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A Seat at the Table is definitely the stronger album, but on further inspection I find the sequencing of ASATT to be less than ideal. All those interviews and soundbytes cloud the musicality of the album to me. It has a handful of really great songs (Rise, Cranes in the Sky, Don't Touch my Hair) but it's effect is dulled over time by how demonstrative the whole thing is. Still a very good record, but not Best of 2016 good.
I do think Lemonade sounds pretty shallow in comparison. At first Lemonade sounded and felt like a personal narrative AND a thoughtful exploration and celebration of black womanhood. But then ASATT came out, and it's far more thoughtful, and it's really about black womanhood, and Lemonade sounds insular and almost a bit self-aggrandizing in comparison.
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