AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In an age when information is power, Beyonce's grip is absolute. The pop star and mogul rarely does interviews. She doesn't bother with the drip drop of singles and late-night chat show promotions others rely on to build buzz. Yet she's back in the center of cultural conversation after the release of her new album, "Lemonade."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLD UP")
BEYONCE: (Singing) Hold up, they don't love you like I love you. Slow down, they don't love you like I love you. Back up, they don't love you like I love you. Step down, they don't love you like I love you. Can't you see -
CORNISH: This song, the cheerful-sounding "Hold Up," sums it up best. Imagine the singer striding down a city street, hair flowing, a marigold dress fluttering around her while she wields a baseball bat against every parked car in her path. Might as well be the story of her pop-culture dominance. For more, we turn to Treva Lindsey. She's an assistant professor of women's, gender and sexuality studies at the Ohio State University. Welcome to the program.
TREVA LINDSEY: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Now on her last album, Beyonce was writing about being a new mom and love in a marriage. Talk a little bit about this concept video in these songs. How is this different?
LINDSEY: Well, it certainly is different in that the story is very, very vast. This one moves between the intimate, the personal, the political and the communal very seamlessly throughout the project. We are brought into the story of a woman who feels betrayed by her partner, that is wrestling through issues that are family-based issues with her father.
We move into spaces in which women are central to healing, to restoration, to redemption, to forgiveness, into a freedom song by the end of the album really proclaiming that she wants to keep winning, that she wants the women who are featured in this particular visual album to keep winning.
CORNISH: In the video for "Lemonade," she features the mothers of young black men who have died in altercations with police. You hear a snippet of a Malcolm X speech at one point. Can you talk about this evolution that she's made from her teen, basically pop singer days - right? - kind of "Bootylicious" days to an artist who puts feminism and politics really at the forefront of the images in her music, right? Because she doesn't have to show these things.
LINDSEY: No, she doesn't have to. But I think some part of her saying, this is what I'm feeling and responding to right now as a mother, how she connects to Sabrina Fulton or Leslie McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother, how she is viewing the very, very painful moments as she is having this kind of unprecedented success as a black woman artist. But she's still very much so trying to connect to and is connected to the experiences of black women, black girls, black femmes.
CORNISH: And is this an age where pop stars do that? I mean, it doesn't really feel like it, right? (Laughter) We're not exactly living in the age of the protest song.
LINDSEY: The art and the social movement seem to be historically connected, and I think we're beginning to see that. So you get a performance like Kendrick Lamar on the Grammys. You get a song like "Black Rage" from Lauryn Hill. You get a song like "All We Want To Do Is Take Our Chains Off And Be Free" from J. Cole. So I think some artists who do have some mainstream popularity are connecting to this movement, are responding to this movement. So I think we're going to see more of this.
CORNISH: Given what you've said, does it undermine any of this messaging to have this woman scorned, cheating narrative going as people and tabloids are talking about whether or not her husband, mogul and rapper Jay Z, cheated on her? It seems like a lot of focus is going there, and is there some calculation in that as well?
LINDSEY: I mean, I think there's a lot of focus there. I think as much as she's connecting to black women as political subjects, she's also connecting to black women who are moving through the world in their intimate relationships and partnerships, and infidelity is something that is talked about. Redemption, forgiveness - these are things that are familiar. And I think opening up that space, whether it's autobiographical or not - or semiautobiographical - allows for certain kinds of discussions because we don't stop going through those things. It did feel genuine that all of these things can co-exist.
CORNISH: That's Treva Lindsey. She's an assistant professor at the Ohio State University. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
LINDSEY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL NIGHT")
BEYONCE: (Singing) Found the truth beneath your lies, and true love never has to hide. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.