With speculation mounting that Beyoncé might be about to announce the concluding part of her ongoing album trilogy – Renaissance and Cowboy Carter were the previous ‘acts’ – a new video on her website has some fans convinced that this will be a classic rock record, and that there will be a guest appearance from Stevie Nicks.
The recently-added archive clip shows Nicks on the set of the video for Destiny’s Child’s 2001 hit Bootylicious, which famously featured a sample of Nicks’ own 1982 single, Edge of Seventeen. Nicks had a cameo during the intro of the video, in which she was shown strumming a guitar.
“I think that these girls can really sing,” says Nicks at one point, and Beyoncé and the other members of Destiny’s Child – Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams – are clearly delighted to have her involved.
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Now, the video’s addition to Beyoncé’s website could just be coincidental (you’ll find it if you keep scrolling across the homepage), but the Beyhive’s take is that it’s a sign that the star will be heading in a rock direction for Act III.
This would certainly make sense: on Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé was seen to be reclaiming genres that were originated by black musicians but then became more closely associated with white artists – electronic/house and country – and the history of rock tells a similar story.
Beyoncé has yet to make any formal announcement on the nature of Act III, but it’s been almost two years since Cowboy Carter, and Renaissance was released roughly two years prior to that.
Nicks, meanwhile, has been attracting plenty of speculation herself recently, with her former bandmate Lindsey Buckingham dropping several hints that the pair may now have put aside their differences and that there’s “something in the air” between them.
“And what that translates to specifically, I wouldn’t want to speculate yet,” he said recently on social media. “But I believe with all my heart, it will translate to something good, and something wonderful, and something needed and something extremely appropriate.”
