Lemonade

The drop

On April 23, 2016, Beyoncé released Lemonade as an hour-long film on HBO, then put the album on Tidal. Nobody knew exactly what was coming.

The story

The film moves through chapters named for feelings: Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Hope, Redemption. It’s a story of a marriage cracking after infidelity, and of Black women, family and Southern roots. The spoken words between songs are poetry by Warsan Shire.

Cameos include Serena Williams, Zendaya and Amandla Stenberg, and the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner holding photos of their sons.

Becky with the good hair

On "Sorry", one line mentions "Becky with the good hair", the other woman. The internet immediately went hunting for who Becky was, flooding the comments of anyone it suspected with bee emojis. Beyoncé never said.

Formation and the Super Bowl

"Formation" dropped the day before Super Bowl 50 in February 2016. She performed it at halftime with dancers in outfits inspired by the Black Panthers, which made some politicians furious and everyone else talk.

The Grammys

Lemonade won Best Urban Contemporary Album, and "Formation" won Best Music Video. But Album of the Year went to Adele’s 25, and Adele used her speech to say Lemonade was monumental and should have won.

The answer

In 2017, Jay-Z released 4:44, admitting to cheating and apologizing. Then they made a joint album together in 2018. The whole saga played out in public, on records.