Jay-Z and Beyoncé late Saturday released "Everything is Love," a surprise album after years of speculation that they were working on a joint project.
The album — which came two years after Beyoncé revealed Jay-Z's infidelity through lyrics — again offers plenty of tidbits into the lives of music's most famous couple.
Here are some highlights:
No love child
Jay-Z shot down rumours that he has an illegitimate child. Aspiring rapper Rymir Satterthwaite has alleged for years that he is the superstar's son due to his mother's purported fling with the then little-known Shawn Carter in 1992.
"Billie Jean in his prime / For the thousandth time / The kid ain't mine," Jay-Z raps on Heard About Us, referencing Michael Jackson's classic song about a paternity case.
Jay-Z and Beyonce's six-year-old daughter Blue Ivy separately makes an appearance on the album and says "hello" to her twin siblings Rumi and Sir, who turned one on Thursday.
Recovered from infidelity
Everything is Love, as the title implies, speaks much about the strength of their marriage after highly public troubles.
Beyoncé on her 2016 album Lemonade revealed infidelity by Jay-Z, who apologised a year later on his own album 4:44.
On the joint album's boisterous closer Lovehappy, the two say that they have patched up.
"You did some things to me / You do some things to me," Beyoncé sings with brass in her voice. "But love is deeper than your pain and I believe you can change."
Angry at legal action
Jay-Z vents frustration several times on the album about legal action against him. Most recently the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered the rapper to testify as part of an investigation into his sale of his Rocawear clothing line.
On Nice, Jay-Z denounces the subpoena and suggests he is being targeted because he is a successful African American, wondering why he did not face such scrutiny in his earlier life as a Brooklyn drug dealer.
"Time to remind me I'm black again, huh? / All this talking back. I'm too arrogant, huh?"
Later on the album he professes his innocence in disputes with authorities — so often known by their agencies' acronyms — as he raps: "I pass the alphabet boys like an eye test."
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No to Super Bowl
Jay-Z appeared to confirm a report that he turned down an offer from the National Football League to perform at this year's Super Bowl, the most watched event on US television.
Jay-Z is an outspoken supporter of Colin Kaepernick, the now-unemployed quarterback who stirred a nationwide discussion by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
He alludes to the racial imbalance in American football, where team owners are almost entirely white and players mostly African-American.
"I said no to the Super Bowl / You need me, I don't need you," Jay-Z raps.
"Every night we in the endzone / Tell the NFL we in stadiums, too."
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Film: Raid
Dir: Rajkumar Gupta
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'cruz and Saurabh Shukla
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
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Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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