Spanish-language songs experienced a huge boom in recent years, and many international superstars fully embrace this trend. They teamed up with Latin singers and surprised us with their ability to speak Spanish, but does Beyoncé happen to be one of the musicians who have a grasp of this language?
Yes, Beyoncé can speak some Spanish, but she’s nowhere near being fluent. The “Single Ladies” singer confessed she’s much better in singing in Spanish than actually speaking, and recorded several Latin-tinged tracks over the years.
Take a look back at some of Beyoncé’s best songs in Spanish, and learn how she improved her accent in order to record them.
Beyoncé’s Early Spanish Tracks
Beyoncé was surrounded by the Spanish language in her home state of Texas, and had a chance to learn some Spanish growing up. This language wasn’t very fresh in her memory later in life, but she decided to revisit it on her 2007 EP Irreemplazable.
Her second album B’Day produced the hit track “Irreplaceable”, which spent ten consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and recording its Spanish version seemed like a no-brainer. Beyoncé wouldn’t stop at one song, and decided to produce an entire EP, consisting entirely of songs in the Spanish language.
Irreemplazable produced several other hit tracks, including Alejandro Fernández collaboration “Amor Gitano”. It served as the theme song for the telenovela El Zorro, and it’s still ranked as the second best-selling single of all time in Spain. The EP also featured Spanish version of “Beautiful Liar” titled “Bello Embustero”, along with a new remix featuring Shakira, which went on to receive a nomination for record of the year at Latin Grammys. She also recorded a Spanish version of “If I Were a Boy” (“Si Yo Fuera un Chico”), but it wasn’t featured on Irreemplazable.
Pleasing Her Fans
The Denver Post called Beyoncé’s decision to record the eight-song EP in Spanish “an effort to meet the exploding market for Spanish language music”. Michael Galbe from MTV Tres described it as “her way of doing something extra special for her Latino fans”, and she echoed his statement by saying it was “an honor” to be able to connect with them.
While discussing Irreemplazable with People, Queen Bey said she took Spanish classes in school, and decided to revisit this language because many of her fans are Hispanic. She spent a lot of time practicing each song sentence by sentence to get it just right.
“I didn’t want to disrespect the language, because it’s so beautiful… I wanted to see how people would respond to me singing in Spanish and I’m so grateful that people have opened up their hearts to what I’ve done,” the singer told People.
Getting Her Spanish Right
It took Beyoncé an entire decade to record another song in Spanish, but she finally proved that her foray into this language isn’t over in 2017. She hopped on the new remix of the reggaeton mega hit “Mi Gente”, and J Balvin said he asked her to record it after learning that her daughter Blue Ivy was obsessed with this song.
Much to his surprise, Beyoncé said yes, but she had to polish her Spanish, because it’s been a while since she used it. Puerto Rican vocal producer Jean Rodríguez flew in to New York to coach her, but she already came prepared and wrote down her lines the way she hears them.
“She did an amazing job. Obviously I didn’t have to worry about tuning or timing. Every take was perfect on that angle. We really focused on articulation and making sure it sounded authentic. And we also added a little slang,” Rodriguez told Billboard.
Like the rest of her songs, “Mi Gente” remix became a huge hit – it reached no. 1 on the Hot Latin Songs chart, and peaked at no. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.