Beyoncé has announced her newest album will arrive this summer. Titled Renaissance: Act 1, the work marks the singer’s seventh solo studio album and will be released on July 29.
The announcement comes after Beyoncé was featured on the July 2022 cover of British Vogue. In an accompanying piece, editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, who got a sneak peek of the project, calls the album her “most ambitious musical project to date.” “[It’s] music that makes you rise, that turns your mind to cultures and subcultures, to our people past and present, music that will unite so many on the dance floor, music that touches your soul,” Enninful writes.
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Ahead of the release of Renaissance, here’s everything we know about Beyoncé’s upcoming album.
Beyoncé’s fandom, nicknamed “the BeyHive” speculated last week an announcement could be coming after the star deleted her profile pictures across all her social media platforms. She has since posted about the project on her social media accounts and her website.
Beyoncé has previously strayed from traditional music releases, opting instead to surprise drop some of her albums without announcement. In 2013, she released her self-titled album Beyoncé on iTunes with no advanced promotion, sending fans into a frenzy. The move has since been used by other artists like Kanye West, Taylor Swift, and most recently, Drake, who released his latest album Honestly, Nevermind without warning, just hours after Beyoncé’s announcement on Thursday.
Beyoncé’s last full-length album, 2016’s Lemonade, continued the artist’s “surprise release” method, coming out immediately after an HBO special on her life. The album made history, topping the Billboard 200 after its first week.
In the six years since Lemonade, Beyoncé has remained booked and busy. In 2017, she gave birth to twins Rumi and Sir. In 2018, she became the first Black woman to headline Coachella, accompanied by Netflix documentary special: Homecoming. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, she released Black is King on Disney+, a visual album from The Lion King: The Gift, that would go on to receive six Grammy nominations. This year alone, she’s received her first Oscar nomination for her song in the film King Richard, released new collections for her athletic clothing brand Ivy Park, and celebrated 14 years of marriage to rapper Jay-Z.
Act I of Renaissance is currently available to pre-save on TIDAL, Jay-Z’s music streaming platform.
The album will include 16 tracks and reportedly will include dance and country songs, Variety reports, citing a source familiar with the project.
