A leak threatened to disrupt her meticulously plotted rollout, but no matter: 'Renaissance' is as musically (and sexually) provocative as any album in 2022
Kelis put Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams on blast Thursday for sampling one of the singer’s songs without her permission or even advance notice.If Drake hoped his house-influenced “Honestly, Nevermind” would be the floor-filler of the season, it just got wiped off the decks. “Renaissance” is head-spinning for the sheer amount of ideas — swerving, staggering, crunching and pristine — in service of sexual mayhem and spiritual redemption.
The record pulls out strains of ‘70s disco, ‘80s synth-pop and freestyle, ‘90s deep house and bleeding-edge electronic experiments from Skrillex and A.G. Cook. Established collaborators like the Neptunes, The-Dream and Mike Dean adapt well to the format of blistering club music, with beats roiling and noises slashing around Beyoncé's unerring vocal performances.
It’s astonishing just how much music there is on each and every song. “Alien Superstar” alone has 22 credited co-writers, including sample material. And Beyoncé's suggested there are more installments yet to come.The album’s guest stars track a path through the past and future of queer Black club music.
There are cameos or high-profile samples from disco icons Grace Jones and Nile Rodgers, a loving edit of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s genre-defining “I Feel Love,” nods to New Orleans bounce high priestess Big Freedia and house goddess Robin S on lead single “,” and Chicago house legend Green Velvet and cutting-edge trans house producer Honey Dijon on the sweat-soaked “Cozy.”
Beyoncé's work has always been in a deep dialogue with geography and music history. But with “Renaissance,” she’s paying the debt backward and forward, tracing out a Black and queer tradition of nightclub rebellion and exaltation that cuts across genre and era.A DJ could credibly leave “Renaissance” on loop and watch a room of bodies writhe. But Beyoncé’s lyrics tap into a complicated well of feeling about physical existence, and the pleasures and perils of it.
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