BREAK MY SOUL

The world has been able to release a collective breath after Beyoncé finally announced that she will be delivering some new music. After a long seven years since "Lemonade", Queen Bey's highly anticipated seventh studio album will be called "Renaissance" and due out on July 29th. And everyone has seemed to have all lost their minds two days ago when the first single, "Break My Soul" was dropped. It had been rumored that this collection would be built around dance music and that appears to be the case with this song taking us back to the sounds of '90's house.

With the "Queen of Bounce", Big Freedia making an appearance to shout their trademark demands and smooth production by Tricky Stewart and The Dream with them using a sample of Robin S.'s classic jam, "Show Me Love", "Break My Soul" is an uplifting anthem about changing a bad situation and not allowing that to crush your spirit. Beyoncé delivers a blistering performance with soaring vocals and even doing some rapping. Yet I think the frenzied excitement over the song has much more to do with the return of Beyoncé than the innovation of the actual track. It coasts too much on familiar house-music tropes and if Beyoncé wasn't the voice behind it, I seriously don't think many would be paying as much attention to the track. In a recent interview with British Vogue, Beyoncé has stated that this upcoming album will be "her most ambitious musical project to date". Time will tell how truly grand this project will actually be but I freely admit I'm really looking forward to hearing "Renaissance".

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

Mikaela Straus came out loud and proud last year with her first single, "1950" under her professional moniker, King Princess. This song, about imaging the time when people had to keep their sexuality a secret, brought the now twenty year old Bronx native plenty of attention. This lead to her meeting musician/producer, Mark Ronson who featured her on a track on his latest album, "Late Night Feelings" and signed her to his label, Zelig. Now King Princess has just released her debut studio album, "Cheap Queen". This self-described genderqueer singer-songwriter explores issues facing today's LGBTQ youth and creates pop anthems that will not only speak to them but anyone feeling alone and isolated.





Here is a selection of some new songs that perfectly merges together music and image:









During this year's "Black Girls Rock!" celebration, three of hottest female dance vocalists from the '90's came together to perform their big hits from the era. Check out Robin S. ("Show Me Love"), Crystal Waters ("Gypsy Woman") and CeCe Peniston ("Finally") who take us back and deliver glorious live renditions of their songs.



And we close with some thrilling duets by some great singers. We have Mamas & Papas vocalist, Cass Elliot teaming up with John Denver on a cover of the melancholy ballad, "Leaving On a Jet Plane". Cheryl Lynn and the very missed Luther Vandross delivering some vocal dynamics on their live version of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "If This World Was Mine" during an appearance on "Soul Train".