Last week, Beyoncé announced that her new album Renaissance is coming out this July. With just a day’s notice, she dropped another surprise — that her first single from the much-awaited seventh studio album is coming out just before midnight on Monday evening. The new track, “Break My Soul,” is a dance anthem lauding reinvention and The Great Resignation.
Filled with bumping house music and Beyoncé’s signature powerhouse vocals, the star sings, “Now, I just fell in love, and I just quit my job, I’m gonna find new drive, damn, they work me so damn hard.” She describes a post-COVID-19 workplace, belting, “Work by nine, then off past five, and they work my nerves.”
Sampling Robin S.’ 1993 dance hit “Show Me Love,” the track also features rapper Big Freedia, the collaborator from the 2016 Lemonade song “Formation.”
“It feels surreal to be on the track with the Queen Beyonce once again I’m so honored to be apart of this special moment I’m forever grateful lord,” Freedia wrote on Twitter. Co-Produced by the team who brought us “Single Ladies,” The-Dream and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart are to thank for the disco beat.
“act i” of the Columbia Records project is set to release on July 29. With four unique box sets available for pre-order on Beyoncé’s official website, the package comes complete with a T-shirt, CD, a mini poster, and a 28-page photo book. The box sets begin shipping out on July 29 in tandem with the album’s release.
Renaissance will mark Beyoncé’s first solo album in the last six years. She released her debut solo project Dangerously in Love in 2003 after her start with the trio Destiny’s Child. The record follows 2006’s B’Day, and 2008’s I Am…Sasha Fierce, 2011’s 4, 2013’s Beyoncé, and 2016’s Lemonade.
Since 2016, the star has appeared on 2018’s Everything Is Love alongside her husband Jay-Z, The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack for the 2019 live-action Disney adaptation, and 2019’s Homecoming: The Live Album, commemorating her Coachella performance from the year before.
