Beyoncé Knowles has done a lot in the last 25 years. She’s led the single most successful female R&B group of all time to hundreds of awards and over 100 million records sold. She’s gone solo, (as lead singers tend to do) only to find even more acclaim and popularity. Twenty-five years after her original B-Day, she’s celebrating a quarter century by giving us a 10-track birthday present.

B-Day is a wonderfully arranged album, complete with quality, original production from a long list of mega-producers. Rodney Jerkins is the mastermind behind “Déjà vu,” which he both wrote and produced. “Déjà vu,” stands out as a defining track for three reasons. First, she displays her trademark ability to actually blend her voice with the trumpets, so much so that you only need to hear the instrumental to hear the words themselves.

“Know that I can’t get over you, cause everything I see is you, and I don’t want no substitute, baby I swear its Deja Vu.”

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, she succeeds in re-creating the easy authenticity of 2003’s Crazy in Love, on which she flaunted a (then) thinly-veiled romance with Jay-Z. The concepts are virtually identical, and “Déjà vu” could have easily come off as a “part-two” Instead, it stands on its own (try singing the above hook and then the hook to “Crazy in Love”- tough right?). Once you appreciate that you’ll be able to fully appreciate the song’s title. Finally, Young Hov’s 2nd verse makes this track truly exceptional.

“It’s H-O/ Light up the dro/ cause you gon’ need help tryin to study my…bounce/ flow, blow, what’s the difference?/ One you take a vein while the other you sniffin/ It’s still dough/po-po try to convict him/ that’s a no-go my dough keep the scales to tippin…”

”Get Me Bodied” is a sassy, swing inspired cut which provides a nice contrast to the opening club banger. Swizz Beatz’s contribution is perhaps a little too Swizz-esque, (you can only take hey, hey, hey, hey for so long) and Beyoncé’s struggles a bit to keep the party going. “Suga Mama” features Beyoncé doing a 180-degree turn from her early days of lamenting bug-a-boos and men who ran up her cell phone bills. Rich Harrison (who produced “Crazy in Love”) opts this time for a sassy, eclectic, guitar-laced track which is clearly without the soulful yet light flair that Beyoncé usually achieves.

Four tracks in we get the album’s best song – “Upgrade U” – and it’s worth the wait. “Upgrade U” is one of those trend-setting songs that we’ll look back on in five years and say, “Oh, that’s who started saying let me upgrade you.” Beyoncé sings her head off on this one, mixing a provocative (if materialistic) hook with a seductive blend of chanting and pleading that is, well, hot. Plus, the beat is damn hard for an R&B track. And lest you think that I’m just hyping this one because Jay-Z is on it, allow me to cite just one more bar: Continued on page 2 »