Beyoncé’s critically acclaimed Dance/House album, Renaissance released July 28, 2022, and the same day, she announced that the album was Act I of a trilogy project. Two years later, she released Act II: Cowboy Carter, another critically acclaimed album, winning Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammys. Both installments have secured themselves in Beyoncé’s boastful discography as layered bodies of work and political commentaries that, in addition to testing her vocal, performative, and conceptual abilities as an artist, succeed in celebrating Black musical heritage of all kinds.
Beyoncé’s three-act journey serves as an attempt at historical reclamation as much as an artistic vehicle. It is common knowledge that Beyoncé aims to bring the lost contributions of Black artists of the American music scene to the public’s attention. So far, each act has reclaimed a genre originally rooted in Black innovation but often whitewashed by history: first house and disco music, then country Americana. As the Cowboy Carter tour comes to an end with its finale flaunting a Destiny’s Child reunion, fans’ anticipation crescendos toward the arrival of Act III within the next two years, and many are eagerly speculating what genre Queen Bey will decide to tackle in this upcoming odyssey.
Among many other genres, there is popular speculation that Beyoncé will complete the trilogy with a crossover body of jazz, blues, soul, and early hip-hop. With Beyoncé’s previous two albums spotlighting genre spaces that were originally shaped by Black artists, this makes sense: All of these genres are arguably the most foundational Black music traditions, and this would be a natural finale to this trilogy.
The likelihood of Act III being a jazz album increases in considering that Beyoncé has never devoted an album to these genres. While she has slightly touched blues and gospel through “Say Yes,” B Day’s “Suga Mama,” and Renaissance’s “Church Girl,” “jazz and early-hip hop remain unexplored terrain for Bey—unless you count “Work It Out” from Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).
Should Beyoncé take this route, we can expect a jazz and blues foundation inspired by Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bessie Smith. Beyoncé’s grounding in gospel soul could also naturally weave into vibes in the Soul and Motown genres (think 1960s-70s-era—dusted drums and call-and-response backing vocals). This commingle of genres would be tied together neatly by Yoncé rhythmically talk-singing, rapping, and vocalizing over gritty boom-bap beats between spoken-word interludes. Like this, Act III would be a combination of most of the Black-originated genres that Beyoncé neglected to cover in Acts I and II.
Regardless of how it turns out, Act III won’t be without its features. Both Renaissance and Cowboy Carter featured references (both interpolations and collaborations) to Black artists who laid the foundation for the genres she is reclaiming. In Renaissance, these included Donna Summer, Grace Jones, BEAM, and Tems. In a crossover album for Act III, we could expect references to artists like Marvin Gaye, Minnie Riperton, Gil Scott-Heron, and Donny Hathaway, with potential features from Lalah Hathaway, Thundercat, Lauryn Hill, Common, Erykah Badu, Andre 3000, Jon Batiste, Solange, and Robert Glasper.
As exciting as this sounds, this is only a theory into how Beyoncé’s Act III could sound based on the clues and hints she’s already laid down. There are many other genres she could pursue for Act III, and perhaps if not a soul-hip-hop crossover, then a completely gospel album.
Raised in Houston’s church and already singing emotive gospel vocals on Cowboy Carter tracks like “American Requiem” and “Amen,” Beyoncé has already demonstrated comfort and skill in gospel-infused songcraft. Gospel music has a deep cultural heritage to Black American history, and one could argue that, after reclaiming dance and country, in Acts I and II, church girl Beyoncé might next return to one of the purest Black musical traditions. Additionally, outside of her few gospel previews in Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, gospel remains another genre not yet prominently explored by Beyoncé.
However, it is not likely that gospel in isolation will be the primary focus of Act III. While it is possible that production-wise, Beyoncé turns to modern gospel production and blends trap-soul, neo-soul, and electronic elements that reference gospel tradition without being totally retro, even using songs structured like sermons and choir-backed arrangements to make the album more expansive, Act III would be guaranteed to be less explosive in the music industry compared to its predecessors.
The more likely concept is that gospel will continue to be the spiritual core of Act III, as it appeared to be in Cowboy Carter. Should Beyoncé follow this path, it still makes sense for Act III to be a soul-hip-hop crossover with heavy gospel inspiration, especially in its blues and jazz sections. But in the likely event that it’s not, gospel as a foundation would best serve as a foundation for an album covering rock, soul, blues, and funk, and it goes without saying that rock would be the most fitting continuation of Beyoncé’s trilogy. Rock’s roots trace back to blues, which is the bedrock of R&B and funk, and the child of gospel.
Like jazz, gospel, and soul, rock is a genre primarily untouched by Beyoncé. While she has attempted it before, with nods to the genre in Cowboy Carter’s “YA YA” and Lemonade’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” she hasn’t fully owned rock in the same way she has house and country.
With this, fans speculate that if ACT III is rock album, the only possible title for it would be“Betty Black.” This makes sense, as only would the name play off Ram Jam’s controversial song “Black Betty” and pay tribute to Black funk-rock icon Betty Davis (whom Beyoncé dressed as last Halloween and has continually referenced in songs from Renaissance and Cowboy Carter), but when typing the domain “bettyBlacktour.com” into your browser’s URL, the domain suspiciously redirects to Beyoncé’s website.
In Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé referred to several Black musicians from the 20th century who helped popularize many well-known genres among the general public by innovating their craft in their own primary genres. From Son House, an American Delta blues singer and guitarist, to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a musical pioneer whose guitar-playing methods had a significant impact on the evolution of British blues, to Linda Martell, the first Black woman to achieve commercial success in the country genre, and lastly to Chuck Berry, the “father of rock and roll,” who revolutionized rhythm and blues. Should Beyoncé follow the rock path for Act III, it is likely she will mix her usual R&B pop sound with funk rock and pay homage to Black rock icons in addition to Betty Davis, such as Tina Turner, Prince, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as further acknowledge some of her previous rock-and-roll references from Cowboy Carter.
Even further, if Beyoncé leans into rock and funk, possible collaborations on Act III’s album could include Jack White (of White Stripes and collaborator on “Don’t Hurt Yourself”), Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes, a blues rock band), Gary Clark Jr. (Grammy-winning blues-rock artist), Hayley Williams (of Paramore), George Clinton (of Funkadelic and Parliament), Tunde Adebimpe (of TV on the Radio), and many lesser-known present-day and past Black rock artists.
Whether steeped in gospel, laced with soul, or peppered with funk (or all of the above), if Act III does indeed center around rock, it would complete Beyoncé’s trilogy in a way that forms a symbolic triangle tracing the evolution of Black American music. Through this structure, she would succeed in placing Black artistry at the forefront of genres that, in the mainstream imagination, have too often been stripped of their cultural origins.
No matter which genre wins out in Act III, what is certain is that Beyonce’s final act will be a legacy of critical and cultural acclaim. Just as Renaissance paid tribute to queer Black pioneers in dance music and Cowboy Carter elevated country’s overlooked Black history, the concluding act is poised by requisite to pinnacle Beyonce’s mission of reclamation, resurrection, and recognition. It will stand as the capstone of a generational artist’s long arc toward liberation, remembrance, and reinvention of herself, her culture, and the culture of those who support her.