32 minutes ago, nick_rod said:

I love "Already" even more.

I agree about "Find your back". Could have easily been the lead, instead of "Spirit".

"Water", "My Power", "Bigger" and "Brown skin girl" are all single worthy songs. Bey just didn't give af about promoting such a great album.

Going back to the Making The Gift documentary... there was a whiteboard with a bunch of exciting unreleased collaborations at around the 4:55 mark:

• An untitled Swizz Beatz x Mumford & Sons collaboration

• "Ey! Tribe" (Tokan (or Toucan? The writing is unclear) x Cadenza)

• "276" (Burna Boy)

• "Sky Getting Closer" (Diplo / Nija Charles / Mbappe / Guru)

Between those and that shelved Fela Kuti-influenced album? I would love for her to release those at some point. Her ear is crazy, and for those tracks to make it far enough to end up alongside "Keys To The Kingdom" on the whiteboard tells me they were promising at worst.

2 hours ago, Redporus said:

PLS

1 hour ago, beyonceparkwood said:

Creole has always been available on Spotify

this is unplayable for me lol

9 minutes ago, yonsé said:

this is unplayable for me lol

Oh… GOD PRAISE THE EU

Do you see all these tweets with a crocodile Cuca on X? I love them

https://x.com/MatteeusMoura/status/2093483801217310815/video/1?s=46

https://x.com/ogutin_/status/2093077833551597936/video/1?s=46

https://x.com/sashfirce_/status/2093407707411644755/video/1?s=46

https://x.com/wtfatila/status/2093312003511058775/video/1?s=46

https://x.com/c4llmedan/status/2093375474114212043/video/1?s=46

11 hours ago, AccioEmpireBuilder said:

A BLACK album amidst "Wakandification," "Mama Africa," Tiffany Blood diamonds, and Noname anti-capitalist online controversies celebrating Africa with no tour? No matter how excellent the music/visuals would be, lukewarm reception was expected.

Sidebar: SEO is very important. It made no sense for Black Is King to not be in the name of the deluxe edition. People were typing in Black Is King on Spotify and Apple Music and finding nothing.

This is my kinda comment, because you touched on so many interesting points.

One of the most jarring things about The Gift/BIK is that it was the literal opposite of the music/visuals being bad. The overall venture is one of her best. Particularly in this "new" era of Beyonce. But it's a textbook example, like you said, of context being everything.

She's not perfect (will get to that in a second), but I do feel for her with how it played out. Because as someone with a quite literal lineage link to the Afro diaspora, I felt the "Mama Africa" and "Wakanda" ish to be so dense and counterproductive. Like, on what planet is Beyonce - the biggest star in the world - celebrating our culture and, by heritage, her own, a bad thing? Afrobeats was popping, the social climate was right, and there was excitement around her involvement in The Lion King.

IMO, it was the latter part of the pandemic, and social media was bored, so zeroed in. As we've seen time in and time out, every so often, there's an anti-Beyonce wave. Haters and the fair-weather folk jump on it and then turn right around to praise her and go to her shows when it's a more favorable time. It's a crazy, yet incredibly consistent pattern.

But it's not just the haters' fault; you made a very on-point observation about image and SEO. Around that time, she was being ridiculous. So "artsy" that she didn't cover EIL or The Gift (her presence IS a potent marketing tool). And, like you said, she had- in the deluxe edition - the perfect opportunity to align it with the newly released BIK visual. An easy case of 'The Gift: Black Is King'. It even sounds cool and symbolically marries the earlier-released album with the newly released visual. But, no I remember screaming about this on ATRL so loud at the time.

I want to say that she has learned her lessons since, because as fraught with their own issues as they were, Rennie and CC were handled significantly better and yielded better results. But the truest test will be how she handles another new side project (and no, this B'Day ish doesn't count).

The way she's a fulltime housewife and mother while working on her stuff at home while they are in school is so boring but oh well it is what it is...

Atleast she isn't fully retired...

Has Can I Watch You leaked yet?

I almost made it 365 days without purchasing anything from her shop

Edited August 29Aug 29 by NEUTRON

1 hour ago, Bicassie said:

The way she's a fulltime housewife and mother while working on her stuff at home while they are in school is so boring but oh well it is what it is...

Atleast she isn't fully retired...

Yeah she's a devoted mother whose family comes first

I think it's safe enough to say that BIK flopped bc white/conservative's across the board felt insecure about the title and premise as a film. Commercially it probably would have done better left as "The Gift" on Disney+ but she took the risk and I ain't mad at her for it. It was a masterpiece. The music video for Otherside and how it relates to her miscarriage(s) was one of the most vulnerable visuals of her career. It's just a huge damn shame how mistreated the era was bc of how fuckin beautiful it was, so I don't blame her for the way she treats high budget visuals and messages moving forward.

Edited August 29Aug 29 by BGKC

BIK flopped because The Gift flopped end of discussion

BIK being her last visual album sends me. she said yall gonna pay for the disrespect.

3 hours ago, Kingdom said:

Yeah she's a devoted mother whose family comes first

some of her peers however seem to do that aswell without hiding from stardom 90% of the time...

3 hours ago, NEUTRON said:

I almost made it 365 days without purchasing anything from her shop

secret Charli feature CONFIRMED #bumpinthat

5 hours ago, Bicassie said:

The way she's a fulltime housewife and mother while working on her stuff at home while they are in school is so boring but oh well it is what it is...

Atleast she isn't fully retired...

We all know that's a lie

13 minutes ago, Jon Snow said:

We all know that's a lie

in the sense that she never seems to leave the house except for tour or something Jay-Z/business related

8 minutes ago, Shelter said:

Boooooo

12 minutes ago, Shelter said:

everything she posts these days always has this "here damn now leave me alone" vibe

For a second I thought she posted act 3 vinyl production 😂

16 minutes ago, Asparagus Spears said:

For a second I thought she posted act 3 vinyl production 😂

just in time to rework and add multiple extra songs by the time it actually gets released

The remastered FD sounds so crisp.

can't wait to hear the rest.

I played the original B'Day today in anticipation. I am so excited for Friday.