Sensational American singer, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, surprised fans again on Thursday when she dropped a 4-song “Break My Soul” remix EP featuring refreshed versions of her Renaissance single by Black Eyed Peas frontman will.
The collection of club royalty remixers continues turning up the dial on Beyoncé’s dance-iest album to date.
Chicago house legend, Terry Hunter, global scene queen, Honey Dijon, and New York producer, DJ Nita Aviance, could not hold back their joy in Beyoncé’s new release, as i.am. strips the song down to its most elemental beat, while Hunter amps up the tempo and transforms the track into a dreamy house workout complete with Sunday church service organs.
Aviance’s nearly 10-minute version adds hypnotic, trancey elements as it stretches the track to double its recorded length.
Comprised of four revamped cuts of the titular lead single, the EP enlists Honey Dijon, will.i.am, Terry Hunter and Nita Aviance, who each offer different versions of the song.
For his part, The Black Eyed Peas frontman distills the track’s core bounce beat, while Hunter adds church organs for a more ethereal take on the album’s distinct ballroom sound.
Meanwhile, both Aviance and Dijon extend the original song’s runtime beyond the six-minute mark, offering trance cadences and tribal drum beats, respectively. Dijon’s track adds to her previous involvement with the album, having featured as a producer on fellow ‘Renaissance’ tracks ‘Cozy’ and ‘Alien Superstar’.
The EP’s inclusion of notable names in the dance music scene is in keeping with the album’s sonic focus. Saying as much in a four-star review for NME, Kyann-Sian Williams wrote that ‘Renaissance’ is “indebted to house music and New Orleans bounce”, and pays “homage to that scene’s unique spirit”.
In a similar vein, Dijon thanked Beyoncé for sharing “Chicago house music roots”, taking to Instagram to applaud the album’s broader showcase of “black queer and trans culture… I am honored, humbled, delirious with joy, and proud,” Dijon wrote.
Adding: ‘Renaissance’, which marked Beyoncé’s seventh studio album following 2016’s ‘Lemonade’, was largely met with acclaim upon its release last week, and today (August 4) drew praise from fellow musician Lil Nas X, who claimed the album is “kinda changing [his] life somehow”.
The rollout of ‘Renaissance’ has, however, been marked by a few setbacks, the first of which saw Beyoncé face claims that the track ‘Energy’ had used elements of Kelis’ ‘Milkshake’ without the former’s express permission. A new version of the track without the interpolation was yesterday (August 3) updated on Tidal and Apple Music, on top of a separate edit to the lyrics of ‘Heated’.
Earlier this month, ‘Heated’ faced backlash for its use of an ableist slur in the outro, resulting in a lyric-change which removed the word “spaz” on Apple Music. It followed similar criticisms levied at Lizzo, who just weeks ago removed the same word from her single ‘Grrrls’.
‘Renaissance’ forms part of Beyoncé’s broader trilogy album, the details of which were discovered by a fan who received a vinyl copy of the album. “This three act project was recorded over three years during the pandemic,” Beyoncé wrote in the vinyl’s accompanying booklet, saying the period was “a time I found to be the most creative.”