Beyoncé Reopens ‘B’Day’ 20 Years Later With Selena, Celia Cruz and Unreleased Music

Beyoncé poses with an alligator in an image from the “B’Day” era photographed by Max Vadukul. The image is part of the album’s 20th-anniversary rollout, which includes a 31-track digital deluxe edition, previously unreleased material and newly remastered videos. (Max Vadukul/Parkwood Entertainment)

Beyoncé marked her 25th birthday with the worldwide release of "B'Day."

Twenty years later, she is celebrating her 45th by opening the vault.

The superstar released an expanded 20th-anniversary edition of her second solo album Friday, turning what could have been a routine remaster into a 31-track revisit of one of the most aggressive records of her early solo career.

"B'Day (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)" brings together the original album, B-sides and previously unreleased material while adding new recordings that connect Beyoncé's Texas roots to Selena and reach into Afro-Cuban music through Celia Cruz.

The biggest surprise is “Irreemplazable (Como La Flor),” a new posthumous pairing that combines Beyoncé's Spanish-language “Irreplaceable” with Selena's “Como La Flor.”

 

According to Parkwood Entertainment, Selena's estate approved the use of her music for the recording. Beyoncé has said she grew up hearing Selena on the radio in Houston and credits her as an inspiration for "Irreemplazable," the Spanish-language EP Beyoncé released in 2007.

The connection is more than convenient anniversary packaging.

Beyoncé and Selena were both Texas-born performers who crossed musical and cultural boundaries on their way to international stardom. Beyoncé even recalled briefly meeting Selena at The Galleria in Houston before Selena's 1995 death, a story she discussed years later while reflecting on the singer's influence.

The anniversary edition makes that connection musical.

It also gives “Get Me Bodied” a new life.

“Cuerpo (Tumbao),” featuring Colombian star Maluma, reworks the "B'Day" favorite while sampling Celia Cruz's “La Negra Tiene Tumbao.” Parkwood said Beyoncé chose the Cruz connection in part because of her admiration for the Cuban singer's pride in her African culture and her refusal to bend in the face of racism, colorism and narrow standards of beauty.

For an album turning 20, those additions push "B'Day" outward rather than simply asking listeners to remember it.

The original was released worldwide Sept. 4, 2006, on Beyoncé's 25th birthday, with its U.S. release following a day later. It arrived three years after "Dangerously in Love" established Beyoncé as a solo superstar and while the final chapter of Destiny's Child was still fresh.

She made it quickly.

Beyoncé recorded the core of "B'Day" during an intense two-week studio stretch, working with producers including Swizz Beatz, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Rich Harrison and the Neptunes.

Two decades later, Beyoncé says the urgency was intentional.

“I wanted the album to be big, percussive, hard, up-tempo, and energized, and it was important to me that we used live instrumentation,” she recalled in a statement accompanying the anniversary release.

At a moment when hip-hop was increasingly driving popular music, Beyoncé said she wanted to preserve the bridges, melodies and harmonies she considered fundamental to R&B while finding a way to make those traditions coexist with hard drums, sampling and 808s.

 

You can hear that tension throughout "B'Day."

“Déjà Vu,” featuring Jay-Z, opens with live bass and builds into horns and percussion. “Ring the Alarm” turns relationship fury into something nearly militaristic. “Get Me Bodied” is built for movement. “Freakum Dress” makes getting dressed sound like retaliation.

Then there is “Irreplaceable,” the comparatively restrained breakup song that became one of the biggest records of Beyoncé's career.

The anniversary edition doesn't try to smooth those differences out.

Instead, it makes the album bigger.

“Morning Dew (Donk),” which Beyoncé officially released July 4 after the song leaked in 2023, is included. Beyoncé subsequently released a separate remix featuring Jay-Z in August.

The expanded set includes “Can I Watch You,” produced by Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams, along with “Lost Yo Mind,” “Creole” and “Back Up.”

“My First Time” reaches even further back. The song was originally recorded for Beyoncé's 2003 solo debut, "Dangerously in Love," but did not make that album's final track list.

The digital deluxe also gathers music from elsewhere around the "B'Day" era and its subsequent expanded releases, including “Check on It,” “Beautiful Liar” with Shakira and earlier Spanish-language recordings.

Altogether, the digital deluxe runs 31 tracks and just under two hours.

The physical rollout is substantial, too. A four-LP deluxe edition is pressed on 180-gram Bayou Blue vinyl and includes a 60-page commemorative booklet and two double-sided art prints. A standard anniversary edition is also available on vinyl and CD; the standard two-LP edition includes a 16-page booklet with never-before-seen imagery.

Beyoncé has also returned to the visual side of the project.

Parkwood describes "B'Day" as essentially an early visual album, anticipating the approach that would later become central to Beyoncé's work. Videos originally captured on 35mm have been remastered, recolored and finished in 4K, including the Sophie Muller-directed video for “Déjà Vu,” released Friday in its upgraded form.

The anniversary project also includes previously unseen photographs shot in New Orleans, where Beyoncé's family has deep Louisiana roots and where the city was rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina when "B'Day" was made.

That context makes the anniversary particularly fitting.

The Beyoncé who recorded "B'Day" was already famous, but she was still defining what a Beyoncé album could be without Destiny's Child attached to it.

Twenty years later, there is little left to prove on that front.

Instead of simply polishing an old blockbuster for its anniversary, she has gone back inside it — restoring its visuals, emptying out parts of the vault and connecting a 2006 album to musical traditions that stretched far beyond it.

"B'Day" arrived worldwide on Beyoncé's 25th birthday.

At 45, she has given it another one.

