Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance has been out for about half a day now and people can’t stop fawning over it. Lil Nas X has some pretty intense thoughts about the LP and now Questlove, perhaps the most learned music historian/appreciator in the industry, has declared that Renaissance is something special.
In a post on Instagram, The Roots drummer gives the album a 4.5 out of 5 rating and writes, “I still maintain that a good 4 weeks has to go by before you give a rating. I definitely have walked back many a high rating album some 20 years after the fact. I listened 7 times. Which is 8 times more than the last time I listened to anyones record from start to finish. She definitely made her ‘Off The Wall’ with this one (dance album of the year———this being 2022 we can’t give her decade accolades but so far the mix, quality, etc are so dope. This will hold high in her cannon. Love the growth: made classics in her teens, her 20s her 30s & getting better.”
Off The Wall, of course, is Michael Jackson’s 1979 album that is widely considered one of the best music releases of all time, so comparing Beyoncé’s latest to it is a tremendously high honor and not something it seems Questlove would do without good reason.