Tag: Love

Favorite Couples Series Volume 1: Beyoncé & Jay-Z.

Beyoncé & Jay-Z
Beyoncé & Jay-Z

Beyoncé & Jay-Z

“All I need in this life of sin, is me and my girlfriend.”

Hip hop royalty — Beyoncé and Jay-Z have been rocking for a decade and a half. In the beginning of their relationship, the dynamic duo was bent on keeping things on the low-low, which made perfect sense at the time. Beyoncé was emerging as a solo artist with a lot to prove & Jay-Z was a well-established rapper with a bad boy persona. Imagine the field day the media could’ve had with their love story back in the early 2000s. There was so much at stake and they made sure to protect their love with a shatter-proof layer of secrecy.

Although they would collaborate in the music studio together, they never really discussed their relationship in the media. Everyone had solid suspicions of their commitment to one another, but Bey & Jay were to remain mum on the subject until they were good & ready to “come out”.

The pregnancy rumors. The rumors of Jay-Z cheating. The rumors of Jay-Z having kids. They moved past it all and eventually tied the knot in a top-secret wedding on April 4, 2008. Jay-Z reportedly dropped $5 million on the wedding ring! But, why wouldn’t he? Beyoncé is worth every dollar – she’s kind of a big deal. Beyoncé could have easily chosen to live her life focused on her career as many other powerful, successful women have chosen to do. Based on the trajectory of her career – from Destiny’s Child to one of the most iconic entertainers to walk this earth – you would think she had no room in her grand scheme to settle down with a family. However, there’s obviously a side to the innovative beauty that values love and family. Her father and mother provided the foundation for family and although their marriage ended in divorce, I’m sure Beyoncé set out to do it bigger and better in her own life.

And who else could tame a roguish guy like Shawn Carter other than Beyoncé? Based on the content of his music and the plethora of women he was attached to back in the day, you would think Jay-Z would not be the marrying type. It’s possible that Bey and Jay were on and off in their relationship for many years as Jay continued to sow his wild oats. In the end, he realized that there is only one Beyoncé on this great, wide earth and letting go of a diamond to go chase cubic zirconia probably started to seem a bit foolish at some point. He held on to his Queen and she fell dangerously in love.

The power couple welcomed their first princess, Blue Ivy, into the world in January 2012 and Beyoncé was officially a mother. Although naysayers would want to say otherwise, she wore pregnancy well and even kept those 6 inch heels on deck. How could someone make pregnancy looks so good? But there was, once again, trouble in paradise when Jay got caught up with “Becky with the good hair.” We heard all about it when Beyoncé released her visual album, Lemonade, in 2016. However, the couple was triumphant in the fight for their marriage and kept it moving past all the infidelity and pain. We even got blessed with a set of twins, Sir Carter and Rumi, afterwards. Jay-Z went on record, literally, to express his remorse and discontent with his actions in his iconic album, 4:44, which was released in 2017 and it’s apparent that he is a changed man after it all.

The two together are worth billions of dollars and we get to witness their grandeur on Beyoncé’s Instagram account when she sporadically updates with her artsy photographs. Beyoncé is in collaboration mode in her music career, recently releasing singles with rapper Eminem, and singer Ed Sheeran. Jay-Z is on tour for his album 4:44 and still making business moves daily. They are raising three beautiful children up in royalty and loving life along the way. The story of Beyoncé and Jay-Z shows us all that love always wins.

Dust to Sidechicks.

NoSidechicks

“You like nine to five; I’ll keep him satisfied on the weekend…”

A while back, I was entranced with multi-talented artist SZA’s debut album, CTRL, and as I was bopping and popping to the seriously dope album, the world came to a brief halt when the beat dropped on song number six, The Weekend. What? Is this how she’s doing it… bringing the 90s back, and all? The vibe automatically took me back to my high school years when I was crushing on my football player boyfriend — pulling his arms around me tighter to warm the chill of the autumn weather as we sat in his car, seconds away from sucking each other’s faces in. I mean, I was vibing hard to this marvelous song… until… the words hit me.

Wait, what? “My man is her man… her, that’s her man?” Now, these ludicrous lyrics didn’t stop me from loving this song because the beat and melody put me in a mood — but I had to love it low-key because I vehemently denounce SIDECHICKS!

As a woman who has been cheated on a few times in my life, I am not with this new wave of open infidelity, in which people seem to think that it’s OK to have a main bae –and a few thangs on the side, as well. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Apparently not. Half (50%) of American adults are married these days, which may seem like a decent lot until we look back to 1960 when the marriage rate was at 72%. And on top of that, women & men are waiting until closer to 30 to even get hitched. Cohabitation is on the rise while actually getting married seems to be growing less appealing, according to statistics.

I want to attribute this trend to the evolution of the sidepiece. Back in the day, having a little something on the side was kept on the down low. Singer R. Kelly even wrote a song about it, circa 1995. The sidepiece was kept under wraps as expeditiously as possible. The cheater actually feared the demise of their relationship and did everything possible to keep their dirty little secret. Xscape gave us the scoop on their “Little Secret” back in 1998 – “If you don’t tell, I won’t tell, and that’s how we gotta keep it”. R&B group, TLC, also let us know all about creeping back 1994 – the reasoning was due to lack of attention & being cheating on – oh what a tangled web weaved with all that tit-for-tat. Why not just break up? At least they “kept it protected”. Eh.

The big problem: people choose to hang on to cheating partners out of loyalty but end up cheating too, for consolation. The rule becomes “as long as I don’t see it, we’re good”. So then the cell phone becomes guarded like Fort Knox to keep all your sidepiece activity away from your main bae. There is essentially no trust, but she knows that when you disappear on the weekend – giving some bullcrap reason like you need to catch up on sleep or something – that you’re actually chilling with the sidepiece. And she can’t really do anything about it because she’s not going to break up with you, so she just calls up her sidepiece so she won’t spaz out over you from Friday to Sunday.

Celebrities have probably been on the sidepiece agenda forever, but with the advent of social media, this behavior has become normalized and admired by younger fans because it seems bad ass to have several “bad bitches” on your roster that actually know about each other. And when young millennial men take heed and start to openly play the field, for some reason, these young millennial women no longer break it off with the playboy. They don’t even hound the dude about it anymore – these women just go reciprocate. It’s all about being “savage”. Too many mind games and foolish shenanigans. My idea of being savage is cutting that fool off – completely.

What about knowing your worth & building a family unit that is conducive to raising happy, well-adjusted children? No one has to put up with cheating and no one should just settle for being the sidepiece. It seems convenient to have someone who only comes around the couple of days of week  you want them to because you are afraid of committing to a real relationship and he just wants a little excitement in his life because he has grown bored with his kids’ mother/live-in girlfriend. We all know he’s not leaving her and their kids, but where does this leave his girlfriend who desires to only be with him? She’s left feeling inferior & lonely because her wayward boyfriend can’t fully commit and you just want a pseudo-relationship that is super convenient? Why is it that people are so afraid of being completely single/alone these days? Get a hobby. Build an empire. Just leave other folks’ main squeezes alone.

Many of us choose to remain absolutely single until this sidepiece trend ceases because, even though there are people out there who actually value the sanctity of fidelity and commitment, they are hard to find because everyone seems so guarded these days. Even so, we should never give up on finding real love. Love is the center of humanity and should be sought above lustful temptation.

Dust to sidepieces.

Marriage statistics: Pew Research Center