Beyoncé released her seventh studio album, Renaissance, in 2022.
Renaissance was released on July 29, 2022, as the first act of a planned trilogy. Its music draws heavily on dance, disco, house, funk, and Black and queer club traditions. The album's lead single, "Break My Soul," became a major international hit and helped define its dance-oriented sound.
The album followed Lemonade, which had arrived in 2016. This six-year gap was unusually long for a Beyoncé studio album, although she continued releasing projects, appearing in films, performing, and contributing to soundtracks during that period.
Renaissance is sometimes described simply as Act I because Beyoncé presented the larger project as a multi-part series. That label does not change its position in her solo discography: it is her seventh studio album. The title should also not be confused with the later concert film Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.