Beyonce Album Update: Her Album Will Be Provocative, Will It Drop This Week?

A source has recently let slip some information about Beyonce’s upcoming album, including a track list, a list of featured artists on the album, and a release date. And Beyonce fans will be glad to know the project is going to drop sooner rather than later.

Earlier this month, a Beyonce fan leaked a photo of a Columbia Records release confirmation that provided an overview of the Beyonce album’s content.

The release looks very good. It is formatted in the same way as all Columbia Records release confirmations, and all the info regarding the Beyonce album it displays seems totally credible. This is especially true of the track names, which Music.Mic pointed out sound just like titles from any of Beyonce’s five already-released albums.

Also lending to the credibility of the document is the fact that it says the Beyonce album will be released exclusively on Tidal before being made available to all sources. A Tidal-exclusive release of Beyonce’s 2016 album has been predicted by reports for months since Beyonce’s husband, Jay Z, is Tidal’s owner.

Some fans point out, however, that the leak should be taken with a grain of salt since the release date it assigns for the Beyonce album is April 1, AKA April Fool’s Day. Because of this, most fans are viewing the list with very cautious optimism.

The document is also simple enough to where it could be faked. In fact, Columbia Records release confirmations like this one have been faked before.

So, don't nobody else find an April 1st release date for Beyoncé's album a LITTLE suspect? Just me?

— C. Jay Conrod (@cjayconrod) March 30, 2016

It is possible, though, that the April 1 release date is legitimate and Beyonce’s people intentionally picked that date as a kind of built-in spoiler protector. After all, Billboard notes, Beyonce is certainly no stranger to surprise releases. Both Beyonce’s most recent album, 2013’s Beyonce, and her latest single, February’s Formation, were released with no prior notification.

And if it is a legit leak, that means the new Beyonce album is coming out on Tidal at some point today — which would probably mean that Tidal’s servers would explode.

Whether you choose to believe the purported leak or not, though, a new Beyonce album is very near, according to the extremely credible Beyonce fan community, The Beyhive.

The post’s reference to Beyonce’s upcoming release as an “album film” suggests that it will include a video component in addition to audio. Does that mean Beyonce is producing a music video for each track on the album? Does it mean she is creating a full feature-length movie to showcase the tracks like Angels and Airwaves did with their album Love? Only time — or, possibly, Beyonce’s fan accounts — will tell.

We're pretty sure we'll be getting a new Beyoncé album this week https://t.co/sLWTrImjAK pic.twitter.com/FVDYNbxCiu

— Her Campus (@HerCampus) March 31, 2016

Another important tidbit about the upcoming Beyonce release that is virtually confirmed is that it will deal with more overtly controversial themes than much of Beyonce’s past work.

The Beyhive and several other sources have said in the past that Beyonce’s Formation World Tour, which kicks off in late April, will strive to stir up as much political and social controversy as possible, and those sources have also revealed that the content of Beyonce’s new album will be the focus of the tour.

So it stands to reason that the release’s content will carry the same politically controversial tone as the lead single off the Beyonce album, “Formation,” which was mired in controversy at the time of its release for allegedly being anti-white and anti-police. The controversy was only escalated at Beyonce’s Super Bowl 50 halftime performance, at which she dressed in a Black Panther uniform. One can assume that Beyonce loved the endless free publicity resulting from the affair.

[Photo by Paul McConnell/Getty Images]