Beyoncé’s “Freedom” Is Peak Lemonade
Lemonade is not an album about cheating. No, it is a work about the cultural violence (emotional, verbal, spiritual) toward women, black women in particular, and about dismantling its seemingly systemic power. Beyoncé cycles through her personal grief, first focusing on her own anger and sadness, then broadening the scope of her creative lens.
“Freedom” is the 10th track on Lemonade. It features both a sample of an old Negro prison song and a fiery verse from Kendrick Lamar, arriving on the album as a moment of catharsis. After songs of paranoia, anger, and revenge, we finally get a song that speaks truth to Beyoncé’s deep well of feelings. Bathed in psychedelic, synthetic organs and a propulsive drum beat, the track cuts straight, providing an alternative narrative of personal redemption. It is also the explanatory work on Lemonade. The end of “Freedom” features a clip of Hattie White, Jay Z’s grandmother, during her 90th birthday celebration. “I had my ups and downs, but I always had the inner strength to pull myself up,” she says. “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”
“Freedom” sounds, too, like the sort of powerful, transformative hymnals heard in a Southern Baptist black church. In the same way that a turn toward something higher than ourselves can save us, “Freedom” is a call to “wade through the waters” of this moment of sadness because “a winner don’t quit on themselves.”
It comes as no surprise that the most energetic songs on Lemonade are charged by either fury or confidence. The two emotions are dichotomous. The anger, while righteous and necessary, will only keep one rooted in the past. Beyoncé’s confidence, her self-esteem, her self-worth—the alternatives—are more important. “I’m telling these tears fall away, fall away/ May the last one burn in flames,” Bey sings before the chorus. She is ready to move on, to allow the tears to fall as they should and then move on. “Freedom, freedom, I can’t move/ Freedom, cut me loose,” she sings, as if begging to be let loose from the grip of her pain. And finally, she has.
[Listen to “Freedom” on Tidal]
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