The song opens with a dialogue between Knowles and Jay-Z, with his verse rap sampling the lyrics, "How you gon' upgrade me? What's higher than number one? You know I used to beat that block. Now I be's the block." In the first verse, Knowles sings, "I hear you be the block but I'm the lights that keep the streets on". The chorus samples the lyrics: "You need a real woman in your life, that's a good look [...] Take care of home and still fly, that's a good look [...] Let me upgrade you, flip a new page". In the second verse, according to Sarah Rodman of "The Boston Globe", Knowles "disturbingly conflates transforming her man into a leader" by equating providing him with Veblen goods to "what ] did for the people", and after declaring herself the equal of her man offers to "let take the lead role". Describing the lyrics of the second verse as Knowles' "funnier and more idiosyncratic than ever", Tim Finney of "Pitchfork" commented that she boasts of the song's "extreme makeover hard-sell" as she probably knows that she is "the only R&B singer" who could deliver those lines "with a straight face." Before the song ends, Jay-Z performs another verse-rap where he compares "the rock on his lady's finger to a tumor". In the third verse, Knowles declares to her love interest that his dynasty will ever remain incomplete without "a chief like [her". She then delivers the chorus again before switching to her fourth and last verse: "Hermes briefcase, Cartier top clips, silk-lined blazers" and the song ends.