This weekend, Beyonce fans were treated to the release of her latest album, alongside the HBO premiere of Lemonade, Beyonce’s visual album, comprised of various films related to the tracks. Director Jonas Akerlund created two segments for the film including, “Hold Up,” in which Beyonce, clothed in a mustard yellow gown, wields a bat. As she gleefully smashes cars, shop windows and anything in her path, she sings to a reggae-twinged beat, “What’s worse, lookin’ jealous or crazy? Jealous and crazy. I’ve like been walked all over lately, walked all over lately. I’d rather be crazy.”
Additionally, Jonas directed the poem sequence that proceeds “Hold Up”. As Beyonce is submerged in a bedroom full of water, she recites:
I tried to change, closed my mouth more, tried to be soft, prettier, less awake. Fasting for sixty days, wore white, abstained from mirrors, abstained from sex, slowly did not speak another word. And that time my hair I grew past my ankles. I slept on a mat on the floor.I swallowed a sword, I levitated. Into the basement. Confessed my sins. And was baptized in a river. Got on my knees and said Amen.