To celebrate the recent release of Beyoncé’s seventh album, ‘Renaissance’, a news anchor in Philadelphia snuck 15 of the R&B titan’s song titles into a live-broadcast traffic report.
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“Traffic is getting ‘Heated’ and it’s starting to ‘Break My Soul’ just a little bit,” NBC 10’s Sheila Watko said in her presentation last Tuesday (August 2), referencing two songs from ‘Renaissance’. She noted later in the broadcast – which earned the approval of Bey’s own mother, Tina Knowles – that she’d planned to do to a reference-laden report on the album’s release date (July 29), but couldn’t do so since there was a crash that day and she “had to be serious”.
To the groans – and one emphatic “ooh!” – of her co-hosts, Watko continued in her report: “We’ve had a ‘Formation’ of traffic cones all morning … that’s still blocking two right lanes, you might want to move over ‘to the left, to the left’.”
Celebrating her effort, co-host Keith Jones declared: “Sheila Watko, you ‘Run The World’.”
Take a look at the full report below:
Yesterday (August 8) saw ‘Renaissance’ debut at Number One on the US’ Billboard 200 chart. All seven of Beyoncé’s studio albums have peaked in the top spot, however her latest is notably significant in that it’s already become her highest-charting album in every major market. In addition to the US, it debuted at Number One in the UK, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
In a four-star review of ‘Renaissance’, NME’s Kyann-Sian Williams said Beyoncé’s latest album “continue[s] leading the charge to bring Black culture back to the forefront of house and dance scenes”. Among other fans of the album were Lil Nas X, who declared that ‘Renaissance’ is “kinda changing my life somehow”.
Days after the album was released, Beyoncé shared a four-track EP of ‘Break My Soul’ remixes, followed by a standalone remix helmed by herself and Madonna. There have been a few controversies surrounding the album, though, with Bey being forced to scrub an ableist lyric from the track ‘Heated’, and an interpolation of Kelis’ song ‘Milkshake’ from ‘Energy’.
The post Watch a news presenter name-drop 15 Beyoncé songs in a traffic report appeared first on NME.
