Renaissance, Beyoncé’s first new solo album since 2016, will be released on July 29
New music from Beyoncé is finally here!
The Grammy Award winner, 40, released a new single on Monday evening, titled “Break My Soul.”
The house track, which runs over four minutes, samples Robin S’s 1993 hit “Show Me Love” and Big Freedia’s “Explode.”
“Now, I just fell in love, and I just quit my job / I’m gonna find new drive, damn, they work me so damn hard / Work by nine, then off past five / And they work my nerves, that’s why I cannot sleep at night,” Beyoncé sings on one part of the track.
“Motivation / I’m looking for a new foundation, yeah / And I’m on that new vibration / I’m buildin’ my own foundation, yeah / Hold up, oh, baby-baby,” she adds in a pre-chorus, before repeating “You won’t break my soul” in the song’s next verse.
“Break My Soul” comes less than a week after Columbia Records announced that Beyoncé’s seventh solo studio album, Renaissance, will drop on July 29.
Buzz among the Beyhive — Beyoncé’s loyal legion of fans — broke out in anticipation of the single Monday morning after the “Crazy in Love” singer updated her Instagram bio to “6. BREAK MY SOUL,” seemingly indicating that the song will be the sixth track on Renaissance.
The update quickly got the phrase “New Beyoncé” trending on Twitter.
Renaissance will be the star’s first solo album in six years, and the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s Lemonade. (In the interim, she has released a soundtrack album to The Lion King and Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with husband Jay-Z. She also released Homecoming: The Live Album, which was recorded during her headlining 2018 Coachella performance, and in March, opened the 94th annual Academy Awards with a jaw-dropping performance of her nominated song “Be Alive” from King Richard.)
Shortly after news of the new album broke, British Vogue shared photos of Beyoncé gracing its July cover, wearing a variety of major outfits alongside a short article with hints of what was to come about the album.
“B wanted to play with fashion like never before, and as we swapped references (from the 1990s garage scene to ’80s excess), talked hair and beauty, and got to know her team, a vision of glittering retro-futurism began to take shape,” Edward Enninful, British Vogue’s editor-in-chief, wrote of Beyoncé’s collaboration on the photoshoot in a piece for the magazine.
“[On set] it was a magical mood and soon B was walking around feeling easy and free to be herself,” he added. “Her husband and kids came to surprise her on set. It was a family day out — albeit a slightly surreal one,” referring to Jay-Z and her three children: Blue Ivy, 10, and 5-year-old twins Rumi and Sir.
Enninful also detailed the preview he’d gotten of Renaissance. “The creation has been a long process, she explains, with the pandemic giving her far longer to spend thinking and re-thinking every decision. Just the way she likes it,” he wrote.
Though fans have had some time to prepare for Beyoncé’s newest music, she’s no stranger to the surprise release.
In 2013, she provided no warning before she dropped her self-titled album exclusively on iTunes, and it went on to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
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