The Surprising Credits On Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’

Beyoncé has made quite the splash with new album ‘Lemonade’. With rumours swirling that the album is a giant middle finger to Jay Z over his alleged infidelity, a set of brilliant visual components to accompany the record and the music being really rather brilliant, Queen Bey is back on top.

The album is full of huge guests (although no Jay Z, obvs) with Kendrick Lamar, James Blake, Jack White and The Weeknd playing big roles on their respective tracks, but there’s plenty of unexpected guests in there too. Here’s the rundown of all the surprising credits from ‘Lemonade’.

READ MORE: The Most Revealing Lyrics From Beyoncé’s New Album ‘Lemonade’

Ezra Koenig – ‘Hold Up’

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The Vampire Weekend man received a song writing credit for the album’s second track ‘Hold Up’. Although the thought of Ezra and Beyoncé sitting down in a room to write a track together is totally hilarious – it’s not quite that simple. In fact, Koenig received a credit based on a pair of tweets he sent back in 2011 seen below:

Koenig then claimed that he riffed the lines off of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s track ‘Maps’ and that when Bey used his lines – he got YYY’s a credit too. Everyone’s a winner.

Father John Misty – ‘Hold Up’

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He too appeared on the track ‘Hold Up’ with a songwriting credit alongside Ezra, but for a different reason. Misty initially claimed on Twitter that he provided the air horn sound that appears on the track…

http://storify.com/nmemagazine/father-john-misty-jokes-about-beyonce-collaboratio

But being the prankster he is – that was obviously him pulling our legs. He then released a statement revealing the full story behind the credit:

“About a year and half ago, my friend Emile Haynie played Beyoncé some of my music, along with some tunes I’ve written for other people, back when she was looking for collaborators for the record,” he said in a statement. “Pretty soon after they sent along the demo for ‘Hold Up’, which was just like a minute of the sample and the hook. I’m pretty sure they were just looking for lyrics, but I went crazy and recorded a verse melody and refrain too that, unbelievably – when you consider how ridiculous my voice sounds on the demo – ended up making the record – right between picking up the baseball bat and decapitating the fire hydrant.”

He added: “I was mostly kind of in the dark, my involvement with the record kind of ends with me just sending off the demo, it wasn’t until she came to my Coachella set in 2015 and told me personally it had made the record that I really had anything concrete with which to convince my friends that I hadn’t actually gone insane.”

READ MORE: Beyonce – ‘Lemonade’ Review

Soulja Boy – ‘Hold Up’

Unbelievably, Soulja Boy, Ezra Koenig and Father John Misty all appeared on ‘Hold Up’ with songwriting credits. Soulja Boy picked his up when Beyoncé used his line ‘hop out of bed and turn my swag on’ from his 2009 track ‘Turn My Swag On’.

Finally, the holy trinity of songwriters, together at last on a track.

Led Zeppelin – ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’

All four members of The Zep received a credit on ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ when Jack White and Beyoncé sampled their ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ closer ‘When The Levee Breaks’. Probably a good thing, with an impending court case on the horizon, they might need every penny they can get their hands on.

Animal Collective – ‘6 Inch’

Their 2009 track ‘My Girls’ was sampled unintentionally by Bey on the track ‘6 Inches’ which features The Weeknd. The line, ‘She too smart to crave material things.’ bears a striking resemblance to Animal Collective’s lyric ‘I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things’ from ‘My Girls’. Producer Boots insisted that the resemblance was accidental when he posted the reasoning to lyric website Genius:

‘you write it and sing it and think “thats fucking great!!!” and everyone high fives and you’re all geniuses for fourteen seconds but it turns out its great because someone else already fucking wrote it. that song is a jam’

Burt Bacharach – ‘6 Inch’

The veteran songwriter received a credit for the track ‘6 Inch’ too in another complicated way. He initially wrote the track ‘Walk On By’ in 1964 for Dionne Warwick, which was then covered by Isaac Hayes in 1969 on his album ‘Hot Buttered Soul’. Nearly 50 years later, Beyoncé sampled Hayes’ version on the track – inadvertently gaining Bacharach another credit to add to his impressive repertoire.

READ MORE: How Many Of These Cameos Did You Spot In Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ Film?

Carla Marie Williams – ‘Freedom’

This British songwriter has been at it for years, having penned tracks for Girls Aloud, The Saturdays and Kylie Minogue. In 2015 she worked with Naughty Boy on the track ‘Runnin (Lose It All)’ which also features Beyoncé and then collaborated with Beyoncé again on ‘Lemonade’ track ‘Freedom’. She explained to BBC Radio 1 Xtra that she didn’t even know she’d be on the album until it was released.

“Like everyone else I’ve been, ‘Where is it? Where is it?’ When someone is such a superstar you don’t know if you’re going to make it. So I’ve been sitting on the edge of my seat waiting like everyone else. Now it’s happened I’m taking it in going, ‘This is sick. Oh my God.’ My mum just called about 40 hours later saying, ‘Where’s the song?'”

Don’t worry Carla, you made it.

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