Beyonce Recorded A Whole Fela-Inspired Album Before ‘4,’ According To The-Dream

Mike Wass | March 18, 2015 12:10 pm
Beyonce's "Crazy In Love (2014 Remix)"
Beyonce's hit "Crazy In Love" gets an overhaul for the '50 Shades Of Grey' soundtrack.

The-Dream got The Hive buzzing last night (March 17) when he revealed — by way of an annotation on Genius.com — that he recorded an entire, unreleased album with Beyonce prior to 2011 LP 4. According to the producer behind hits “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” and “Run The World (Girls),” the project was inspired by Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

“We did a whole Fela album that didn’t go up,” Terius Nash (his real name) wrote in a lengthy annotation to the lyrics of “End Of Time.” “It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs,” he continued. “[Beyonce] said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That’s why there’s so much of that sound in the ‘End of Time’.”

Given that “End Of Time” is a firm fan favorite and perhaps the greatest Beyonce single that never was, the prospect of a whole album in that vein is positively mouthwatering. Not that we’re ever going to hear it. “There’s always multiple albums being made,” The-Dream wrote. “Most of the time we’re just being creative, period. We’re talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There’s probably a hundred records just sitting around.”

Revisit the perfection of “End Of Time” and imagine the gems locked away on Bey’s laptop:

What would you do to hear this lost album? Let us know in the comments below.

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