Beyoncé is celebrating 20 years of B’DAY by releasing some new vocals, including a collaboration with the late great Selena Quintanilla.
Friday, September 4 not only marks Beyoncé’s 45th birthday, but the 20th anniversary of her sophomore album, B’Day. To celebrate two decades, the superstar has released the 20th anniversary edition of the project, which includes 31 tracks and features collaborations with Selena Quintanilla and Maluma.
B’Day was released in the summer of 2006 and skyrocketed to No. 1 on the charts. In the years since, the album has since been certified quintuple platinum by the RIAA, per Rolling Stone, including hits like “Irreplaceable,” “Déjà Vu,” and “Ring the Alarm.”
The remastered reissue includes previously unreleased songs “Creole,” “Back Up,” “Lost Yo Mind,” and “Can I Watch You” featuring Pharrell Williams, along with the original songs from 2006. The anniversary edition also marks Beyoncé’s first collaboration with Maluma on “Cuerpo Tumbao (Get Me Bodied),” which contains a sample from Celia Cruz’s “La Negra Tiene Tumbao.”
A press release about the album emphasizes that Beyoncé has “long admired Cruz’s pride in her African culture; her refusal to bend in the wake of racism, colorism and the narrow definition of beauty.”
Beyoncé previously credited Selena as an influence on her Spanish-language recordings and for inspiring her Spanish EP, Irreemplazable, released in 2007. She was granted approval from Selena’s estate for the duet “Irreemplazable (Como La Flor)” that appears on this edition of the album.
For the reissue, Bey also remastered the accompanying videos, originally captured on 35mm, which were recolored and finished in 4k. The redone video for “Déjà Vu,” featuring Jay-Z and and directed by Sophie Muller, was also released alongside the anniversary album.
“I wanted the album to be big, percussive, hard, up-tempo, and energized, and it was important to me that we used live instrumentation,” Beyoncé said about creating the original album, per a press release. “Hip-hop was taking over at the time, but I was fighting to preserve the bridges, melodies, and harmonies that have always been at the heart of R&B. The goal was to blend those two worlds through the art of sampling. I loved the minimalism of a beautiful vocal arrangement over a simple drum loop or a classic guitar like ‘Irreplaceable’…but only if that 808 was banging underneath.”
Happy B’Day, Bey!
