The Guardian

The message from Jay-Z and Beyoncé is not feminist | Minna Salami

His new album 4.44 is a plea for his wife’s forgiveness. But their marital saga, and her humiliation, is not a story to challenge the status quo
‘The saga of Jay-Z and Beyoncé is familiar for all the wrong reasons.’ The couple at Wimbledon for last year’s women’s final. Photograph: Adam Davy/AFP/Getty Images

After years of silence, Jay-Z released a new album, , last week. Grown-up and confident in tone, the album addresses financial success, fatherhood and hip-hop; but the theme that particularly stands out is Jay-Z’s remorse for on “the baddest girl in the world”, Beyoncé. Indeed, much of the album is a response to his wife’s hit album , lauded as a “revolutionary work of black feminism”. But let’s be real here: the romantic melodrama played out in

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