Everything Is Love, the long-awaited joint album from The Carters, gave us everything we’d been hoping for. Released in trademark world-stopping fashion, it’s a nine-song toast (with "Salud!" serving as a bonus track) to the guests of honor: themselves. And we’re happy to raise our glasses in salute of their indisputable success.
The album celebrates their impact, their heritage, their resilience as a couple, their friends, Donald Trump, the NFL, Jay's drug-dealer past, and their wealth. All to be expected, right? Wrong. We didn’t expect to hear Bey arguably doing as much rapping as she did singing.
With both Carters in their bag and trading bars, we decided to put them head-to-head on a track-by-track face-off. We know they brag different, but who pulled off the biggest flexes lyrically?
"Summer"
Beyoncé: “Got you all in your emotions, hit you with the force then/Tell me your desires, I won't ever tire”
JAY-Z: “I brought my sand to the beach/Hopped out the Lam' with the sheep/Skin rugs on the floor/We hugged, made love on the seats”
Winner: JAY. On this album, Jay admits to being swept off his feet by Beyoncé. These lines speak to her knowing her effect and owning it. But if we’re talking bars, Jay has to take it because Bey mostly handles hook duties here.
"Apeshit"
Beyoncé: “Bought him a jet/Shut down Colette/Phillippe Patek/Get off my dick”
JAY-Z: “I said no to the Super Bowl: you need me, I don't need you/Every night we in the endzone, tell the NFL we in stadiums too”
Winner: JAY. I mean, Bey is just speaking facts right here. She bought her man a whole ass private jet for Father’s Day. That’s a flex mere mortals can’t understand. But JAY takes this round because of the Super Bowl line. Fuck the NFL.
"Boss"
Beyoncé: “Ain't nothing to it, I boss so I bought my momma a whip/My great-great-grandchildren already rich/That's a lot of brown chirren on your Forbes list”
JAY-Z: “Niggas getting jerked, that shit hurts, I take it personally/Niggas rather work for the man than to work with me/Just so they can pretend they on my level, that shit is irkin' to me”
Winner: Bey. She took that one off the Forbes line alone.
"Nice"
Beyoncé: “Patiently waiting for my demise/'Cause my success can't be quantified/If I gave two fucks about streaming numbers/Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify”
JAY-Z: “Y'all drag me in court for that shit, y'all backwards/After all these years of drug trafficking, huh?/Time to remind me I'm Black again, huh?
Winner: Bey. Beyoncé’s entire verse is flames. One dart after another; it’s hard to even single out the best ones. But here, she shits on Spotify while letting us know that we still have yet to grasp her impact as a living legend. Beyzuz, indeed.
"713"
Beyonce: “I'm representin' for my hustlers all across the world/Still dippin' in my low-lows, girl/I put it down for the 713, and we still got love for the streets”
Jay-Z: “Confidence you exude make the fools stay away/Me, I played my room, let the fools have they say”
Winner: Bey. Just because she pulls the ultimate flex—interpolating bars that JAY-Z originally wrote for someone else, as a reminder that The Carters are everywhere, all the time.
"Friends"
Beyoncé: “Goddammit it, I love my life, Styrofoam cups, no ice/Party 'fore we go inside/My friends are goals, your friends are foes”
JAY-Z: “Bought Emory a BM as soon as he came home/We hopped on a plane, headed straight to the Bay/That's how we turn the game on, it's game on”
Winner: JAY. We have to go with Jigga here because his verse was just too real and he helped bring Meek home.
"Heard About Us"
Beyoncé: “Pull up, hop out, wreck/Got no time but we got Pateks/I come around, stepping on necks/They don't want Yoncé on their door/Louis slugger to your four door”
JAY-Z: “Bitch know me, I been me since the cocaine/Bitch know B, she don't even need a whole name”
Winner: JAY. Beyoncé is talking that gangsta shit. Taking a baseball bat to a car is not only a reference to herself in the “Hold Up” video from Lemonade, it’s also some ghetto baby behavior. Yoncé wants you to know she is rich and classy, but still Houston 'til the day she dies. JAY wins this one though, because his verse is damn-near ambidextrous. He’s tired of y’all with the illegitimate child rumors, he’s tired of y’all coming for his pockets and trying to sue him every day, but he can’t complain too much ’cause he still has the juice to shut down the Louvre. It’s good to be king.
"Black Effect"
Beyoncé: “Mobbin' in a hoodie like Melo/Come up out that pretty motherfucker like ‘Hello, Hello’/I will never let you shoot the nose off my Pharaoh”
JAY-Z: "Hmm, a nigga late but he best dressed/Got slowed down by the weight of my necklaces/Parked the Lexus in the projects, bitch I'm reckless"
Winner: Bey. She has to take this for the command of history she employs. If you sleep, do your homework, because by name-checking Sarah Baartman and the Pharoah, she’s saying she won’t let her legacy be whitewashed or forgotten.
"LoveHappy"
Beyoncé: “We keepin' it real with these people, right?/Lucky I ain't kill you when I met that b-”
JAY-Z: “Y'all know how I met her, we broke up and got back together/To get her back, I had to sweat her/Y'all could make up with a bag, I had to change the weather/Move the whole family West, but it's whatever”
Winner: Bey. Beyoncé wins this one because, well, she’s the boss in this relationship and the boss of us all.
**BONUS ROUND** "Salud"
Beyoncé: “Lord knows it takes hella patience/When your name is a verb and these comments absurd/And they swear they know you better than you know yourself”
JAY-Z: “Your president tweeting about Hov like he knows us/My road to the top was to take what you owe us/I give a fuck what that man find vulgar/Just look in my eyes when you toast us”
Winner: JAY. Jiggaman because he’s rapping like he still has the durag on while taking shots at Donald Trump’s bitch ass.
Overall winner: Well, it looks like we have a draw here, folks. Bey and JAY went bar for bar on 10 tracks—looks like we’ll need another album from them to break the tie.
