In a statement, Jay-Z, who has pulled much of his catalog from rival streaming services, called the release strategy for “4:44” a “perfect storm of sharing music with fans.”

Whether the album leads to more Tidal subscribers or just more online piracy, it is sure to be a talker. Already, the lyrics are being dissected and pored over across social media and beyond, as listeners try to decode which details come from the real lives of one of the most famous (and famously private) duos in entertainment. Twitter said before noon on Friday that there had been more than 810,000 posts about Jay-Z and his album since it was released, plus another 230,000 about Beyoncé.

Coming in the wake of “Lemonade,” an ambitious multimedia project that was simultaneously Beyoncé’s most personal and most political work to date, “4:44” finds Jay-Z in a similar mode, weaving confessional and autobiographical songwriting with big-picture perspectives on black life in the United States.

The opening track, “Kill Jay-Z,” sets the tone, explicitly addressing the years of tabloid reports and fan-fueled rumors that have made up the Jay-Z mythology, including the marital infidelity that seemed to fuel “Lemonade” and the infamous elevator incident in which he was attacked by Beyoncé’s younger sister, Solange, after the Met Ball:

You egged Solange on

Knowin’ all along, all you had to say you was wrong

You almost went Eric Benét

Let the baddest girl in the world get away

(Mr. Benét, an R&B singer who was previously married to the actress Halle Berry, has already responded on Twitter: “Hey yo #Jayz! Just so ya know, I got the baddest girl in the world as my wife....like right now!”)