Photo Credit: Beyonce/Instagram
It’s been just a little over a day since Beyonce’s curated her Lion King inspired album Lion King: The Gift and already it’s set to top the Billboard 200 chart. If she does that, unseating Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project, it’ll make this her 6th straight Number One album making her the first artist in history to have that accomplishment. She has the leading cuts Bigger and Spirit to thank for her expected chart dominance.
She managed to make a new fan after giving a shoutout to Lupita in Brown Skin Girl when she sang “She need an Oscar for that pretty dark skin/ Pretty like Lupita when the cameras close in.” Lupita made sure to respond with a video on Instagram showing her appreciation dancing to the lyrics of her own shoutout captioned with “Brown Skin Girl. Thank you @Beyonce for this Gift!! #BrightnessIsJustWhoYouAre.” Other shoutouts in the song include Naomi Campbell and former Destiny’s Child member Kelly Rowland.
The album itself is 27 tracks with 14 being original songs and 13 interludes from the film. The most notable features include Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Tierra Whack, Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar along with global acts from Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica and more. In a Good Morning America interview, Beyonce described the album as “a love letter to Africa, and I wanted to make sure we found the best talent from Africa.” She went on to say she “wanted to be authentic to what is beautiful about music in Africa.” In fact, you can stream the album for free below.
