Ilana Kaplan Six years after the release of Beyoncé’s magnum opus “Lemonade,” the pop icon has come through again: giving us all something to talk about.
The long-anticipated “Renaissance” (volume one of three) is sticky, sweaty, hedonistic art — flanked by a pastiche of genres that never lingers on long enough for the listener to get too comfortable.It’s what makes the collection its own kind of masterpiece: beauty in the chaos.
After the the grieving “Lemonade,” a project carefully curated around and steeped in Black womanhood and personal strife, “Renaissance” is brimming with excitement and exploration.
It’s an homage Black joy, queer culture, pleasure and the liberation of the dance floor. In the past, such exaltation brought with it glitter and a certain kind of white powder, but as Beyonce notes at the album’s opening track, “I’m That Girl”: “Don’t need drugs for some freak shit / I’m just high all the time / I’m out of my mind.” Musically, “Renaissance” draws a throughline to Bey’s sonic collaborators, dance icon forbears like Nile Rodgers, Grace Jones, Robin S., Donna Summer and Honey Dijon.
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