No Angel

Album: Beyoncé (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This track finds Beyoncé telling her man - over a sexed-up, midtempo Trap beat - that she loves him even though he is not an angel; at the same time she admits to not being perfect either. The song has a similar theme to Bey's collaborations with her husband, Jay-Z: "'03 Bonnie And Clyde" and "Part II (On The Run)."
  • The song was co-written and co-produced by Chairlift's Caroline Polacheck, who is a friend of Beyonce's sister Solange. New York Electronic Pop band Chairlift are best known for their song "Bruises," which was a minor hit after featuring in an Apple iPod Nano-Chromatic commercial.
  • The song's music video is set in the 'hood of Beyoncé's hometown of Houston, which links to the lyric in the bridge about her man driving around H-town. Various Texas hip hop stars like Bun B and Paul Wall make cameo appearances.
  • Beyoncé is seen during several shots of the video in front of a tumbledown house wearing a fur coat and cowboy hat, and holding a pit bull on a leash. That scene was filmed in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, during the Australia section of her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour.

    Apparently the owner of the house, Jeanette Meadows, didn't have a clue who Beyoncé was and let filming crews have access to her home for a mere $300. "When the man knocked on my door to ask if they could use my house to do the photos I thought he said they were with his fiancé, not Beyoncé," she told the Herald Sun. "I didn't even know who she was."

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