Rapper Jay-Z released a music video on Dec 29 that features him addressing the pain of infidelity as he appears in a confessional booth opposite his wife Beyonce. Set partly in a church and also featuring the couple’s five-year-old daughter Blue Ivy as a transformative American leader, the Family Feud video pays tribute to family ties and female empowerment. Within an hour of its release, it was the top trending item on Twitter. “We all lose when the family feuds,” Jay-Z sings. “A man that don’t take care of his family can’t be rich.”
The video is the latest from his hit album 4:44, in which he responds to allegations of cheating revealed by Beyonce in her 2016 Grammy-winning album Lemonade. It briefly shows an unidentified couple having sex, until the woman stabs the man in the back.
Jay-Z, 48, confirmed in a New York Times interview in November that he had been unfaithful to Beyonce, 36, earlier in their nine-year marriage. 4:44, his soul-baring album on love, life and social issues, was widely seen as an apology to her. The couple, one of the richest and most influential in the music industry, have reconciled and she gave birth to their twins in June.
Heavy on symbolism, the eight minute Family Feud video shows the musician walking into a church holding the hand of a white-clad Blue Ivy and taking a seat in the confessional booth. Beyonce, dressed in a black, priestess-like robe, watches silently from a pulpit and later sits listening on the other side of the confessional screen. Directed by film-maker Ava DuVernay, the video also envisions a future in which a grown-up Blue Ivy and other women of colour, portrayed by actresses Mindy Kaling, Rosario Dawson, America Ferrera, Thandie Newton and Niecy Nash, appear to rule the world.
It does not explicitly depict Blue Ivy as United States president, but quickly sparked chatter online. “President Blue Ivy 2050. #FamilyFeud. I’ll be 79 when I cast this vote,” hip-hop drummer and producer Questlove wrote on Twitter. Jay-Z has a leading eight nominations for the upcoming Grammy Awards, including the top prizes of Album, Song and Record Of The Year. – Agencies
