It may be Beyoncé's Birthday today, but it appears that she's the one giving out the gifts. For the first time, Bey has posted the visual to the song "Hold Up" from her most recent album Lemonade to YouTube.
The clip came as part of a larger collection of footage that HBO aired together in April. Fun fact, that special is actually eligible for Emmy consideration. If she were to win, Bey would be one step closer to the elusive EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) quadruple victory. For an extended period, Lemonade was only available to stream on her husband Jay Z's service Tidal. Eventually, she also gave the album over to Apple, but only for purchase in iTunes.
As is true of the entire Lemonade visual, "Hold Up" was directed by both Beyoncé and Kahlil Joseph, along with Dikayl Rimmasch, Jonas Akerlund, Mark Romanek, Melina Matsoukas, and Todd Tourso. The song set off a major firestorm on social media when it first debuted thanks to one lyric in particular: "You better call Becky with the good hair." People spent weeks trying to figure out the "Becky" in question, with many centering their attention on fashion designer Rachel Roy. As an unfortunate side effect of all this attention, many users began flooding celebrity chef Rachael Ray's Instagram and Twitter with thousands of lemon emojis in a case of mistaken identity.
"Hold Up" is only the second video after "Sorry" to hit YouTube. You can watch it below or over on YouTube here.
