Twenty years after Beyoncé introduced herself as an artist determined to seize control of every corner of her craft, she’s revisiting B’DAY with a massive 20th anniversary edition. The remastered collection arrived today (Sept. 4) Beyoncé’s 45th birthday — along with newly restored visuals and previously unseen New Orleans photography that illuminate the making of the album.
The campaign began July 4, when Beyoncé surprised fans with “MORNING DEW (DONK),” her first new song in two years and the opening salvo of the B’DAY anniversary celebration. The track was written with Pharrell Williams, the-Dream and Darius Dixon and produced by Beyoncé and Pharrell, blending R&B, hip-hop and Southern bounce while offering a tantalizing glimpse into the vault surrounding one of her most consequential albums. A JAY-Z remix followed Aug. 4, adding another chapter to the Carters’ more-than-two-decade creative history.
Released Sept. 4, 2006, B’DAY arrived with a 25-year-old Beyoncé already operating with unusually clear artistic intent. She recorded the album in a two-week session, taking an increasingly hands-on role as singer, songwriter, producer and visual artist. The result was an album that was percussive, energetic and rooted in live instrumentation, while refusing to surrender the bridges, melodies and harmonies of R&B to the hip-hop-dominated sound of the moment.
“I wanted the album to be big, percussive, hard, up-tempo and energized,” Beyoncé recalls. “It was important to me that we used live instrumentation.”
The anniversary edition also underscores how far ahead of its time B’DAY was visually. Beyoncé describes the original project as essentially her first visual album, using short films to explore the full arc of a relationship and themes of confidence, liberation, audacity and compatibility. Those videos, originally shot on 35mm, have now been remastered, recolored and finished in 4K. The restored version of “Déjà Vu,” her collaboration with JAY-Z directed by Sophie Muller, is also out now.
The new edition digs further into Beyoncé’s connection to New Orleans, where she has deep family roots. Never-before-seen photographs shot there are included in the release, capturing a city rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Beyoncé saw New Orleans’ resilience as an inspiration and wanted the project to contribute, in its own way, to the city’s revitalization.
There’s also a substantial Spanish-language component to the anniversary set, reflecting Beyoncé’s longstanding admiration for Latin music and the artists and cultures that have shaped it. “Cuerpo Tumbao (Get Me Bodied)” features Colombian superstar Maluma and samples Celia Cruz’s “La Negra Tiene Tumbao,” connecting Beyoncé’s celebration of confidence and self-possession to Cruz’s uncompromising embrace of her Black identity. Beyoncé, Edgar Barrera and CASTA produced the track, with Ali “Ali Ali” Alvarez serving as co-producer.
Perhaps the most striking addition is “Irreemplazable (Como La Flor),” featuring Selena. The inclusion was made possible by approval from the late Tejano star’s estate, which has rarely granted use of her music since her death in 1995. For Beyoncé, the pairing carries a distinctly Texas resonance: two women raised in the state whose voices and careers crossed cultural boundaries. Beyoncé has spoken of listening to Selena on the radio growing up in Houston and credits her as an inspiration for Irreemplazable, the Spanish-language EP she released in 2007.