Less than a week after revealing the title and release date for her follow-up to 2016’s Lemonade, Beyoncé returns with the project’s first single “Break My Soul.”
The new song arrives just hours after Beyoncé teased its existence by changing the bios on her social media pages, which now read: “6. BREAK MY SOUL midnight ET.” Pitchfork reports that the track “marks the start of a new season,” and that the single is a “dance song that is intended to mark the start of a new era with new anthems.”
It shouldn’t surprise us that “Break My Soul” dropped three hours early on Tidal. According to the platform’s credits, the dance song is co-produced by Bey, Tricky Stewart, and The-Dream, and features the following hook from Big Freedia: “Release your anger, release your mind/Release your job, release the time/Release your trade, release the stress/Release the love, forget the rest. Jay-Z also has a writing credit on the song, which samples Robyn’s 1993 pop classic “Show Me Love.”
Beyoncé’s forthcoming full-length offering Renaissance is slated for a July 29 release. The title for the 16-song project also includes “act i,” which could mean plans to share more “acts” after this initial release.