Beyoncé Teases Country Album

Fans have been theorizing that Beyoncé will soon be releasing a country album—and it looks like they're right.

During the Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, the singer announced during a Verizon ad that she was dropping new music that will be released March 29. A short time later, a teaser clip was uploaded to the performer's Instagram account.

In the video, a taxi can be seen driving into Texas while country music plays over the radio before Beyoncé can be heard singing: "This ain't Texas, ain't no hold 'em / So lay your cards down, down, down, down." Men are also shown looking at a billboard that says "Texas! Hold 'Em" and features an image of Beyoncé.

Along with the announcement, Beyonce dropped two songs, "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages," exclusively on the streaming platform Tidal. She announced this news in an Instagram post, which resulted in lots of excitement from her fans in the comments.

"Wow okay so the Verizon commercial was literally intentional cause the innanet just might break," one person said.

"Super Bowl might need to pause the game," someone else wrote alongside a cry-laughing emoji.

A third added: "Y'all said you wanted bad girl for the Super Bowl? Here you have it..."

"Texas Hold 'Em" is a song made up of acoustic guitars, bass drum and vocals, with a chorus that sings: "It's a real-live boogie and a real live hoedown, don't be a b**** just take it to the floor now." "16 Carriages" contains country-style verses before transforming into an orchestral arrangement during the choruses.

Beyoncé's new music is the long-awaited Part II of her 2022 Renaissance album. Released in July 2022, Renaissance was Beyoncé's seventh studio album and was originally billed as Act I: Renaissance—implying future releases would follow suit.

Variety reported that "a source familiar with the project"—which Beyoncé referred to as "Act I" in her initial announcement—might feature "both dance and country-leaning tracks." The article reads: "It was unclear whether the country songs will appear as a separate album, or as part of the first edition of Renaissance."

In July, Beyoncé confirmed via her website that Renaissance would be a three-act project.

For years now, fans have been thinking the star was going to transition to country music and it seems Beyoncé has been hinting at this for years.

Fans online have previously delved into the theory. X user (formerly Twitter) @beyzhive posted an in-depth thread to their account offering a variety of reasons as to why they think this could be the singer's next step. At the time of writing, it had received 2.7 million views.

For starters, in September 2016 country singer Thomas Rhett met Beyoncé and Jay-Z backstage at the Made in America festival. In an interview with CMT, Rhett said he was starstruck when he met the couple. They all met again at the Country Music Awards and people online believe that there is a chance that he and Beyoncé will work together.

In November of that same year, Beyoncé made her CMA debut performing "Daddy Lessons" with The Chicks. The song was recorded for her album Lemonade (2016), and it was her first Americana-country music record. On the track, she asserted her Black Southern heritage over an acoustic guitar-driven track.

If her 2024 Grammy outfit, which was a white cowboy hat and rodeo-themed suit from Louis Vuitton's Fall-Winter 2024 menswear collection, was anything to go by, it hinted that a country album was on its way.

Newsweek contacted a Beyoncé representative for comment via email Sunday.

Update, 02/11/2024 10:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.