There are some great cameos on A Seat, too (Lil Wayne for the win), but it’s the restraint that creates drama throughout the record. She was, by definition, making popular music-and was then, as she remains, among the more thoughtful and direct songwriters out there-but she certainly sought out the woollier hinterlands of the genre, working with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, Mark Ronson, and even Andy Samberg’s comedy trio the Lonely Island. And, to be fair, while Beyoncé was making perfectly manicured pop marvels, Solange was more apt to drop a funky progressive EP, as she did with the freaky-good True, from 2012. But does that deceptive ease, that seamlessness, on a jam like “Weary,” for example, ring somewhat differently when we know it is a Knowles joint? For so long, and perhaps right up until the release of A Seat last September, and because the media can only think in archetypes or binaries, apparently, Solange was often cast in contrast to her big sister, Beyoncé-Solange as the groovy Dionysian hipster to Bey’s Apollonian majesty. All and everyone it touches just seems to groove in its glow.

It’s difficult to keep in mind the effort, the control required to make music that feels as graceful and cool as Solange’s A Seat at the Table-especially when it’s playing anywhere within earshot.

Beyoncé he still loves me listen