Americans celebrating the Fourth of July on Saturday woke up to the biggest news of all: new music from Beyoncé.
The superstar singer released the single “Morning Dew (Donk),” her first music since 2024’s Act II: Cowboy Carter.
The single “begins the 60-day countdown to her next birthday and the re-release of B’DAY, her groundbreaking second album released two decades ago, on September 4, 2006,” according to a press release.
The Beyhive, as Beyoncé fans know, were eagerly awaiting her “Act III” project, which had long been considered an homage to rock music, just as 2022’s “Act I: Renaissance” paid homage to disco, clubs, house and funk, and 2024’s “Act II: Cowboy Carter” was her love letter to country, Southern music and her Texas roots.
Beyoncé dropped hints to fuel speculation.
She dressed up as rock/funk icon Bette Davis for Halloween 2024, last year starred in Levi’s “Denim Cowboy” campaign that ended with her riding a motorcycle, and in April posted a series of photos of herself wearing purple, which many fans saw as a tribute to the late rocker Prince, who died in April 2016.
“Morning Dew (Donk)” will likely lend credence to this theory, as Beyoncé’s opening lines reference Prince’s iconic 1984 film “Purple Rain,” which inspired the hit single and soundtrack of the same name.
The new song, written by Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, The-Dream and Darius Dixon and produced by Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams, will be included on the 20th anniversary edition of “B’Day.”