Beyoncé
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W magazine shared more photos for their Beyonce's cover story.

Beyonce launched a mysterious and almost cryptic new website, beencountry.com, which some have suggested may be her way of teasing her forthcoming tour announcement.

I updated the gallery with missing pictures taken by Mason Poole and official Renaissance World Tour shots.

In the gallery you'll find new promotional photos for "Cowboy Carter", CD and vinyl artwork for the album and new advertisements in various cities around the world. Also, watch an unboxing video for the blue vinyl below.

Beyoncé is the ultimate American cowboy.

Now, before anyone starts airin’ their lungs, the proof is right there in her blazing displays of bravura, burn-the-breeze grit, and unprecedented levels of Southern swag. This is, after all, the woman who turned keeping a bottle of hot sauce in her purse into a political battle cry.

Like any true cowboy, she is always on the search for new frontiers. At this point, it’s clear she drinks upstream from the pop herd. Despite having never released a music video for “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” or performed it live, the song is currently topping Billboard’s Hot Country Songs, making her the first Black female artist to reach the No. 1 spot.

She performs with the reckless abandon of the best rodeo roughstock twisters onstage, capturing audiences as if they were something that’s got to be roped in a hurry before they get away. Two thirds into her three-part RENAISSANCE opus, we’ve already witnessed her ride a silver horse named Reneigh while suspended in the air above tens of thousands of fans to close out a world tour for Act I, and grab the Super Bowl by the horns to drop “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” and “16 CARRIAGES,” the first two singles of Act II.

In the gallery you'll find official promotional photos for "Cowboy Carter".

Beyonce revealed the limited edition cover for "Cowboy Carter".

Beyonce shared a message about her upcoming album "Cowboy Carter".

"Today marks the 10-day countdown until the release of act ii. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of the supporters of TEXAS HOLD ‘EM and 16 CARRIAGES. I feel honored to be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart. That would not have happened without the outpouring of support from each and every one of you. My hope is that years from now, the mention of an artist’s race, as it relates to releasing genres of music, will be irrelevant.

This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.

The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.

Beyoncé announced the title of her forthcoming, country album. Having previously teased that she was going to release a country music project and the next phase of her acclaimed 2022 album Renaissance on March 29, she officially revealed that it’s called Act II: Cowboy Carter.

The pop superstar shared the title by simply adding the title and release date to her Instagram bio and posting a shot of a saddle with a red, white and blue sash that reads “Cowboy Carter” on her Instagram Story.

In the image, it’s as if the metallic, disco-esque saddle that Queen Bey rides on the cover of Renaissance is transforming into a western one — signaling her artistic transition.

The image is also displayed front and center on Beyoncé’s website. The Shop section of her site where fans can pre-order merchandise and the new record also reveals alternate artwork to feature close-up photos of the Grammy winner’s face as she wears a black cowboy hat, has a white snake over her eye and her hair done up in a blonde, feathered cut and braids.

In the gallery you'll find scans from the March/April issue of Essence magazine and a new picture from the photoshoot.

Beyoncé is back⁠. ⁠

At the dawn of a new Renaissance, Beyoncé is gearing up for her next evolution, one that reaffirms her unparalleled influence with an audacious ascent to new limits. ”So many things have changed in the past decade,” she says. ⁠ ⁠

Ten years after first covering CR in 2014 and hot on the heels of her act ii and newly-launched hair-care line Cécred, the inimitable global superstar returns to the pages of CR Fashion Book with Carine Roitfeld and JAWARA in honor of her next big move.

More promotional photos for Act II have been released online. Also, "Texas Hold 'Em" billboards started appearing in cities around the world.

Beyonce shared more photos from the Essence cover story.

Beyonce posted about the launch of Cécred on her Instagram:

"Hair and the deeply personal story it plays in life has always been sacred to me. Haircare is a ritual that feeds the soul and I’m so excited to share it with you. Exclusively available at cecred.com"

The singer also shared a message on the Cécred website:

"I grew up sweeping hair in my mother's salon. So much of who I am came from there. I saw how she transformed hair by mixing mainstream products with textured haircare.

It’s been my lifelong dream to create these hair products and bring some of my mother’s teachings to life. We started by prioritizing the needs of textured hair like mine and others who lack moisture and strength. It was important to honor past rituals while infusing our personal touch by adding advanced science to build new sacred rituals. The result was haircare defined by its performance, quality, and intention. Haircare that isn’t put into the same box others have tried to put me in as a Black woman throughout my career. Haircare that will keep my hair healthy despite how often I change it up as a performer—the coloring, high-tension styles, sewing, sweat, and buildup.

