Hold Up” is a delirious flight of fancy. The music has no weight, no place, no time—a calypso dream heard through walls and generations. The video lets us peek at this dream without bringing us down to dirt; though the naturalistic soul of New Orleans can be felt throughout much of the Lemonade film, “Hold Up” is pure Hollywood. It is authentically inauthentic, a perfectly lit soundstage in which hydrants pop on cue, billowing fans give lift to hair and dresses, and dudes with “In Memory of When I Gave a ****” shirts pop wheelies on the zeitgeist. It is a parody, tribute to, and destruction of what we have come to expect from a Beyoncé video.
When Beyoncé works in the pained refrain of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' “Maps,” she makes it glorious while allowing our memories to hint at the anguish underneath. Soulja Boy’s swag—invoked here as a shoulder-brushing afterthought—has rarely felt so on.
There are a few rapped bars that put her rapper husband’s deepest insecurities on display; the quick verse is more incisive than anything Jay Z has done in years.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/...yonce-hold-up/
