Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, your broken face of music news and

critical commentary. I'm your host Ben Ratliff.

Flotch a photo down the stream.

Take a mercy shot at mercy,

a poet's dream the glowing seeds of grown disease. And we track back 14 months ago to a moment when Beyonces

self-titled album suddenly came upon us.

John Perrellis reviewed it immediately for the New York Times and we sat around this table in

this same room at the Times Office and had this question.

I think one presence on this record who remains a mystery is this guy named Boots.

Yeah, what's the deal?

Who he produced or he wrote and produced a couple of songs, but a lot of the credits say additional

production by Boots.

I wonder if he's the one say additional production by Boots.

I wonder if he's the one sort of nudging it

in the direction that makes it a little more coherent.

Has that person been outed at all?

I was gonna ask you guys.

Not to my, not to my, not to my,

yeah, he has. He's on,azzy's label was on rock nation yeah but he he had a sound

cloud page with do we even know his real name biancée noz

i've seen a photo online and I've forgotten the name. So that person is providing

the overall. I have the feeling he's holding it together. Yeah, and she is too.

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