Cosmic Slop #61: Beyonce and Jay-Z – let’s be honest, there probably isn’t a “Becky”

By Shaun Ponsonby
Thu 05 May, 2016

With speculation rife over the identity of “Becky”,  Shaun Ponsonby calls bullshit. 

Since “doing a Beyonce” seems to have become a thing that Beyonce is now going to spend the rest of her career doing, leading it to be a bigger surprise if and when Beyonce decides to announce an album and then release it, there is now a need for her to find ways of making the publicity surrounding it on release bigger than it was last time.

You would think the fact that new release Lemonade is a “visual album” (a pretentious way of saying you have made a music video for every song) would take that crown, but alas, instead all the talk has revolved around the song Sorry. In the lyric, the song’s female protagonist forgives her other half for infidelity with a girl called “Becky” who apparently had “good hair”. Cue disproportionate outcry on the internet. “Did Jay-Z have an affair?” cried people with no vested interest or problems of their own. And that’s not all; they also tried to figure out who this mysterious “Becky” is, because she is obviously a total bitch for doing this to ol’ Yonce. Because Beyonce is perfect, yeah? And criticising her is basically the celebrity equivalent of being a Holocaust denier.

Rita Ora denied that she is the supposed “Becky”, as did Iggy Azalea. I’m going to hazard a guess that Iggy Pop did too. At least I hope so, otherwise I’ll have an abstract image of Iggy Pop planting the parsnip in my head, and the actual images/footage of his parsnip are more than enough, thank you very much. And I am sure you will all be relieved to hear it’s not Rihanna. Cos, you know, God forbid, right?

One person did have the guts to own up to it.

But, to be honest, I don’t know if I believe her.

Here’s an idea, though – what if there is no fucking “Becky” and this is all just a load of bollocks? You know, not everything you hear in a song is real. No members of Black Sabbath are – to my knowledge – either a “war” or a “pig”, for example. Smokey Robinson doesn’t really cry clown’s tears, and rain has never, ever been purple.

Thinking logically, Beyonce and Jay-Z are probably the biggest power couple in the world right now. They are a brand as much as McDonalds (or Tidal). Imagine the headlines if Ronald McDonald was pictured eating a Burger King Whopper (I will accept freebies from either of these companies for the mention, incidentally). What could generate more headlines to coincide with a new release than the idea that one of them has been unfaithful?

Within a matter of suspiciously fast hours of the “secret” album’s release, the whole “Becky” thing had spread like wild fire. It was all over the news and was deemed a “controversy” by unknowingly hyperbolic morons who deem this controversial in the same week that the Tories admitted to committing electoral fraud (which surely should be the real controversy this week?). Simply saying something is controversial doesn’t make it so. If The Mirror said that the existence of ankles was controversial, would you believe it? I wouldn’t. I’d call them insufferable twerps and be on my merry way. Because, like whether or not Jay-Z dug up Becky’s sand crab, the existence of ankles is not a burning issue of great international controversy.

Be weary of anything a pop star tells you on record or stage. Exactly none of them are presenting you with their life as it is. Most of it is fiction, and their interviews are akin to your Facebook timeline, where you portray an idealised version of your life that you want people to think you are living. They have created a persona that they live up to.

That’s not to say that Jay-Z hasn’t not been unfaithful (wonderful grammar there, Shaun), it’s just odd to see them market it. Even more so now that it seems Jay-Z is working on a “response” album, as opposed to just talking to the woman he lives with. You know what’s better than having couples therapy in public through contesting albums? Making a profit from it.

Either way, anyone who gives a flying frig really ought to reassess their priorities. If you are going to take anything away from this, be disappointed that the most descriptive thing Beyonce could muster to say about “Becky”’s hair is that it was “good”. Five people wrote and produced that song, and that’s the best they could come up with. That’s talent, folks.

As a publicity stunt, though, it was very “good“.


On the same day as Prince‘s death there were conspiracy videos going up about the circumstances surrounding it. “It was the illuminati, it was Warner Bros, it was Betty White“. What? These people had time to correctly research, gather necessary – and largely unclear – information, write, produce, edit and publish a video that accurately explained the salacious circumstances surrounding Prince‘s death within a matter of hours, did they? Vultures who are no better than the media they rally against. But then I guess being rational doesn’t get as many YouTube hits, does it?

This “super festival” in California with Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, The Who, Roger Waters, Neil Young and Bob Dylan (finally! A festival for old, rich white people!) is taking a risk given the amount of deaths we’ve experienced, aren’t they?

Seriously? Blink 182 are bothering to make a new album?