As exclusively revealed by Variety last week, Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ album — which had been exclusively available for streaming on Tidal — is now available across all major streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. Upon its release in 2016, sources close to the singer said that the album would be a Tidal exclusive “in perpetuity,” apparently three years was enough. By limited the album’s availability, Beyonce definitely drove download sales as well as an undisclosed number of Tidal subscriptions, but deprived herself of untold millions in streaming revenue by keeping it off of more-popular services (not that it seemed to bother her).
The “Lemonade” film, which coincided with release of the album of the same name on April 23, 2016, also uses poetry written by Somali poet Warsan is included in the new audio release. Divided into 11 chapters—”Intuition”, “Denial”, “Anger”, “Apathy”, “Emptiness”, “Accountability”, “Reformation”, “Forgiveness”, “Resurrection”, “Hope”, and “Redemption”—the film went on to earn four primetime Emmys.
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“Lemonade,” Beyoncé’s second visual album, features guest vocals from The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White and James Blake. It was the best-selling album of 2016, selling 2.5 million copies worldwide and picked up Grammys for best urban contemporary album and best music video as well as a Peabody Award.
The audio release comes just six days after today’s Netflix premiere of “Homecoming,” the Beyoncé-directed 137-minute documentary about her headlining performance at Coachella in 2018 that paid tribute to historically black colleges and universities. She also returns to the big screen this summer, voicing Nala in director Jon Favreau’s remake of Disney’s “The Lion King.” The movie hits theaters on July 19.