Renaissance (stylized in all caps; also referred to as Act I: Renaissance) is the seventh studio album by American singer and songwriter Beyoncé. It was released on July 29, 2022, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. The first installment of a planned trilogy of albums, Renaissance includes guest vocals from Beam, Grace Jones, and Tems.
Beyoncé conceived and recorded Renaissance during the COVID-19 pandemic, intending to inspire joy and escapism in listeners after a period of collective isolation. The album celebrates the club culture that served as a refuge for Black and queer communities, and pays homage to the pioneers who shaped those spaces. Arranged like a continuous DJ mix, Renaissance incorporates post-1970s Black dance music styles—such as disco, house, funk—and pays homage to the overlooked contributions of the pioneers who shaped those genres. Its lyrical themes are primarily centered on escapism, hedonism, confidence, and self-expression.
The album was promoted with the Renaissance World Tour in 2023 and an accompanying concert film. Renaissance topped the charts of eleven countries, including Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the lattermost country, it became Beyoncé's seventh consecutive album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, and was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Four singles supported the album: the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one "Break My Soul"; "Cuff It", her longest-charting song on the Hot 100; the Europe-only single "Virgo's Groove"; and a remix of "America Has a Problem" featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar.
On release, Renaissance received universal acclaim from music critics, who praised it for its eclectic yet cohesive sound, celebratory tone, and Beyoncé's vocals. It topped year-end lists from major outlets, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Rolling Stone; the lattermost later included it on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". After winning four of her nine nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards—including Best Dance/Electronic Album—Beyoncé became the most awarded individual in Grammy history. The second installment of the trilogy, Cowboy Carter, followed on March 29, 2024.
Background and conception Through the late 2010s, American singer Beyoncé released several critically acclaimed, narrative-focused projects that examined and celebrated Black identity. She released her sixth studio album, Lemonade, on April 23, 2016, to critical praise and commercial success. It discusses Black womanhood, reconciliation, and heartbreak—particularly in light of her husband Jay-Z's alleged infidelity; one scholar referred to it as a "cinematic and sonic Afrodiasporic journey from betrayal to redemption". Her 2018 Coachella headlining performance—later chronicled in the Netflix documentary Homecoming and its accompanying live album—paid tribute to historically Black colleges and universities. Beyoncé released the soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift in 2019, which was influenced by African musical styles and was produced by African producers; she accompanied it with the visual album Black Is King (2020).
Beyoncé told British Vogue in an interview that the COVID-19 pandemic changed her as a person, saying she spent much of that time focused on "building [her] legacy and representing [her] culture the best way [she knew] how", but eventually allowed herself to prioritize her own happiness. She described this period as her "most creative", using music-making as a means to counter feelings of isolation. As the lockdown began to end, she told Harper's Bazaar, "we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible". She wanted her seventh studio album, Renaissance, to be a celebration of the underappreciated Black queer pioneers of dance music, whose contributions had been unrecognized in the mainstream.
Recording and production
Beyoncé began recording Renaissance around 2019–2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic; the entire process spanned nearly three years. The development process for Renaissance largely took place at studios throughout Los Angeles, with recording, production, and writing sessions for all tracks conducted at Parkwood West, Avenue A Studio West, and Juicy Juicy, as well as Sing Mastering in Atlanta.
Early sessions for Renaissance involved the songwriting and production duo Nova Wav, who had previously worked with Beyoncé on "Black Parade" (2020); the duo contributed to eight tracks on the album. The duo frequently created demos, which were later expanded by Beyoncé with a team of collaborators. Tracks such as "Cuff It", "Energy", and "Summer Renaissance" were written after periods of creative block and quickly drafted before being sent to Beyoncé. Others, including "Pure/Honey", were created directly in Beyoncé's studio, where the duo worked closely with her. The-Dream, who has written for Beyoncé since I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), co-wrote nine tracks on Renaissance. While writing songs from his trailer, he recalled feeling as though he was "trying to get out of here", with that "hungry" feeling leading to lines like "Now, I just fell in love / And I just quit my job" on "Break My Soul".
Beyoncé worked closely with sound engineer Stuart White, her personal engineer and mixer since 2012, at his Avenue A Studio West. White handled vocal production, audio mixing, and recording throughout the process. Several songs were largely completed on the day they were recorded; for example, "I'm That Girl" was mostly written, recorded, and mixed in a single session. White recorded her vocals using a Telefunken ELA M 251 microphone, and he applied equalization, compression, and effects in real time during tracking. Much of the production and mixing was carried out simultaneously, with instrumentation, vocal layering, and effects developed during the recording process. Mike Dean helped produce, program, play synthesizers, and perform drums on six tracks. Producer Hit-Boy revealed that the song "Thique" was made in 2014, but the track did not fully materialize until Beyoncé picked it back up again eight years later for the album.
