How does Beyoncé take a song written in the distinct style of another artist and make it her own? By shifting the song distinctly into the female perspective — which is exactly what she did with this Lemonade track.
Beyoncé's Lemonade can be considered her most self-reflective album: Each song feels deeply personal, and the attached visual album explores and celebrates not only Black culture as a whole, but Beyoncé's Southern roots as well. However, there is one song on the album that feels a little less woven into the Lemonade patchwork.
"6 Inch," a track penned by The Weeknd in addition to other co-writers including Bey herself, doesn't sound like the other tracks on the album — it, unsurprisingly, sounds like a Weeknd track — but it is thematically Bey, given that the song is about a fiercely independent woman grinding for her money. Now that The Weeknd's original track has been released, we know how Beyoncé took the "Starboy" singer's track and made it her own — by shifting to the female perspective.
Idolator released the demo version of "6 Inch," which features The Weeknd as the main vocals, and it revealed the differences between The Weeknd's version of the track and Beyoncé's. The lyrics remain, for the most part, similar, with Beyoncé adding in the line that tells us this woman is "too smart to crave material things." However, it's what's removed from the song that is the most enlightening.
What's nixed is The Weeknd's verse that featured lines like, "used to have a man wasn't meant to be," and "saving up for plans that would never be." Small lyrical changes, but ones that ultimately change the meaning of the song. In The Weeknd's version, sung by a male singer, the woman's hustle doesn't sound like a wholly positive thing. When Bey made the song her own, her hustle is the thing to celebrate.
The major difference, of course, is that The Weeknd's demo features the performer singing about a woman he knows. In Beyoncé's, she sings about herself — and reminds us that a hardworking woman is something to admire. As Beyoncé states in "Formation," she slays — all day. And that's something to be proud of.
In an earlier version of this story, it was stated that Beyoncé is not a co-writer on "6 Inch." She is. It has been fixed.
In an earlier version of this story, it was stated that Beyoncé is not a co-writer on "6 Inch." She is. It has been fixed.