Just finished watching #Lemonade on Facebook.

I wonder if Lemonade is Beyonce’s magnum opus album, or her magnum opus video anthology.

But, going off of the film, this is NOT a pop album. None of this is pop. This is higher concept than her self-titled album. This is her most thematically-compact album to date.

Sasha Fierce, 4 and Self-Titled fit within a thematic trilogy of exploring feminism, beauty, power, love and self-expression in the world. Lemonade is new territory, in which she explores Black womanhood, infidelity, inheritance, pain, anger and appreciation in history.

The pacing is incredibly taut, like a one-hour religious ritual. Everyone, every dancer and guest, is posed exactly as they should be posed, to be canvasses for the story, like they’re dreamy expressions emanating from Beyonce’s mind. But it’s all a process. It goes from reacting to betrayal to reconciling and rebuilding with one’s love.

It goes beyond some mere “Becky with the good hair” to a wider theme of being true to those who you will meet when you wake up: oneself and each other.