“You won’t break my soul…”
She is Beyoncé. (Thank you.) And she is coming.
Granted, we always vaguely knew that new Beyoncé is imminent. We’re never safe.
Ever since 2013’s self-titled digital drop, we as a society have been conditioned over the past decade to expect a song or full body of work to suddenly appear out of nowhere, sending everyone into a midnight/mid-day panic. She’s quite literally synonymous with the surprise release. (Ex. “Did you see that Bad Bunny just pulled a Beyoncé?”)
Leave it to the woman who is at least partly responsible for the shift from Tuesday release dates to New Music Fridays to troll the music industry and go right back to a Tuesday release nearly a decade later.
And so here we are. Act 1: Renaissance. With a known release date, for once: July 29. And at least one photo shoot, for British Vogue, featuring eyebrow-raising imagery (a disco ball, a Bianca Jagger white horse Studio 54 reference), and one description of the new music, courtesy of editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, featuring tantalizing keywords (“clubs of my youth,” “dance floor,” “fierce beats”) – all of which screams “disco.”
Instantly, a wall of sound hits me. Soaring vocals and fierce beats combine and in a split second I’m transported back to the clubs of my youth. I want to get up and start throwing moves. It’s music I love to my core. 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. As ever with Beyoncé, it is all about the intent. I sit back, after the wave, absorbing it all.
The description sent fans spiraling with a quickness: how old is Edward Enninful, anyway? And when would he be at the clubs of his youth? Late ’80s to early ’90s? Okay, sure, check.
As it turns out, the calculations were accurate: “Break My Soul,” the lead track off of Beyoncé’s forthcoming project – and her first non-surprise drop in ages – is exactly reminiscent of that sweet spot in club culture, vaguely pulling from classics like Black Box‘s “Everybody Everybody” and, maybe more directly, Robin S‘s “Show Me Love,” from which that track’s co-writers, Fred McFarlane and Allen George, are also credited here.
The song’s credits offer an array of heavyweights for that matter, including the Queen of Bounce herself Big Freedia who brings us in from the very top of the track, Bounce producer BlaqNmilD, JAY-Z, and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart and The-Dream, the dream (quite literally) team behind “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).”
Cooly gliding across an immediately familiar Korg Organ 2-esque beat and bright House piano chords, Bey shakes off the stresses of that 9-5 job – “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,” she laments.
What 9-5 is she working, anyway? This is clearly an ode to the locals (us) with office jobs, and not the Beyoncés of the world – and an offering that comes perfectly timed for Pride season, now in full swing. (As a card-carrying Rowland Stone, it actually reminds me of what fellow Child in Destiny Kelly Rowland – the true gay icon – did with her own Pride offering with Amorphous, taking on CeCe Peniston‘s “Finally.”)
Along the way – the song clocks in at a healthy 4:38, unheard of by today’s streaming standards – Bey is unmistakably having herself a good time: “Bey is back and I’m sleeping real good at night / The queens in the front and the doms in the back / Ain’t takin’ no flicks but the whole clique snapped,” she declares, vaguely recalling the days of “Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix)” in a celebratory-in-the-club kind of way.
Much has been made of the return of Beyoncé – her first non-live, non-Disney related, non-couple, solo body of week since 2016’s Lemonade. Impossible standards have long since been set for the peerless icon, who’s established herself as one of the generation’s once-in-a-lifetime talents. Ever since 4, the last campaign that felt relatively conventional, she’s taken her sound far left and dabbled in experimental productions, tackled deeply personal relationship issues and heavy themes like sexism and systemic racism, and ambitiously endeavored to introduce a wide array of African talent to global audiences. That’s one hell of a lot of responsibility for one legend to shoulder.
But this time around, the energy surrounding the new Beyoncé feels significantly lighter, and far less serious. It’s still empowering and uplifting, as so much of Beyoncé’s work is – she’s on that new vibration, after all! – but it’s a pleasure to hear Bey letting her hair down and having a night out on the dance floor. The possibilities of just how deep she’ll explore the territory (and which references she’ll pull from next) are endless – and endlessly exciting to consider.
She deserves to have fun this summer. We all do.
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