In a series of elaborate mini-videos for Verizon during the Super Bowl, Beyonce announced the long-awaited second part of her album Renaissance: it had been rumored for some time and now the official announcement has arrived with the indication that the Act II by the Texan singer will be inspired by country music.
About twenty minutes after the first announcement, Queen Bey then posted two previews on the music streaming site Tidal: Texas Hold 'Em and 16 Carriages.
Act II will feature contributions from producer Raphael Saadiq and Solange, Beyonce's sister.
The new album will be released on March 29th, three weeks before the next project from the other queen of stars and stripes music: Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department will debut on April 19th.
The National Football League championship final at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was the microcosm of the new announcement: both Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z were in a gallery with Twitter founder and now Tidal majority shareholder Jack Dorsey (Elon Musk who bought the microblogging site and renamed it X was sitting in the front rows with his three-year-old son ' was the superstar of the night with a passionate kiss to her champion, the tight end of the winning team Travis Kelce.
Beyonce had already crossed the boundaries of musical genres in the past: her entry into the country era was preceded by forays into disco music for Act I of Renaissance, the album at the center of the 2023 megatour which, according to Pollstar, sold $580 million in tickets, second only to Swift's.
In the new project Queen Bey does not parody country, but she reinterprets it, at least as far as she can judge from the first two songs, contaminating it with R & B and hip hop codes.
It is not the first time that the Houston singer flirts with country, the music of the white South of America whose Afro-American roots she will explore: her 2016 album Lemonade contained the song Daddy Lessons which was released that November with the Chicks at the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville to the delight of the fans and the boos of the purists of the musical genre.
Will Act II be the album that earns Beyonce her first Grammy for album of the year?
At the last awards two weeks ago, her husband Jay-Z criticized the jury for once again neglecting black artists.
The rapper had highlighted the paradox of the 32 'golden gramophones' won by his wife (the all-time record) in every type of category, except the most prestigious one.
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