‘Lemonade’ becomes Beyonce’s sixth million seller

Beyonce’s album Lemonade became the singer’s sixth album to go Platinum in the US, the Recording Industry Association of America announced. Last week it sold 56,000 units, tipping it over to a total tally of 1.051 million in her home market.

The album, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200, joined the million selling club less than two months after its April 23 release. It is now the third biggest selling album of the year. Only two albums have sold over 1 million in 2016, the other being Drake’s Views with a 1.196 million total.

Yet neither of these two are the year’s biggest. That honour belongs to Adele whose 25, released in 2015, has this year moved 1.334 million to a total of 8.774 million.

All six Beyonce solo albums have sold 1 million, and all debuted at #1 in America. She has sold a total of 17.2 million, with 2003’s Dangerously In Love still her biggest with 5 million.

However taking the lustre off this week’s triumph somewhat has been a lawsuit filed by US independent filmmaker Matthew Fulks. He says that two-thirds of the HBO trailer for the album was appropriatedfrom his own movie Palinoia. In his court documents, Fulks claims that he was asked to shoot a video for the act MS MR who, like Beyonce, are a Sony act. Fulks says that as part of this project, links of Palinoia were sent to various executives in the Sony empire.

Among them, he contends, was Bryan Younce, Senior Vice-President for Video Production at Sony imprint Columbia Records, to whom MS MR are signed to.

He said Younce asked him to submit a storyboard and development plan to the record label. Younce has also shot videos for Beyonce.

There are apparently nine visual similarities taking up 39 seconds in the 60-second clip. These include “graffiti and persons with heads down,” “red persons with eyes obscured,” “parking garage,” “stairwell,” “black and white eyes,” “title card screens,” “the grass scene,” “feet on the street,” and “side-lit ominous figures.”

Beyonce was previously accused of misappropriating Pipilotti Rist’s visuals for her Hold Up video.

Queen Bey also raised eyebrows when she turned up at the CFDA Fashion Awards in New York to accept her the Fashion Icon Award. New York media speculated that as rumours swirled of her arrival, one of the guests made a speedy exit. This was fashion designer Rachel Roy who has had to deny she is Jay Z’s mistress and the target of a Beyonce song in which she is accused of being “Becky with the good hair.” Roy’s friends have defended her exit, saying she had to catch a flight to LA.