Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album inspired partly by her personal heritage was Lemonade.
Lemonade was released on April 23, 2016, alongside an hour-long film broadcast on HBO. The album’s songs and visual chapters explore betrayal, grief, anger, reconciliation, empowerment, and Black womanhood. Its structure draws on stages of emotional recovery and incorporates poetry by Warsan Shire.
The project also connects Beyoncé’s family history to broader African American and Southern traditions. The visual film includes imagery associated with Louisiana, and Beyoncé has discussed the influence of her Creole heritage through her mother, Tina Knowles.
Lemonade is sometimes described simply as a conventional music video collection, but it is more accurately a visual album: a unified audio-and-film project. It received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 59th Grammy Awards, while winning Best Urban Contemporary Album.