Composition Music and themes
Musically, Renaissance is a dance, house, pop, and R&B album, incorporating elements of disco, soul, funk, bounce, Chicago house, Detroit techno, and electro. Renaissance celebrates club cultures shaped by Black women and queer communities, which provided marginalized groups with spaces for expression and celebration. It pays homage to the contributions of Black pioneers to disco, house, and techno, alongside Black and Latinx ballroom and kiki scenes. The tracks are connected by seamless transitions facilitated by beatmatching, evoking a DJ mix. This reflects "the shifting moods and the physicality of the dance floor" rather than "the constraints of a radio station or a playlist", according to The New Yorker's Carrie Battan.
The album contains themes of escapism, self-assurance, self-expression, hedonism and pleasure, with Beyoncé aiming to inspire joy and confidence in listeners. She conceived Renaissance as a soundtrack for liberation during a time of global uncertainty, inspired in part by "Uncle" Johnny—her gay cousin who helped raise her until his death during the AIDS epidemic. According to The Guardian, it "urg[es] listeners to wholeheartedly embrace pleasure", particularly referencing joy in Black culture. The album's lyrics emphasize dance as both a measure of personal catharsis and a liberating spiritual practice. Time noted that Renaissance expands on the explorations of sexuality introduced on her fifth studio album, Beyoncé (2013), adopting a more explicit tone on tracks such as "Church Girl", "Thique", "Plastic Off the Sofa", and "Virgo's Groove". Similarly, Complex wrote that the "confident" themes of the album can be traced back to songs like "Flawless" (2013).
Songs Renaissance opens with "I'm That Girl", a bass- and synth-driven track with a "murky" and atmospheric sound and themes of self-confidence. It features Beyoncé's rap-singing delivery, backed by the repeated, distorted refrain, "Please, motherfuckers ain't stopping me". It includes an interpolation of Tommy Wright III and Princess Loko's "Still Pimpin". It transitions into "Cozy", a Chicago house and deep house track with lyrics concerning self-love, empowerment, and trans empowerment. "Alien Superstar" is a staccato-driven, synthesizer-backed track that contains elements of ballroom language. It has been described as a pop homage to ballroom culture, with themes of individuality, Afrofuturism, and self-celebration. Its intro interpolates Right Said Fred's 1991 single "I'm Too Sexy", while the outro samples an autobiographical recording by writer Barbara Ann Teer.
The fourth track, "Cuff It", is a retro disco–funk song centered on themes of romantic excitement, physical attraction, and uninhibited expression on the dance floor. "Energy" is a minimal, onomatopoeic, Afrobeats-infused track, incorporating funk and bass elements. A bridge between the tracks "Cuff It" and "Break My Soul", it is one of two tracks on the album to feature another artist, rapper and singer Beam. Both "Cuff It" and "Energy" interpolate "Ooo La La La" (1988), performed by Teena Marie. As "Energy" transitions into "Break My Soul" in its closing seconds, it introduces a sample of Big Freedia's "Explode" (2014).
"Break My Soul" is a dance-pop, house, and diva house song. Lyrically, it is centered on themes of liberation from a demanding job and the pressures of the pandemic. In addition to the sample of Freedia's "Explode", "Break My Soul" also samples Robin S.'s house-pop track "Show Me Love" (1993). An R&B and New Orleans bounce song, "Church Girl" explores themes of bodily autonomy, spiritual liberation, and the rejection of religious and societal expectations placed on Black women, inviting those with religious upbringings to move beyond patriarchal constraints on their sexuality. It samples "Center of Thy Will" by gospel group the Clark Sisters and "Drag Rap" by the Showboys, and interpolates DJ Jimi's "Where They At".
The eighth track, "Plastic Off the Sofa", is a neo-soul track with alternative R&B influences, described by Variety as "the closest thing to a ballad on Renaissance". Lyrically, it discusses the ability to navigate and express the nuances of everyday life despite a globally prominent status. "Virgo's Groove", the album's longest track, is a disco–funk love song built on upbeat handclaps, slap bass, and airy synth textures. The song features layered vocal harmonies and a structure that forgoes a conventional pop format in favor of extended grooves, ad-libs, and call-and-response sections. The tenth track, "Move", blends Afrobeats and house and features guest vocals from Grace Jones and Tems. Jones, who previously criticized Beyoncé in her memoir I'll Never Write My Memoirs (2015), contributes spoken-word vocals.
"Heated" is an Afrobeats and dancehall track, with elements of ballroom language. "Heated" finds Beyoncé delivering braggadocious, rapid-fire verses while paying tribute to her "Uncle" Johnny. The dubstep-oriented hip-hop track "Thique" incorporates trap rap and trap-influenced drums layered over a muted techno-style bassline. Thematically, it is a song about body positivity. "All Up in Your Mind" features a woozy bassline and "laser-like" synths, and explores a synth-pop sound reminiscent of Lady Gaga's Chromatica (2020). "America Has a Problem" is an electro-funk and hip-hop-influenced song built on stark synth chords and rapid, percussive beats. It uses addiction as a metaphor for desirability and samples Kilo Ali's 1990 track "Cocaine".