What is the meaning behind “I’m Ike Turner, turn up, baby, no, I don’t play “Now eat the cake, Anna Mae” Said, “Eat the cake, Anna Mae,” I’m nice”? Drunk in Love by Beyoncé (Ft. JAY-Z)
- by imrk
- April 10, 2023
Hov caused a lot of controversy with this lyric. Ike Turner’s wife, Tina Turner released a film based on her life story in 1993 that included a scene in which Ike, addressing Tina as Anna Mae, her birthname, enjoins her to eat the cake, shoving it into Tina’s face when she won’t eat it. Many critics questioned the lyric, and even Beyonce’s most loyal fans were upset. In The International Business Times, Amethyst Tate suggested that the “song that seemingly mocks domestic abuse.” Tshepo Mokoena of The Guardian wrote that “it’s strange to see two major stars shoehorn a domestic violence reference into a track that otherwise celebrates love and all the glory of marital hook-ups.” It seems inexplicable that Beyoncé would leave a reference to domestic violence on her own record. And despite a constant stream of rumors, the couple are still together, and Jay Z may have lost a hyphen but he doesn’t seem like he’s lost his mind. So what’s going on? Jay Z could be acknowledging that Beyoncé has become the Tina to his Ike, in terms of career, not in terms of a relationship. The violence of Ike and Tina’s marriage understandably overshadows what is happening in the plot during the cake scene. At this point in the movie, Ike is increasingly high and paranoid, while Tina is beginning to score more hits on her own, without him. Ike is struggling to stay relevant and Tina is beginning a professional ascent that, more or less, never stops. Jay, in a possibly too gnomic way, may be using the cake reference to admit that his wife has overtaken him as a pop star, for good. He may have made this line hard to understand because it’s hard for such an alpha male to admit an insecurity in public. (It’s a very “Game of Thrones” moment, bitterly ceding the throne to your spouse.) The line could also be a form of catharsis, an admission that Jay has reacted badly to Beyoncé’s success. It’s hard to imagine Beyoncé agreeing to this line otherwise. It’s also hard to imagine that Jay couldn’t have done all of this with a different, better reference.