From flaunting a barren finger and dancing in a one-shoulder bodysuit for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” to smashing a car window with a baseball bat in a long yellow dress for “Hold Up,” Beyoncé‘s music videos are fraught with raw emotion and fashion-forward.
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Her cinematic pieces have always incorporated parts of cinema, since she starred as Foxxy Cleopatra in her first solo accompanying visual of her funky disco R&B jam “Work It Out,” the lead single from the 2002 comedy flick Austin Powers in Goldmember where she first played the character. She’s also cut up clips from her seminal visual albums, 2016’s Beyoncé: Lemonade and 2020’s Black Is King, as separate videos. Recently, she separately released the empowering “Brown Skin Girl” segment from Black Is King, featuring her eldest daughter Blue Ivy Carter, former Destiny’s Child member Kelly Rowland, Naomi Campbell and Lupita Nyong’o.
Her husband Jay-Z continues to be a recurring character and collaborator in her music videos, while they started out “Crazy in Love” in 2002 to being “Drunk in Love” and frolicking on the beach at nighttime in 2013 to eventually going “Apesh–” together (as The Carters) at the Louvre in Paris in 2018.
And her music videos continuously prove how Bey stays ahead of her time and with the times, from painting a poignant image regarding police brutality and paying homage to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2016’s “Formation” to filming an at-home-style masterpiece on her video phone with some girlfriends in 2014’s “7/11.”
So what’s your favorite visual starring Queen Bey? Vote below!