Beyoncé’s not done remixing “Break My Soul” just yet.
Days after releasing a four-track EP of edits to her “Renaissance” single, Bey takes another turn under the disco ball with “The Queens Remix,” which features her fellow house-inspired pop luminary Madonna.
The track features Bey riffing on Madonna’s 1990 genre classic “Vogue.” In the original, Madonna reeled off a list of classic Hollywood actors — “Greta Garbo and Monroe / Dietrich and DiMaggio / Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean / On the cover of a magazine” — while evoking New York’s ballroom and drag scene, lifting elements of those formative subcultures onto the pop charts.
Beyoncé had already pulled from Robin S. and Big Freedia on “Break My Soul,” but here she weaves her own hooks into the “Vogue” format. She cites a long list of her own influences — “Queen Mother Madonna, Aaliyah, Rosetta Tharpe, Santigold, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Betty Davis, Solange Knowles, Badu this, so Kelly Rowl …” — and a few of the formative New York drag houses like House of LaBeija and House of Revlon.
This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has popped up in the extended Madonna universe; she cameoed in the video for 2015’s “Bitch I’m Madonna.” But it is the first time these two towering figures of pop have appeared on a track together.