Beyoncé has blessed our ears once more by giving the BeyHive a first taste of her upcoming album Renaissance with her new single “Break My Soul,” which dropped Monday night via Tidal and a lyric video on YouTube.
It’s the first single from Bey’s upcoming seventh project Renaissance, which she announced would be released July 29 and cryptically added that it would only be “act i.” She subtly announced it by changing the bios on her socials to “6. BREAK MY SOUL midnight ET,” meaning “Break My Soul” is also the sixth track on the album. (Here’s everything we know about Renaissance so far.)
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The house-tinged new song is dance-floor ready, with its piano production, crisp snares and Bey harmonizing with herself. “You won’t break my soul,” she repeats in the chorus, surely creating a new mantra that will grace T-shirts and coffee mugs to come. Previous Queen B collaborator Big Freedia can be heard chanting, “Release your anger, release your mind.”
While starring on the July 2022 cover of British Vogue, editor-in-chief Edward Enninful describes the Renaissance as such: “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.”
Renaissance is the follow-up to 2016’s Lemonade, which gave Bey her sixth solo No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. Since her last solo album, she dropped a joint album with husband JAY-Z, Everything Is Love, in 2018 and the The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack and Homecoming: The Live Album both in 2019. Queen B also recorded “Be Alive” for the Oscar-winning film King Richard.
“Break My Soul” arrives two days after the Juneteenth holiday. Two years ago, Beyoncé released the charity single “Black Parade” on Juneteenth, which raised money for BeyGOOD’s Black Business Impact Fund that supports Black-owned small businesses. The single received four nominations at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year, and it went on to win best R&B performance, marking Bey’s 28th Grammy win and making her the most awarded single and female artist in Grammy history.
Stream “Break My Soul” below.
