Who Is Beyonce Calling a Bitch?

"Bow down bitches," repeats Beyonce in the opening lines to her new song. These egotistical, derogative and offensive lyrics coming from the woman who only two years ago told us girls. I thought you were our feminist pop heroine, Bey?

"Bow down bitches," repeats Beyonce in the opening lines to her new song.

These egotistical, derogatory and offensive lyrics coming from the woman who only two years ago told us girls Run the World.

I thought you were our feminist pop heroine, Bey?

Her latest release, Bow Down/I Been On, is some kind of mean rap dissing people who may have remarked on her marriage to rapper and music mogul Jay-Z.

"I took some time to live my life, but don't think I'm just his little wife," she states. Clearing up something that never even needed clearing up until she decided to name her new world tour the Mrs Carter Show, leaving rather a few people scratching their heads.

As Jane Martinson in the Guardian wrote: "There is almost something subversive about waiting until the strongest moment of your career, which is where Beyoncé finds herself now, to do away with the infamous glossy mononym in favour of a second name your own husband doesn't even use."

As if pre-empting people's fears that her new album is going to be full of syrupy ballads about her beautiful new baby girl and her now happy settled home life instead of the heartbreak anthems and booty-shaking motivational tracks she's known for, Bey has released this travesty of a single.

I've followed Beyonce's music since her Destiny's Child days and don't think there is one song that she's released that I haven't played on repeat at some point. Yet, somehow the woman who could do no wrong in my eyes - yes, I even instantly forgave her for lip-synching the US national anthem at the president's inauguration - has screwed up.

Who is she singing to? Who is she asking to bow down and calling bitches? Surely not her devoted fans?

The track stinks of Rihanna. The Bajan singer uses this sort of language and worse all the time in her songs. Coincidentally, Bey reportedly worked on the track with R&B duo Planet VI, who are responsible for Rihanna's equally gritty 'Pour It Up'.

In my eyes Beyonce has nothing to prove. She is still very clearly at the top of the game, as her SuperBowl half-time show and the fact that her tour tickets sold out instantly, crashing Live Nation under the weight of her millions of fans, illustrated.

But the fact that her chosen artwork for Bow Down is a pre-teen Beyonce standing in front of a mantlepiece full of awards and trophies on some sort of ridiculously over-the-top ego trip makes me think maybe I don't know her as well as I thought.

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