Billboard Explains: How Beyoncé Arrived at ‘Renaissance’
Beyoncé‘s Renaissance has dominated the world unlike any other album this year.
The music icon’s seventh solo studio album debuted atop the Billboard 200 — her seventh in a row to do so — to wide acclaim, with the year’s largest first-week sales total for a woman. The set’s lead single, the ’90s house-meets-NOLA-bounce track “Break My Soul,” rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its seventh week on the chart, becoming Beyoncé’s first solo single to reach the summit since “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” 14 years ago.
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With a career that spans 25 years and counting, Beyoncé’s trajectory has been one for the history books. From Girls Tyme and Destiny’s Child to I Am… Sasha Fierce and her eponymous surprise album, Beyoncé has reinvented popular music with each one of her seismic releases.
2003’s Dangerously in Love found the Houston singer graduating from her girl group days with five Grammy Awards and two back-to-back Hot 100 No. 1 singles in “Crazy in Love” (with Jay-Z) and “Baby Boy” (with Sean Paul). The star-studded collaborations and hit singles continued with B’Day (“Irreplaceable,” “Flaws and All”) and I Am.. Sasha Fierce (“Halo,” “Sweet Dreams” and the Lady Gaga-assisted “Video Phone”), but around the time of 2011’s 4, Beyoncé shifted course personally and professionally.
The birth of her first child, daughter Blue Ivy, inspired her industry-revolutionizing self-titled album, and her personal marital experiences informed the much-lauded Lemonade album. Along the way, the multi-hyphenate starred in box office hits (Austin Powers In Goldmember, Dreamgirls, The Lion King) and unleashed rewarding side projects such as Everything Is Love, The Lion King: The Gift and Homecoming.
The latest episode of Billboard Explains (watch above) breaks down the road to Renaissance and all the showstopping moments in Beyoncé’s storied career.
After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs, how the Super Bowl halftime show is booked and why Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” was able to shoot to No. 1 on the Hot 100.