As removed as Beyoncé can sometimes appear from the hurly-burly of pop music in the social-media era - she didn’t join TikTok until this summer - she clearly wants hits to bring attention to projects as intellectually ambitious as her 2018 Coachella performance or the short film she made to accompany 2016’s “Lemonade.” 1, as some analysts predict it soon might, it’ll be the singer’s first chart-topper of her own since “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” in 2008. Worth noting: “Break My Soul” is Beyoncé’s first solo single to make it inside the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 since “Formation” six years ago should the song go to No. Nor is she the only pop artist taking up these sounds now, more than two years into a pandemic that’s left many yearning for the communal experience of the dance floor Drake, who has a writing credit on “Renaissance,” just dropped his own house immersion, “ Honestly, Nevermind,” while Doja Cat and Dua Lipa have both scored monster radio smashes lately with thumping club jams. The 16-track LP, described by Beyoncé as the first installment in a planned trilogy, isn’t the first foray into club culture from a singer who was commissioning sumptuous house and disco remixes back in her teenage girl-group days with Destiny’s Child. But not even the most devoted member of the Beyhive could’ve predicted how thoroughly the 40-year-old superstar would follow through on her promise with the wild and ravishing “Renaissance,” which came out Friday and immediately reshaped the conversation about 2022’s most important music.Īfter just a couple of days, the wiggle seems so far out of the box that it’s hard to imagine anybody ever putting it back inside. What Beyoncé meant is that she wants these songs to help folks find the encouragement to be their truest selves the jubilant drive of the album’s 1990s-house-inspired lead single, “ Break My Soul” (which also incorporates Big Freedia’s command), foretold a powerful effort built on dance-music styles created by Black and queer people over the past several decades.

Fans aren’t just waiting for new music they’re waiting for a new era and a new artistic statement.When Beyoncé told fans about her seventh solo studio album, “Renaissance” - and let’s just say right here that as far as seventh albums go, this one feels like as big a swing as “Born in the U.S.A.” or “Ray of Light” or “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” - she said she hoped the music would lead them to “release the wiggle,” a lovable phrase borrowed from the New Orleans bounce-music trailblazer Big Freedia. And last year she also had an original track on the Richard Williams’ biopic King Richard.īut the prospect of a new solo album is something entirely different. In 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Beyonce released Black Parade – a single that dropped on Juneteenth, with proceeds going towards her charity fund which provides support for Black-owned small businesses. In 2019, she released a number of original songs on the soundtrack to the live-action The Lion King (which she also starred in). In 2018 she dropped Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband Jay-Z. Renaissance will be her seventh solo album, and her first since Lemonade in 2016.īeyonce has released plenty of new music since then, however. The artist then later shared the words “act i … RENAISSANCE”, suggesting this will be a multi-part release. Her website also teased something new with placeholder album art reading “What is a B7?” and “B8 ″.

Earlier this month she deleted all her profile photos across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube (a common publicity tactic used by other artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar). Beyonce has been building careful hype around the project by dropping cryptic clues on her social media.

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