The Greatest Rapper Alive: Beyoncé

When you ask someone who their top three favorite rapper of today is, you will hear the typical answers of Drake, Big Sean, J. Cole, or even Cardi B., but there is one person who secretly trumps them all; Beyoncé. With the release of her new collaborative album, Everything Is Love, featuring her husband, Mrs. Carter proved why she is actually the queen of rap.

As the self-proclaimed President of the Beyhive; East Coast Division, I know that Beyoncé did not suddenly hop on the trap music wave. In fact, her rapping skills can be traced back to the debut of Destiny’s Child’s first album. 90s R&B music mostly consisted of soaring ballads and slow love songs. But Destiny Child shook the table with their first single “No, No, No.” which had two versions; the slow tempo version and the uptempo Wyclef Jean produced remix. The remix saw Beyoncé singing the original lyrics, but this time in a fast, rapper like way. “What if I can have Beyoncé sing in the double timing almost as if she’s rhyming?’ Like, the dudes from Texas, at the time” Wyclef told Genius. “Everything was double timing. But, you never heard girls doing that. It was impossible.” 

From this point on, ‘rap-singing’ would become a signature singing style for Bey. Although some of her biggest hits are songs like Crazy in Love and Halo, a great number of songs on her albums feature her spitting serious bars. Songs like Upgrade You, where she raps about improving a man’s life just by being herself, or the smash hit Drunk in Love are just a few examples of the Queen’s flow.

But with Everything is Love, she has reached a new level of wig ‘snatchery’ (yes, that’s a made up word). Let’s go over some of the best lines from the album.

“Patiently waiting for my demise / Cause my success can’t be quantified / If I gave two fucks – two fucks about streaming numbers / Would have put Lemonade up on Spotify”

This personally is my favorite line on the entire album. There is no doubt that Bey is one of the biggest artist in the entire world, and with that comes a lot of haters. In this, she addresses that she knows there are people out there waiting on her downfall, which won’t happen. I also believe that  Beyoncé has secret social media accounts where she watches her fans reactions to her material. A big source of frustration for many members of the Hive is that her last project, Lemonade, is only available to stream on Tidal and in today’s music industry, streaming is everything! She is letting us know that not only is she the Queen of Rap, she is also the Queen of Not Giving a Fuck.

“Gimme my check, put some respeck on my check/ Or pay me in equity, pay me in equity / Or watch me reverse out the dick” (“APESHIT”)

Following their late 2017 collaboration “Stir Fry,” Migos and Pharrell reunite on Everything Is Love’s lead single. Bey dexterously adopts the Migos’ signature triplet flow, putting her own spin on the rhyme scheme that has ruled the airwaves in recent years. (Notably, she uses the male-dominated style to discuss the gender pay gap.) She takes to it more naturally than her husband. As of now, this is the only Everything Is Love track to receive a visual. “APESHIT” makes Bey’s stylistic experimentation a centerpiece of the whole project.

With many rappers today, it is questioned if they are the ones actually writing their own rhymes, and of course, the Beyoncé haters were already prepared to say that she did not write any of the music and that she probably changed one or two words to get writing credit.

In an interview with Billboard, Cool and Dre, who produced a couple songs on the album, spoke about people not wanting to give Bey her credit when it comes to writing. Dre said “She was 100 percent involved. She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She’s a beast.

I’ll tell you one story: When I went out to their compound, I played them a sample that had a lady singing in French on a loop throughout the whole record. Bey said to play it again, and I did. And then she said to play it again, and I did. On the third time, she sang the whole sample from beginning to end — in a different language! When you make a beat, that could take hours, days. I didn’t know what the hell that sample was saying. But in three listens, she picked up on a sample in a different language and sang the whole thing. When I saw that, I was like, “This is a totally different level.”

It is so obvious that  Beyoncé is in a class of her own, and just when you thought she couldn’t get any better, she snatched the rap crown. Now to top this off, let’s enjoy a clip of Bey rapping one of my favorite songs of hers, Kitty Kat.