Everything Is Love

Everything Is Love is the debut studio album by American musical superduo the Carters, consisting of spouses Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter. It was released on June 16, 2018, by their respective labels Parkwood Entertainment and Roc Nation — with distribution from Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Beyoncé and Jay-Z produced the album alongside a variety of collaborators, including Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, and Pharrell Williams. Additional vocalists recorded for the album include Williams, Quavo, Offset (both from Migos), and Ty Dolla Sign, among others. The hip-hop and R&B album incorporates soul and trap sounds, and its lyrics explore themes of romantic love, fame, wealth, and black pride.

The album was not made public until its release was announced by Beyoncé and Jay-Z while onstage at a London concert for their On the Run II Tour and later through their social media accounts. It was originally exclusive to the music distribution service Tidal, before given a wider release on June 18, 2018. Everything Is Love debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, and it reached the top five on charts in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and the UK. At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, the album won for Best Urban Contemporary Album.

Plans about a joint album by the couple were announced by Jay-Z during an interview with The New York Times in 2017 when he said that they used "art almost like a therapy session" to create new music. However, since they also worked on their respective albums 4:44 and Lemonade, and Beyoncé's music progressed more rapidly, the project was temporarily stopped. Rumors about the collaborative project began emerging in March 2018 when the couple announced their On the Run II Tour. The album was reportedly conceived for years.

The majority of the album was recorded at U Arena in Paris; "Friends", "Black Effect" and "Salud!" were recorded at Kingslanding Studios West in Los Angeles, while further recording for "Summer" and "Nice" was done at The Church Studios in London. Beyoncé and Jay-Z co-produced all of the songs on the album themselves, with further producers including Pharrell, Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, Jahaan Sweet, David Andrew Sitek, D'Mile, El Michels, Fred Ball, Illmind, MeLo-X, Mike Dean and Nav. The album was predominantly recorded by Stuart White and Gimel "Young Guru" Keaton.

Music critics generally categorized Everything Is Love as hip-hop and R&B with prominent influences of trap and classic soul of the 1960s–1970s. Craig Jenkins from Vulture wrote that Beyoncé played the role of an "R&B heavyweight" doubling as a "formidable rapper, showcasing her talents for vocal belting and complex rap cadences. In a review for The New York Times, Jon Pareles opined that Everything Is Love exuded less vulnerability than Beyoncé and Jay-Z's respective albums Lemonade and 4:44, with references to classic hip-hop, R&B, and "disorienting electronic soundscapes".

"Like the fifth act of a hip-hop and R&B Shakespearean comedy, Everything Is Love finds our lovers reunited, their misunderstandings resolved, their vows renewed (Beyoncé: 'you fucked up the first stone/ we had to get remarried'), and their family looking ahead to decades of more peaceful prosperity. Outrageous, multiple-mansioned, diamonds-and-watches-and-Lambos prosperity, symbolically tied to an agenda of black capitalism as racial uplift and reparations."

The album contains lyrics about the couple's romantic love, lavish lifestyle, media worship, wealth, black pride and fame; themes that were found to be characteristic of the whole record. Other songs feature the pair singing about their family affairs as well as maintaining their relationship following hardships (i.e. infidelity). Time magazine's Maura Johnston regarded the album as another "blockbuster duet in R&B and hip-hop"; comparable to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's soul songs from the 1960s and the 1995 Method Man and Mary J. Blige recording "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By"; while incorporating contemporary elements in the form of trap beats, critical references to the National Football League and the Grammy Awards, and playing with "public perceptions of the duo's relationship". Jenkins said it extolled African-American entrepreneurship while presenting Jay-Z as "a doting father and husband, an entrepreneur and altruist with ideas about how everyone else should handle their businesses, a king-tier braggart, and a rap legend".

The artwork for the album is a still frame from the music video for "Apeshit". It features two of Beyoncé's background dancers, Jasmine Harper and Nicholas "Slick" Stewart, at the Louvre—Harper is seen picking the hair of Stewart while standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.