Since Lemonade (2016), her latest solo studio full-length album and accompanying film, Beyoncé has captivated fans with a number of ambitious projects in between.
In 2018, she headlined the Coachella festival, where her show paid tribute to the marching band tradition of historically black colleges and universities and was widely hailed as a triumph—one that “reoriented her music, putting aside her ties to stand out and frame it squarely within the lineage of southern black musical traditions,” as The New York Times critic John Caramanica wrote. The performance was later turned into a Netflix special and an album, both titled Homecoming.
Also in 2018, Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z released a joint album, Everything Is Love, credited to the Carters. And in June 2020, in the midst of national protests after the killing of George Floyd, she released a song called “Black Parade” with lines like “Put your fist in the air, show the black love.”
“Black Parade” took home the next year’s Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance, one of four awards that night that brought Beyoncé’s career total to 28 — more than any other woman. This year, Beyoncé was nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Original Song for “Be Alive” from the film King Richard, a biopic about the father of Venus and Serena Williams.
How the early exit will affect Renaissance’s commercial prospects remains unclear. Years ago, unauthorized release of music in advance could have devastating consequences for an album. But that danger has been mitigated by the move to streaming.
And Beyoncé, like most other artists today, accepted pre-orders for physical copies of her album, which would enter the charts as soon as they were shipped – usually the week of release. On Beyoncé’s website, the four boxed set of “Renaissance” and its limited edition vinyl version are sold out.
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