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Beyoncé's New Single is Out. Listen to 'BREAK MY SOUL'

LaTesha Harris

Jun 21, 2022

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Beyoncé stands on stage in a luminous sheer green ensemble with feather bustier and high cut leg, diamond-encrusted garter on show. Behind her stand a formation of three strong-looking Black women wearing luminous green flowing skirts and tops.

Queen Bey in March 2022. (Mason Poole/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images)

Hold onto your wigs, the Queen is back. Four days after announcing the release date of her seventh solo studio album, the eagerly anticipated act i: RENAISSANCE (out July 29), Beyoncé dropped the project’s lead single, “BREAK MY SOUL.” A co-production between Beyoncé, Tricky Stewart and The-Dream (who last collaborated on 2009’s “Single Ladies”), “BREAK MY SOUL” honors a long lineage of liberatory queer anthems, like Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out” or Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

Whether it’s a dead-end job or a relationship that’s not going anywhere, Beyoncé wants you to release the stress. Over a pulsing dance melody, she croons, “Got motivation, I done found me a new foundation, and I’m takin’ my new salvation and I’ma build my own foundation,” before delivering an uplifting mantra of “You won’t break my soul” in the chorus. Built around a four-count sample of the gay club staple “Show Me Love” by Robin S. and an interpolation of NOLA rapper Big Freedia’s 2014 bounce record “Explode,” the retrofuturistic track is a seamless blend of disco, house and gospel pop with dulcet, meticulously-arranged vocals ready for the ballroom.

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