🎵 Weekly Music Newsletter: DJ Beyoncé’s Monster Disco House Set

Beyoncé drops disco/house album. New Rosaliá. NAV, Travis Scott & Lil Baby team up. Calvin Harris taps Normani, Tinashe & Offset. Maggie Rogers album.

Barack Obama has been listening to Harry Styles, Wet Leg, and Rakim recently. Check out his annual summer playlist here.

Click here for a Spotify playlist with the songs mentioned in this article.

BIGGEST Songs of the Week 📈

If this is your first time reading our newsletter, don’t worry, we cover more artists than just Beyoncé — just not today. Today is all about Queen B. On Friday, Beyoncé returned with her seventh studio album, RENAISSANCE, her first proper solo effort since 2016’s visual album Lemonade.

On Lemonade, Beyoncé addressed overcoming her husband JAY-Z’s infidelity. Her trek deliberately drew parallels to the empowerment of black women. During the Kendrick Lamar-assisted anthem Freedom, Beyoncé implored her sisters to break free of their bonds. On 2020’s Black Is King, a companion piece to The Lion King: The Gift, Beyoncé continued this celebration of identity through the story of an African prince who was exiled from his kingdom before reclaiming his culture and heritage.

Beyoncé’s latest album, RENAISSANCE, has none of that politically-charged energy or vivid storytelling. RENAISSANCE is party vibes only. The title RENAISSANCE is befitting not only because of society’s post-lockdown revitalization but because it nods to the reawakening of disco and house in popular music.

When Beyoncé released the album’s lead single, BREAK MY SOUL, we talked about how it paid tribute to late-80s and early-90s house music by lifting part of Robin S’ hit Show Me Love. Throughout RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé continues her praise of house, as well as disco, by sampling and collaborating with club icons such as Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers, Teena Marie, Lyn Collins, and Right Said Fred.

The album closes with this week’s most popular song, SUMMER RENAISSANCE, a stunning homage to the “Queen” and “Father” of disco, sampling Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s 1977 classic I Feel Love.

1. Beyoncé, SUMMER RENAISSANCE (House) 👍👍👍