The-Dream Reveals Beyonce Recorded A Fela-Inspired Album

Over the course of Beyonce‘s illustrious career, the singer has flirted with a number of different sounds. From the soulful flair of her debut, to the funkified ferociousness of ‘B’Day,’ then there was the Pop lean of ‘I Am…’, and of course the grittiness of self-titled. King B has conquered all.

Interestingly, though, longtime collaborator The-Dream has this week dished on an abandoned sound the singer was prepping for what would have been 2011’s ‘4.’

His words below…

In an entry on Genius.com, Dream (whose real name is Terius Nash) wrote:

“We did a whole Fela album that didn’t go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That’s why there’s so much of that sound in the “End of Time.”

There’s always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we’re just being creative, period. We’re talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody.”

Intriguing.

As one of the few who feel ‘4’ to be Bey’s finest body of work to date, we don’t at all begrudge what ended up becoming that album.

Still, we’d love her to revisit the tribal/African theme both sonically and visually. The “Fela” sound mentioned is still relatively uncharted territory in the mainstream and if anyone is equipped with the ability popularize it in the Western world it’s Beyonce.

What’s more, with the ‘Beyonce’ project lacking in uptempo’s, we’re sure the world would readily welcome more epicness in the vein of ‘End of Time.’ We sure would!