Beyhive, assemble!
Beyoncé has announced her highly anticipated next album will debut in July. The Grammy-winner's website has been updated with a listing for Renaissance, which has a release date of July 29. It's being described as "Act I," presumably indicating there's more to come after the initial drop.
Renaissance appears to be a full studio album, in which case it would be Beyoncé's seventh — and her first since 2016's Lemonade. Since then, though, Beyoncé released a joint album, Everything Is Love; a live album; a concert film, Homecoming; a visual album, Black Is King; and singles like "Black Parade" and "Be Alive."
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Renaissance is sure to be in the mix at the next Grammys, meaning it's likely to go up against Adele's 30 — a repeat of the 2017 Grammys, when Lemonade competed against Adele's 25. Though 25 won Album of the Year, in 2021, Beyoncé set the record for most Grammy wins by a female artist thanks to "Black Parade."
Fans were pretty sure a new Beyoncé album was coming after she mysteriously wiped all of her profile photos on social media, though additional details about Renaissance haven't been confirmed.
In 2021, though, Beyoncé teased new music — and foreshadowed the title of the album — by telling Harper's Bazaar, "With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible."