Lizzo’s Touring Company Wins Dismissal of Former Wardrobe Worker’s Remaining Claims

Lizzo appears in an Instagram video posted Tuesday after a federal judge dismissed the remaining claims against her touring company in a lawsuit brought by former wardrobe worker Asha Daniels. Lizzo, who had been dismissed as an individual defendant in 2024, said she was “relieved” by the ruling. (Lizzo/Instagram)

Lizzo has scored another major legal victory, but one of the most important distinctions in the singer's long-running court battles remains easy to miss.

A federal judge has thrown out the remaining claims brought by former tour wardrobe worker Asha Daniels against Lizzo's touring company and other defendants, ending the case at the trial-court level nearly three years after Daniels sued.

U.S. District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha granted summary judgment Tuesday to Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. and the remaining defendants.

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Lizzo, whose legal name is Melissa Jefferson, had already been dismissed as an individual defendant in the case in December 2024.

Daniels worked in wardrobe during the European leg of Lizzo's “Special” tour in 2023. She later sued alleging sexual and racial harassment, disability discrimination and other mistreatment.

The judge concluded that the evidence Daniels presented did not establish several of her claims under the legal standards required to send them to trial.

Among other findings, the court concluded that Daniels had not shown conduct demonstrating generalized hostility toward women or that men and women were treated differently in a way that supported her Title VII claims.

The court also rejected her racial-discrimination and disability claims.

Lizzo celebrated the ruling Tuesday on social media.

She said she was relieved by the outcome and maintained that the allegations against her and her company were unfounded.

Daniels' attorney disputed that interpretation of the case, arguing that the court improperly evaluated evidence that should have been considered by a jury and indicating that Daniels is considering her next steps.

The ruling is significant, but it does not end all of the litigation surrounding Lizzo's workplace.

Daniels' case is separate from the lawsuit filed in 2023 by former dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez.

That lawsuit generated widespread attention with allegations involving sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations.

Some claims in the dancers' case have been dismissed, but the litigation has not been completely resolved.

That distinction is particularly important because the two cases were filed within weeks of each other and have frequently been conflated in coverage of the allegations surrounding Lizzo.

Tuesday's decision concerns Daniels and her work with the wardrobe department.

For that case, at least at the federal trial-court level, there will be no jury trial on the remaining claims.

Nearly three years after Daniels sued, the remaining defendants have won summary judgment.

Dame Dash’s Life Story Is Going Up for Auction to Pay His Creditors

Damon “Dame” Dash, left, and Singa B pose for a photo in 2019. Dash, the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder, is facing the court-approved auction of his life-story rights, name, image and likeness and more than 100 hours of archival material as part of his bankruptcy case. (Photo courtesy of Singa B/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Dame Dash spent decades insisting on ownership.

Now a bankruptcy court is preparing to sell the rights to tell his story.

A Florida bankruptcy judge has approved plans to auction a package of assets tied to the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder that includes rights to his life story, name, image and likeness, along with more than 100 hours of video footage, photographs and memorabilia.

The opening bid: $37,000.

The money won't go to Dash.

It will go toward paying his creditors.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Roberta A. Colton approved the bidding process Tuesday as part of Dash's bankruptcy case, moving forward with a sale proposed by court-appointed trustee Traci K. Stevenson.

Everlasting Films LLC has submitted the $37,000 initial bid.

Dame Dash is aggravated after seeing Loren Lorosa report on his bankruptcy pic.twitter.com/JJvfonTTSe

— 2Cool2Blog (@2Cool2Blog) August 7, 2026

Other prospective buyers have until Sept. 23 to submit competing offers. Because bids must increase by at least $10,000, another bidder would have to offer at least $47,000.

If qualifying competing bids are received, an auction is scheduled for Oct. 1. Colton is expected to consider final approval of the winning sale Oct. 27.

The unusual collection of assets goes considerably further than the right to make a conventional authorized biography.

Court filings describe rights to Dash's biography, voice, image, likeness and other identifying characteristics, as well as the ability to portray events from his life.

The package also includes more than 100 hours of video, photographs and memorabilia and rights connected to an unreleased film project involving Roc-A-Fella.

That footage could prove particularly valuable because Dash was present for one of the most consequential runs in modern hip-hop business.

Dash co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Kareem “Biggs” Burke in the 1990s. The label became the home of Jay-Z's rise from independent rapper to one of music's biggest stars and later released records by artists including Kanye West, Cam'ron, Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek and Freeway.

The company also became part of Dash's public identity as he championed entrepreneurship and ownership while expanding into fashion, film and other businesses.

The irony of that history is difficult to miss.

A man who spent years publicly preaching the importance of controlling one's work could soon have another party acquire the contractual rights to commercially tell his life story.

The proposed sale follows a long series of financial and legal problems for Dash.

He filed for bankruptcy in September 2025 after years of judgments, tax liabilities and other debts.

His once-substantial interest in Roc-A-Fella has already been sold.

Dash's one-third stake in the company was auctioned in 2024 after a federal judge ordered the sale to satisfy a judgment against him. New York state ultimately acquired the stake with a $1 million bid, with proceeds applied toward Dash's debts.

The life-rights sale would turn another part of Dash's history into an asset for creditors.

Everlasting Films, the initial bidder, would receive a $3,700 breakup fee if another buyer ultimately wins the assets under the proposed bidding terms.

Dash did not appear at Tuesday's hearing, according to Complex, and had not publicly commented on the court's latest decision as of Wednesday afternoon.

The $37,000 bid should not be confused with a final valuation of Dash's life story. It establishes the floor for a competitive sale that could produce higher offers before the Sept. 23 deadline.

What the eventual buyer could acquire, however, is unusually broad: not simply permission to make a film about a former music executive, but an archive of material from someone who was inside Roc-A-Fella during a formative period in hip-hop history.

Nearly three decades after helping build a record company around ownership and independence, Dash is watching bankruptcy court turn his own story into something that can be sold.