This Is the Secret Ingredient in Beyoncé's 'Lemonade'

Is your mind still blowing up after Beyoncé #blessed the world with her second visual album, Lemonade? Yeah, mine too. It was expected that Queen Bey would go hard in her artistry, and the cinematic storytelling featured in Saturday’s one-hour HBO event definitely did its part to remind folks why she’s already considered a living legend. So what’s the secret to Beyoncé’s intoxicating lemonade? Hint: there’s lots and lots of Black Girl Magic involved.

In the final act of the film, a Bey recites a makeshift recipe for lemonade, a metaphor for resilience, that brings the whole story full circle. She solemnly recalls the words once spoken by her grandmother:  “Nothing real can be threatened.” She continues, “True love brought salvation back into me. With every tear came my salivation and my torture became my remedy.”

If those words didn’t take your breath away for a moment, Beyoncé drove it home by enlisting an A-list squad of females currently carrying the torch for Black feminism. Amandla Stenberg, Zendaya, Quvenzhané Wallis, Winnie Harlow, Serena Williams, and Winne Harlow made stunning cameos to further reinforce the beauty, elegance, and strength each Black woman possesses.

Lemonade reminds us why Black Girl Magic is so precious: it can’t be bought and it can’t be duplicated. It’s passed down from our mothers, and their mothers, and their mothers. It’s innately within us all, just waiting to be tapped.

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