Beyoncé turned 45 on Sept. 4 and marked the milestone by giving fans a gift: a deluxe, expanded 20th anniversary edition of her sophomore album “B’Day.” The reissued set stretches to a robust 31 tracks, up from the 27 initially promoted, and is now streaming.
Among the new material are never-before-heard collaborations, including a bright, percussive version of “Irreemplazable (Como La Flor)” built on previously released vocals from the late Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla, and a hip-swiveling bilingual jam with Maluma, “Cuerpo (Tumbao).” The set also adds the slinky Pharrell collab “Can I Watch You” and a Timbaland remix of “Get Me Bodied” featuring Puerto Rican rapper Voltio.
Two Decades of ‘B’Day’
The original, Grammy-winning 13-track “B’Day” dropped in September 2006, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Co-produced by a then-25-year-old Beyoncé with producers including Ne-Yo, the Neptunes, Stargate, Swizz Beatz and Darkchild, it spun off the Hot 100 hits “Déjà Vu” featuring Jay-Z, “Ring the Alarm” and “Beautiful Liar.”
“I wanted the album to be big, percussive, hard, up-tempo, and energized, and it was important to me that we used live instrumentation,” Beyoncé said in a statement reflecting on the original sessions.
Beyoncé was involved in remastering the songs for the anniversary edition, and the videos originally shot on 35mm film have been remastered and re-colored in 4K resolution. A revamped video for “Déjà Vu” was also released Friday. The set includes never-before-seen photos shot on location in New Orleans, still digging out from Hurricane Katrina at the time.
Notably, the estate of Selena, murdered in 1995, has rarely granted rights to her music — the release touts the “resounding approval” that made the posthumous duet possible, celebrating the two women from Texas as “unmistakable and irreplaceable voices.”
Why It Matters
Two decades on, “B’Day” still stands as a defining chapter in Beyoncé’s catalog, and the anniversary edition turns it into a celebration of her Latin influences and collaborators — from the Selena duet to the Maluma collab built on a Celia Cruz sample. The record’s Spanish-language focus honors artists who “contributed and continue to build on the genre,” per the release. In an era of anniversary reissues, Beyoncé’s birthday drop is a reminder that legacy acts can still deliver genuinely new music — and that the vault can hold surprises fans have waited decades to hear.
