Beyoncé stopped making music videos to “focus on her voice”

Although Beyoncé revolutionized the medium by introducing the concept of the visual album to the general public, she notably did not create music videos for either release in her ongoing Renaissance Series (RENAISSANCE And COWBOY CARTER). Now the Grammy winner confirmed in a new interview that her fans should not expect any new music videos from her in the near future.

“I thought it was important that the world could focus on the voice in a time when we only see images,” she revealed to GQ“The music is so rich in history and instrumentation. It takes months to process, explore and understand it. The music needs space to breathe on its own.”

Beyoncé has created some of the most iconic music videos of all time, from the choreography-focused “Single Ladies” to the unforgettable baseball bat-swinging of “Hold Up.” But these days, Queen Bey sees the process a little differently.

“Sometimes a visual element can distract from the quality of the voice and the music,” she continued. “The years of hard work and attention to detail that go into an album that takes over four years to make! The music is enough. The fans from all over the world became the visual element. We all got the visual element on tour.”

Elsewhere in the interview, she went into detail about the rich history of the music of her recent projects and discussed the title COWBOY CARTERand said, “I wanted everyone to take a minute to research the word cowboy… Up to a quarter of all cowboys were black. These men faced a world that did not see them as equals, and yet they were the backbone of the cattle industry. The cowboy is a symbol of strength and ambition in America.”

Earlier this week, Beyoncé was shut out of the 2024 CMA nominations in a shocking, though perhaps unsurprising, rejection.