"Apeshit" by The Carters

Submission 27,505

Part of a series on Beyoncé. [View Related Entries]

About

"Apeshit" by The Carters is an American rap and pop song by American recording artists Beyoncé and Jay Z under the collaborative name The Carters. The first single on their unannounced album Everything Is Love, "Apeshit" arrived with a music video featuring The Carters at the Louvre art museum, performing and dancing to their song against the backdrop of works of art. The song and video inspired various interpretations, criticisms and memes.

Origin

On June 16th, 2018, the Carters (Beyoncé and Jay Z) released Everything Is Love, a joint album intended to follow their previous respective works, Beyoncé's Lemonade and Jay Z's 4:44, on Tidal The video for the album's first single, "Apeshit." Within three days, the video (shown below) received more than 18 million views.

Spread

Following the release of the music video, people on Twitter began posting various jokes about moments about the video. BuzzFeed Deputy Director David Mack tweeted^[3] an image of someone's face superimposed over the "Mona Lisa" with the caption "Beyoncé!" The post (shown below, left) received more than 41,000 retweets and 95,000 likes. Twitter^[4] user @khaleezy posted a gif of Beyoncé flowing her dress with the caption "Me tryna fold a fitted sheet." The post (shown below, center) received more than 58,000 retweets and 131,000 likes in two days. Twitter^[5] user @MatthewACherry tweeted a variation of the Captain America "So, You Got Detention" meme to joke about the streaming service Tidal's free trials. He added the caption, "So You don't have Tidal and are all out of email addresses." The post (shown below, right) received more than 950 retweets and 3,500 likes in 24 hours.

Interpretations

Shortly after the video's release, some online interpreted the song in the context of art history, particular in regards to the juxtaposition of two black artists, such as the Carters, against the backdrop of the white, classical artists showcased in the Louvre. Speaking with the Fader,^[1] Theodore Barrow, an art history PhD candidate at CUNY's Graduate Center and a museum curator, said of the video:

"The incorporation of blackness is in fact very important in spaces that not only have excluded the black subject, but often is filled with objects that have a direct relationship to the historical subjugation of black bodies through slavery and wage exploitation.

In a Twitter moment,^[2] Twitter @itsmeheidi_h publihsed a close reading of the video and the symbolic meaning of the videos shots (example below).

1) The visual and lyrical message of #Apeshit is that Beyoncé and Jay-Z have MADE IT. They own the motherfucking Louvre which has been and still is a white-centric space with a history deeply rooted in colonialism. Thus, centering black bodies in this space is radical. pic.twitter.com/lLafST2Urd
— Queen Curly Fry (@itsmeheidi_h) June 17, 2018

Photoshop Memes

Following the video's release, people online posted photoshop variations of the image of Jay Z and Beyoncé looking at the "Mona Lisa." In this case, people posted images of the two with something else photoshopped into the "Mona Lisa"'s place (examples below).

Media Coverage

Several media outlets covered the memes and discussion around the album, including Vox,^[8] Time,^[9] High Snobiety,^[10] Pitchfork,^[11] Billboard,^[12] Uproxx,^[6] Mashable ^[7] and more.