Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
LOS ANGELES: Jay-Z released a music video on Friday that features the rapper addressing the pain of infidelity as he appears in a confessional booth opposite his wife Beyonce.
Set partly in a church and also featuring the couple's 5-year-old daughter Blue Ivy, the "Family Feud" video pays tribute to family ties and female empowerment.
"We all lose when the family feuds," Jay-Z sings. "A man that don't take care of his family can't be rich."
The video is the latest from Jay-Z's hit album "4:44," in which he responds to allegations of cheating revealed by Beyonce in her 2016 Grammy-winning album "Lemonade." It briefly shows an unidentified couple in an intimate embrace, until the woman stabs the man in the back.
Within an hour of its release, the video was the top trending item on Twitter.
Jay-Z, 48, confirmed in a New York Times interview in November that he had been unfaithful to Beyonce earlier in their nine-year marriage.
The rapper's soul-baring "4:44" album on love, life and social issues was widely seen as an apology to his wife.
The couple, one of the richest and most influential in the music industry, have reconciled and Beyonce gave birth to their twins in June.
Heavy on symbolism, the eight-minute-long "Family Feud" video shows the musician walking into a church holding the hand of a white-clad Blue Ivy and taking a seat in the confessional booth.
Beyonce, dressed in a black, priestess-like robe, watches silently from a pulpit and later sits listening on the other side of the confessional screen.
Directed by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, the video also envisions a future in which a grown-up Blue Ivy and other women of colour, portrayed by actresses Mindy Kaling, Rosario Dawson, America Ferrera, Thandie Newton and Niecy Nash, appear to rule the world.
Jay-Z has a leading eight nominations for the Grammy Awards in January, including the top prizes of best album, song and record of the year.
