In the Carters’ 2013 hit “Drunk In Love,” Jay-Z raps, “Beat the box up, like Mike in ’97, I bite / I’m Ike Turner, turn up baby, no, I don’t play / Baby, no, I don’t play, now eat the cake, Anna Mae / Said eat the cake, Anna Mae!”AFP via Getty Images“Beyoncé putting up a Tina Turner post/tribute when she literally said, ‘Eat the cake Anna Mae’ on one of her biggest songs is wild,” tweeted one critic.
“knowing that Tina Turner was Beyoncé’s blueprint and one of her biggest influences makes that ‘Eat The Cake Anna Mae’ line in Drunk In Love even more jarring,” added another. After her death, Beyoncé and Jay-Z were slammed for their 2013 song “Drunk in Love,” in which they “mocked” Tina’s abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, Ike Turner.“All you need to do is watch ‘What’s Love got To Do With It’ to see where Jay Z got the ‘eat the cake, Anna Mae’ reference and that’ll make you sick to your stomach. Beyoncé was complicit because it was on HER song,” wrote a third.
A month after Beyoncé released “Drunk in Love,” a British radio station refused to play the unedited version of the track. Jennifer Ogole, CEO of Bang Radio, had the “4:44” rapper’s “Anna Mae” line removed because the rap displayed a “promotion of domestic violence against women.” When Tina was asked about the song, she told the New York Times in 2019 that she was “not surprised.”