Nalayoncé calls for the Pride lands to lift every wig and sing with "Spirit"

The premiere of Beyoncé featuring The lion king took place on July 9th, 10 days before the film releases globally. So of course Beyoncé had to drop her original song from the soundtrack and drag wigs around the globe, before Nalayoncé runs that shit through dust across the Pride lands in a week's time.

With Pharrell Williams as one of the producers of the original motion soundtrack, I figured that the new song would be written and produced by him. But surprisingly, the song is written and produced by UK artist Labrinth and Swedish producer Ilya Salmanzadeh, known for his affiliation with fellow Swede hit maker Max Martin and his work with Ariana Grande, most notably "God is a woman". This marks the first time that Beyoncé has worked with either of them.

"Spirit" yields very few surprises. It's basically what you would expect for The lion king. African chants, African percussion, the whole thing swelling until it bursts with a key change. It's very "Circle of life". But it's still a really nice song which fits in nicely with the lion king classics that everybody knows and loves.

After Everything is love and the sing-a-long "Before I let go", it's nice to hear Beyoncé really sing. She rarely goes for it vocally any more, and you can really hear the difference in her voice compared to the days of 4 and even her self-titled album. Her voice is so much huskier than it was before. There's a lot more texture to her voice now, to the point where she doesn't have to growl to bring it out.

But in true Beyoncé fashion, the surprise isn't that she dropped an original song for the soundtrack, but that the soundtrack will be flanked by another album called The Lion king: The gift.

Yvette Noel Schure Beyoncé said of this album...

This is sonic cinema. This is a new experience of storytelling. I wanted to do more than find a collection of songs that were inspired by the film. It is a mixture of genres and collaboration that isn’t one sound. It is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. I wanted to put everyone on their own journey to link the storyline. Each song was written to reflect the film’s storytelling that gives the listener a chance to imagine their own imagery, while listening to a new contemporary interpretation. It was important that the music was not only performed by the most interesting and talented artists but also produced by the best African producers. Authenticity and heart were important to me.

Beyoncé basically said 'Ya'll can have the original soundtrack written by those two old white men. But I'mma give you a whole Lion King soundtrack with songs written by black people'.

This is a nice surprise and I'm looking forward to hearing this. The tracklist for Yoncé's gift hasn't been revealed yet. But I can't help but wonder if it will feature any new material from Beyoncé herself...

ℹ️ The lion king soundtrack will be available digitally from July 11th.
ℹ️ The lion king: The gift will release on July 19th, on the same day as the film.