Baby Boy is Beyonce's Greatest Accomplishment

This is a difficult article to write for a several reasons. Beyonce is one of the world's most popular artists, one of the highest selling artists of all-time, and has an incredible discography of monumental albums and singles for fans to choose from as their favorites. Yet, it is none other than Beyonce's "Baby Boy" off of her Dangerously In Love album that stands above the rest. 

I know what you're thinking; you aren't even sure "Baby Boy" is the best song on Dangerously in Love. However, I am not making the case it is her best song but, rather, it is her greatest accomplishment as an artist. The reason is quite simple: "Baby Boy", on paper, should be a disaster in every way imaginable.

On her very first solo album, Beyonce had the task of following up one of the greatest pop songs of the 2000s in " Crazy in Love" using the writing talents of Scott Storch, and a feature from the utterly incomprehensible Sean Paul, but we will get back to him. Furthermore, Beyonce was also tasked with trying to separate her image as a solo artist from her Destiny's Child persona which, historically, had always been a difficult feat to pull off, especially considering the popularity of Destiny's Child. In turn, what Beyonce produced was a seductive, darker toned single that would almost eclipse the genius of "Crazy in Love". 

While "Crazy in Love" was the more electric and brash of the two songs, "Baby Boy" was dark and seductive, with an eastern-influenced sound quite off the beaten track compared to what we were initially hearing from her. If "Crazy in Love" was the girl pulling you onto the dance floor at one in the morning, then "Baby Boy" was the seductress pulling you off the dance floor at closing time. It was mesmerizing, disorienting, and catchy as a motherfucker, and that doesn't even include the rap contribution equivalent to Robert Horry's game winners in Sean Paul's verses.

Let's all be honest with each other; most of us truly don't understand almost anything that Sean Paul is saying when he raps. His accent his thick, his words are frequently in syncopated rhythm, and most of his material can be fairly uninteresting. Yet, can you honestly think of a song better equipped for the situation of "standing in a circle of your friends at the bar, prentending to rap the words to a song that you don't know the words to" than Sean Paul's verse on "Baby Boy"? If you aren't quite sure what the image is, also, imagine pretending your fist is a microphone, imagine your other hand is open-handed, shaking back and forth like it's keeping your rhythm, and now truly think about the first song that comes to mind; it's, more than likely, "Baby Boy".

Beyonce was, ultimately, destined to be as big of an artist as she is today no matter how well-received her first album was. However, there have been plenty of artists, espeically in R&B, Hip-Hop, and Pop, to start strong and take a step back before we even finish digesting their first songs. What "Baby Boy" accompished, though, was proving that Beyonce was a musical monster who could capture any style or tone laid in front of her. Furthermore, it showed us that she could turn even her poppiest songs into platinum records through sheer force of talent and charisma. Beyonce figured out, in that moment, that not only could she make hits that accomplished what she wanted, but she could create a song like "Baby Boy" so entrancing, that she made you feel like it was, ultimately, what you truly wanted, as well. If "Crazy in Love" was the prologue to Beyonce's career, then "Baby Boy" was those first exhiliarting chapters, where it felt like anything was possible, and you know how the rest of the story goes from there.