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Beyoncé · S8 E1
The Comeback
Four years of silence — what she was doing, what she was processing, what she was building
April 2018. Beyonce walks onto the Coachella stage in front of a 200-person marching band, the first Black woman to headline the festival in its history. Then she goes quiet for four years.
"Spirit" official music video, Beyonce (2019). Co-written and produced by Beyonce for The Lion King, filmed in the desert with the same Pan-African visual language she established in Lemonade.
Spirit
"Spirit" is Beyonce operating in a register she rarely visits: devotional. The song builds from a quiet opening to a full gospel crescendo, her voice layered over itself in harmonies that evoke a church choir of one. Co-written with Ilya Salmanzadeh, the production blends East African percussion with orchestral swells. Listen for the transition at the bridge, where the rhythm section drops out entirely and Beyonce's voice carries the song alone.
TAP TO REVEAL: The real cost of Beychella
Beyonce's 2020 visual album Black Is King was a companion piece to which project?
The Hiatus
Brown Skin Girl (feat. SAINt JHN, WizKid, Blue Ivy Carter)
From The Lion King: The Gift, "Brown Skin Girl" is Beyonce at her most tender: a love letter to dark-skinned women and girls. Blue Ivy's voice opens the track, and the song won the Grammy for Best Music Video.
On June 20, 2022, a Robin S. sample and a Big Freedia vocal drop into a house beat, and Beyonce tells the world to quit their jobs. "BREAK MY SOUL" and the album that turned the dance floor into a movement.
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