Ten years of Lemonade, and it truly marked the beginning of a new dawn for Beyoncé. One characterized by her ability to evolve continuously and change the music landscape along the way. I only recently got fully into this album (I'm a self-titled kind of guy), and diving deep into it changed the way I perceived everything that came before and after it.

10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Lemonade

Beyoncé

STREAM

For years, I thought Lemonade was primarily about Jay-Z's infidelity. That was always the most loudly taken-away narrative, the betrayal, the rage, the reconciliation. But the longer I've sat with this album, the more that reading feels like a reduction. The real story is bigger than that.

Lemonade is Beyoncé, for what I would consider the first time, at her most vulnerable publicly. She's showing all sides of herself, the southern roots, the Black image, the timeless image, the rockstar image, the independent image, the real image. It wasn't just an F-you to Jay-Z. It was an F-you to the whole industry.

Over the decades prior, she'd consistently been painted by the wider press as just a pop star, can't really sing, just a performer, nothing special. And maybe they don't get it. Maybe they never will. But as a Black person, seeing how much she's changed the world, how many barriers and previously incomprehensible heights she's shattered wide open, and the fact that she openly and proudly represents the community and puts our culture on some of the world's largest stages, that will always mean something to me.

As I see it, Lemonade was the final album where Beyoncé truly felt she had something left to prove. The albums since have only confirmed that. Ten years later, cheers to that.

Ps i make music too check it out