Beyoncé has announced what appears to be her first solo album in six years, Renaissance, due out on 29 July.
It will be the follow-up to 2016’s Lemonade, a meditation on black identity and marital infidelity that topped multiple end-of-year lists.
Fans had been waiting for the news ever since Beyoncé deleted her social media profile pictures last week.
She put them out of their misery on Thursday morning, by sharing the words “act i … RENAISSANCE” on her accounts.
Streaming sites including Spotify and Apple Music swiftly posted artwork for the record, offering fans the chance to pre-save the release.
Tidal, the company owned by Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z, also shared the information but, crucially, it will not carry the album as an exclusive.
Lemonade, by contrast, was a Tidal exclusive for three years. Beyoncé’s joint album with Jay-Z, Everything Is Love, was an exclusive for just two days in 2018.
Now the relationship has been severed, a recognition that the streaming service – which has about a 2% market share – cannot deliver the numbers Beyoncé needs to dominate the charts.
Credit: bbc.com
