Apeshit (song)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Apeshit" (stylized in all caps) is a song by American artists Beyoncé and Jay-Z, jointly credited as the Carters, from their first joint album Everything Is Love (2018). It was released on June 16, 2018 along with a music video filmed at the Louvre in Paris. It was written and produced by Pharrell Williams with the duo, with additional vocals by Quavo and Offset from hip-hop group Migos, who also co-wrote the track. "Apeshit" was released as the album's lead single. The choreography was by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
Critical reception
Otir Hard of NPR dubbed the song one of the catchiest ones to be released in 2018, adding that it "lives up to the grandeur on first listen". Kory Grow writing for the Rolling Stone described the music's beat as "hard-hitting".
Music video
The music video for the song was directed by Ricky Saiz, produced by Iconoclast, and filmed in Louvre in Paris in May 2018. It was premiered on the second night of the London show during their On the Run II Tour at the London Stadium. The clips lasts for six minutes. It opens with a man who has wings is seen crouching as bells and sirens are prominent in the background, and features visual imagery suggesting comparisons and linkages between wealth, status, and royalty in the Renaissance-era artwork and the eventual evolution of these characteristics into the Carters. It later moves on to showing the empty halls at the Louvre and the pair is shown posing in front of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting. Once the song starts playing, the singers are shown on top of a staircase while dancers lying on the steps contract and move to the song's rhythm. Statues and paintings such as Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, and The Coronation of Napoleon are later shown in front of which the duo lip-syncs the lyrics.
Otir Hard of NPR called the video "extravagantly produced six minutes, filled with high art, pastel suits and turnt up museum parties". Kory Grow writing for Rolling Stone deemed the clip "stunning" and noticed how the duo looked "serene" in it resembling "works of arts themselves".
Personnel
- Pharrell – production
- Beyoncé – co-production
- Jay-Z – co-production
- Stuart White – additional production, mixing, recording
- Offset – additional vocals
- Quavo – additional vocals
- Gimel "Young Guru" Keaton – recording
- Mike Larson – recording
- DJ Durel – recording
- Dan Ewins – assistant mix engineering
- Adrien Crapanzano – assistant engineering
- Colin Leonard – mastering