I built Cécred from the ground up. I poured into it everything I’ve learned throughout my life so we can borrow some of our past and bring it to the future. Cécred is about prioritizing yourself and all the things you hold sacred."

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter wears quite a few hats. She juggles life as a married mother of three with being the greatest living entertainer—two undertakings that are brain- and body-bending separately, and nearly inconceivable when combined. Her pointed manicures are the needle under which global interest spins. One hip bounce, one social post, one brand mention: That’s all it takes to send the public into orbit. She’s mentor, mountain, and muse—every woman and every woman. Over the years she’s launched multiple ventures, including House of Deréon, Parkwood Entertainment, BeyGOOD and IVY PARK. Her latest undertaking has technically been on the burner since her youth—but more tangibly since 2018. It branches from her family’s generational focus on hair, taking root in the idea of self-care as ritual. She first teased the project in May 2023 via Instagram, where fans assumed the sprays and pumps before her were filled with self-made hair elixirs. She, and all involved, have been characteristically mum about the offering—until now.

“Hair has always been a very big part of our lives,” says Ms. Tina Knowles. “Just as fashion saved our family, hair is how we made a living.” In Beyoncé’s formative years, Ms. Tina was a hairdresser who owned and operated her own salon. She says her career in cosmetology is but a continuation of what Black people have done for ages. “In the culture of Black folks, all the way from the beginning: If you could do some hair, you’ll never be broke,” she explains. “I told my kids that. My mama told me that. So it’s just our legacy, and this full-circle moment feels amazing.”

New promotional photo for Act II has been released online.

After days of speculation and online sleuthing by fans — just another week, in other words — Beyoncé used her appearance in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday to announce that she would soon be releasing new music.

In a Verizon ad that ran shortly after halftime, Beyoncé joked with the comedian Tony Hale about doing something that would “break the internet” (i.e. Verizon’s 5G network). She ran through a few riffs, like “Beyonc-A.I.,” a Barbie-like “Bar-bey” and a presidential “BOTUS.”

Then she said, “Drop the new music,” before the commercial ended. Soon after, Beyoncé’s website updated with the announcement that a new album, identified as “Act II,” would be released on March 29.

It appeared to be the second part of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album project, and perhaps one with a country-rock theme, given the sound and look of two new songs, “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” that quickly appeared online.

“Texas Hold ’Em” begins with rapid-plucked guitar and moves into a stomping beat, with Beyoncé rhyming “Texas” and “Lexus” and singing lines like, “It’s a real live boogie and a real live hoedown.” On “16 Carriages,” an epic ballad, the guitars swell with organ-loud percussion as Beyoncé sings about looking back at a life after losing innocence “at an early age.”

The visuals for both picture Beyoncé in cowboy hats — a feature of last year’s Renaissance World Tour and Beyoncé’s continued style signature, as seen last week at the Grammy Awards.

Social media has provided extensive coverage of Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour thus far. The stellar vocals, cowboy hat-clad attendees and epic dance routines have dominated feeds since Queen B first stepped onto the stage in Stockholm on 10 May, but the happenings backstage have stayed largely out the public eye – until now.

Exclusively for Vogue, photographer Rafael Pavarotti ventured behind the scenes during her explosive London performances, to capture the mood before, during and after her breathtaking sets. “The live energy is incomparable,” he says of the one-of-a-kind assignment. “It literally was something unique that I’ve never seen or felt before.”

‘This was for the cover of Beyoncé’s Dangerously in Love album. She thought pairing the diamond top with a skirt would look too red carpet. But she hadn’t brought any jeans – so I gave her mine’

I was a classical concert harpist before I became a photographer. I studied at the Paris conservatoire and signed with EMI Classics. Then, in 1994, aged 33, a hand injury prevented me from playing. I made a quick decision to do something else and that’s how I became a photographer – despite the fact I had never owned a camera. I had read a book about photography but that was it. I sold all my harps and spent $100,000 on photo equipment before ever taking a picture. I locked myself in my apartment, got a store mannequin and just started practising with the same intensity I had done with the harp.

In the beginning, because I had been a musician, I wasn’t interested in shooting musicians. I only wanted to shoot sexy models. My dream was to shoot for Playboy. But just a few years later, it was the music industry that reached out to me. I didn’t want to do it but my agent was screaming at me to, saying: “You’re crazy!”

I shot Beyoncé for the first time in 2000 for Vibe magazine, when she was part of Destiny’s Child. I knew she was a superstar right away. She walked in and I said to her mother, Tina, who was styling the shoot: “This one in the middle here, she’s going to be a huge star.” Tina looked at me like: “Yeah, we know.” After that, things really started taking off with music shoots.

In the gallery you'll find pictures from the Renaissance tourbook.