What do Malcolm X, Beyoncé, Jack White, and Led Zeppelin have in common? There isn’t a complicated pop culture joke being set up here. In general, nevertheless, it is a noteworthy moment in pop culture.

It’s true that Beyoncé was paying tribute to Black country music pioneers with rock ‘n’ roll years before she would do the same with country music with Cowboy Carter.

This song by Beyoncé links her to Malcolm X and Jack White

Beyoncé’s sixth studio album was, to put it mildly, a moment. Legendary hits like “Formation” and “Sorry” made Lemonade and its 65-minute movie a global sensation. The masterpiece was a breathtaking prelude to her career in the country music industry with Cowboy Carter, detailing the emotional agony of coping with her husband’s infidelity while also honoring the rock ‘n’ roll and R&B icons who came before her.

Having talented rock musicians on your side, however, is helpful when writing a rock song. Jack White was the answer to that. In a 2016 interview with NPR, the founder of the White Stripes recalled that Beyoncé had asked him to join her band. “Really?” I asked. I would want to do something, though. I have always cherished her. I mean, her voice reminds me of the soul singing of Aretha Franklin or Betty Davis. She created the most amazing, bodacious, and viscous music out of a sketch of a lyrical framework. I have no idea what you would call it—soul, rock ‘n’ roll, whatever.

The song was “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” from Lemonade’s third album, which includes a passage from a speech by Malcolm X. The iconic figure from the civil rights struggle makes the claim that Black women are the most disrespected group in America in the video. Black women are America’s most vulnerable group. “Who taught you to detest the color of your skin?” he asks, continuing the diatribe. Who made you despise the way your hair feels? Who instilled in you the hatred of your own people?

White and Beyoncé duet in the chorus, “When you hurt me, you hurt yourself.” Playing me means playing yourself.

There is another connection that goes back even further than Led Zeppelin.

Along with Led Zeppelin, Beyoncé’s collaboration with Jack White on “Don’t Hurt Yourself” also links the musicians to two Black blues musicians, Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, who were before the British heavy rock band. Indeed, Beyoncé employed Led Zeppelin’s rendition of “When the Levee Breaks” to give her Lemonade song even more rock ‘n’ roll flair. However, she also used it as a means of honoring Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, who composed and recorded the original Led Zeppelin song in 1929.

Beyoncé acknowledged the Black musicians who came before her on Lemonade, just as she did on Cowboy Carter, demonstrating that even as she forges her own route, she never loses sight of her roots. Fortunately for the rest of us, some of the most recognizable songs of the twenty-first century are the result of that brilliant blending of the conventional and the innovative.

Proving that even while she’s innovating her own path, she never forgets where she came from. And fortunately for the rest of us, that genius combination of old and new, tradition and innovation, lends itself to some of the most iconic songs of the 21st century.