Beyoncé’s ‘Thique’ Was Created 8 Years Before ‘Renaissance’ Came Out
Beyoncé‘s album Renaissance has gotten people everywhere back on the dance floor after two years of lockdown. It’s quickly become one of the most beloved albums of 2022. But one of the songs on the album was first produced all the way back in 2014 after the release of her self-titled visual album.
Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ has been the album of summer 2022
Beyoncé bucked her previous release strategies for Renaissance, as she announced the project with a month’s notice and released a single before its release, “Break My Soul.” The song would go on to top the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her eighth No. 1 on the chart.
The album incorporates elements of house and disco music, with plenty of samples from nearly every corner of the music industry. And of course, because no disco album would be complete without a nod to Donna Summer, Bey sampled her hit song “I Feel Love” on the album’s closing track “Summer Renaissance.”
Beyoncé’s ‘Thique’ was first created back in 2014
One of the album’s grittier tracks is “Thique,” produced by Grammy-winning producer Hit-Boy. In a 2022 episode of Rolling Stone‘s Music Now podcast, Hit-Boy recounted how he produced the beat for “Thique” back in 2014 and waited for Beyoncé to do something with it.
“I had to sit on that beat for eight years!” he said. “That’s the way the game goes sometimes. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the game and certain people will perceive like, ‘Oh, where’s Hit-Boy been? What’s Hit-Boy been doing?’ But then I’m sitting on stuff like ‘Thique’ that just hasn’t materialized yet.”
“Y’all don’t even know how ahead I really am,” he continued, teasing, “I’ve been holding onto legendary stuff, and there’s plenty more.”
At the time, “Thique” was one of two beats that Hit-Boy gave Beyoncé. The other would go on to become the Nicki Minaj collab “Feeling Myself,” released later that year.
Beyoncé has worked with Hit-Boy many times in the past
Beyoncé has collaborated with Hit-Boy many times over the years. In addition to “Feeling Myself” and “Thique,” Hit-Boy also produced Beyoncé’s smash songs on her self-titled 2013 album “Flawless,” “Bow Down/I Been On,” “XO,” “Flawless,” “Jealous,” “Haunted,” as well as her Lemonade hit “Sorry.”
Hit-Boy approaches all of his songs differently. With “Bow Down,” for example, he told Rolling Stone that he aimed to recreate the magic of “N****s in Paris,” the hit single he produced for Kanye West and Jay-Z.
“I was basically trying to make a ‘N****s in Paris,’ female version,” he said of “Bow Down.” “With that bounce, with that synth. Obviously, you look at the lyrics, she’s talking crazy, talking rapper s***. So just to bring that energy out and go to her stadium shows and see the reaction is like, wow. The energy I was trying to convey really went over.”
