy dissections of who…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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