Discussing Crazy in Love's impact 20 years later

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We've been bopping to "uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, oh no no" for twenty years. On July 12, 2003, Beyoncé's Crazy In Love topped the Billboard charts, stayed at number one for eight weeks, and then continued to remain a top party anthem to this day.

Crazy In Love was a hot topic on CBC's Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud where I, along with fellow critics and pop culture enthusiasts Sarah-Tai Black and Kathleen Newman-Bremang, pondered the impact Beyoncé made with both the lead single from her first solo album and the accompanying video, where she struts on to the scene in short shorts and red pumps as Jay-Z yells out "history in the making."

WATCH | Official music video for Crazy In Love ft. JAY Z:

The stakes were high. This was Beyoncé stepping out from her role fronting Destiny's Child, in the shadow of such monumental hits as Say My Name, Survivor and Bills, Bills, Bills. At the time, I was among the doubters who wondered whether Beyoncé's singing talents really measured up to fellow Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland, or whether her popularity among the group could be chalked up to the colourism that still plagues the industry.

And then there was Beyoncé's new relationship with Jay-Z — "Ms. Bug-A-Boo hooking up with Mr. Big Pimpin?" — the age and power gap between them turning heads. Beyoncé, who we now know doesn't shy away from people's opinions and skepticism, addressed that head on with a banger where she sings "your love got me looking so crazy right now."

Admittedly, I wasn't as enthralled with this early work. Beyoncé's talent was undeniable — Crazy in Love and the album Dangerously In Love struck me as fun and lovely — but there was nothing there as piercing as Say My Name. For a lot of us, Beyoncé truly stepped into her greatness a decade later with her self-titled album, following that up with Lemonade and Renaissance, which felt like earth-shattering events. Those were albums that plumbed Black history and art, and reformed Queen Bey's identity against that continuum. Newman-Bremang cites Formation, Beyoncé's pulsating celebration of Blackness, as the superstar's greatest single (agreed!). "And the video was it's own cultural phenomenon," says Newman-Bremang, who then puts Crazy in Love at a close second.

While I was dismissive 20 years ago, it's easier to see what Beyoncé was bringing to the table in retrospect. Dangerously in Love has all the elements that we would celebrate about her in the coming decades. The daring Texas-born songstress, who would open up about household indiscretions on Lemonade while mixing it up with hidden talents like Big Freedia, was already hiding in plain sight in 2003. She made herself vulnerable on songs like Crazy In Love, putting her relationship with Jay-Z out there for the world to see, addressing the haters while earnestly celebrating what they have going and how that will shape who she is going forward.

Her debut solo album also had the eclectic mix of genres we know her for, between Crazy In Love's pop Red Bull uplift, the more 90s R&B style song cries — like Me, Myself and I and the title track Dangerously In Love — and the dancehall inflections on Baby Boy, which the Commotion panelists had some minor disagreements on.

Abdelmahmoud, Newman-Bremang and Black all suggest the collaboration with Sean Paul a year after he dropped Dutty Rock boosted Beyoncé's profile. Sean Paul's Get Busy had just topped the Billboard charts in May 2003. I argue that Sean Paul — while huge from Jamaica to Toronto since '98 when Infiltrate was playing in every basement jam — was not yet as huge with American listeners until Beyoncé introduced him to a whole new demographic that wasn't yet getting with Get Busy, much like she did with J. Balvin, Burna Boy and Megan Thee Stallion.

The bottom line is, Queen Bey never played into our expectations. She has been playful with her music and reaching across genres for top collaborators since 2003. Some of us just took forever to notice. When I listen to Crazy In Love now, those blazing horn riffs really do sound like a triumphant arrival.