From the moment she blew bubblegum in Crazy In Love to the day she destroyed a fleet of cars with a baseball bat in Hold Up, Beyoncé has created some of pop’s most memorable music videos.
Her mastery of the medium matched that of Madonna and Michael Jackson in the 1980s – with the videos for her Lemonade album acting as a powerful celebration of black womanhood and female power.
Then, all of a sudden, she stopped. Her last two albums, Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, have been bereft of visuals, leaving fans perplexed.
Now, Beyoncé has explained her decision in a rare interview with GQ magazine, saying she didn’t want her videos to become a “distraction from the quality of the voice and the music”.
“I thought it was important that during a time where all we see is visuals, that the world can focus on the voice,” the star said.
She explained that her recent records – which seek to contextualise black musicians’ often overlooked contributions to genres like house, disco and country – needed to stand on their own.
“The music is so rich in history and instrumentation. It takes months to digest, research, and understand,” she said.
“The music needed space to breathe on its own.”
She added that, for Renaissance in particular, the live concert experience was more important than filming music videos.
The album, released in 2022, was written during the pandemic and was conceived as “a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world”. The subsequent tour, and the tour film released in cinemas last year, was intended as a moment of community and catharsis for her followers.
“The fans from all over the world became the visual,” Beyoncé told GQ.
“We all got the visual on tour.”
