Beyonce has surprised the world with a new album that has one clear and shameless message: ‘My superstar husband was unfaithful and I am going to humiliate him to a global audience.’

The singer released Lemonade, her sixth album, exclusively on streaming service Tidal on Sunday (AEST) along with a short film that stitches together the album’s 12 songs into the story of an angry, scorned wife who eventually reconciles with her unfaithful man.

According to a statement from Tidal, it is a “conceptual project based on every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing”.

But many critics are seeing through the sales pitch, pointing out that it clearly touches on a sore topic: the marriage of Beyonce Knowles Carter and Shawn Corey Carter (aka Jay Z).

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Almost exactly eight years since they wed, the album and short film comments on the much-reported cheating and divorce rumours. These rumours have swirled ever since celebrity news website TMZ published in May 2014 security camera footage of Solange Knowles physically attacking Jay Z in an elevator while her sister Beyonce watched silently.

Beyonce is not happy.

A day after the elevator footage was released, the singers released a joint statement that denied Solange was intoxicated at the time and saying “our family has worked through it”. Importantly, it did not clarify what caused the confrontation.

“Jay and Solange each assume their share of responsibility for what has occurred. They both acknowledge their role in this private matter that has played out in the public. They both have apologised to each other and we have moved forward as a united family,” the statement said.

Lemonade is being read as Beyonce’s answer. The short film details what many are interpreting as her suspicions (“Are you cheating on me?”), her anger (“I’m gonna f*** me up a b****”), her defiance (“You ain’t married to an average b***, boy”), and her threats (“If you try this s***, you’re gon’ lose your wife”).

In the film, the songs are neatly divided into chapters of emotions: Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Hope and Redemption.

Bey gets some backup from Serena Williams.

Beyonce and Jay Z started dating when she was 19, according to an interview she gave Seventeen magazine. Since their marriage, they have become arguably the biggest couple in rap music. They have a child, daughter Ivy Blue. It would be nothing new for their relationship to be played out in their music.

Until the birth of their daughter, Jay Z had named some his most successful solo albums The Blueprint, The Blueprint 2 and The Blueprint 2.1. Some interpreted the name Ivy Blue as ‘The Blueprint IV‘. They regularly appear in each other’s music videos. Until now, this was mostly to profess their love — and lust — for each other.

Lemonade tells a very different story, but still one with a happy ending. The rage of its earlier songs changes to redemption. She sings, “My torturer became my remedy … So we’re gonna heal. We’re gonna start again” in the Reformation chapter. In the Forgiveness chapter, she sings: “Now that reconciliation is possible, if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious”.

But its the Forgiveness chapter where she gets what some are interpreting as revenge. Jay Z appears in the music video, cuddling her in bed, after which he kisses Beyonce’s feet.

Jay Z kisses Beyonce’s feet, seemingly in contrition.

“Let’s just take a minute here to acknowledge the sheer bada**ery of a woman who convinces her husband to grovel on-screen in an album that’s all about his lying, cheating a**…especially if that husband is one of the most respected men in the rap game,” is how The Daily Beast interpreted that scene.

There are also themes beyond marriage troubles, including black female empowerment and the subjugation of black Americans by US society. And the short film features a slew of celebrity cameos, including by Serena Williams and Sybrina Fulton, the mother of police shooting victim Trayvon Martin.

Whether or not this is art imitating life or simply artistic licence, it is being widely interpreted as Beyonce’s smackdown of Jay Z.

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