Jay Z and Beyoncé are one of the most famous couples on earth and two musical heavyweights that are legends in their respective fields. But despite working together on a bunch of stray tracks over the years—both pre and post marriage—they've never linked up for a substantial project before.
One teenager out of Orlando decided to change that. For a project he called Bey-Z, a 19-year-old producer named amorphous took some of the most classic instrumentals in Jay's catalog and sprinkled Beyoncé's vocals all over them. The result is a mashup album that excels where many others fail, with a fusion of sounds flowing naturally throughout the project.
Perhaps that's because Beyoncé's recent work has straddled the line between musical genres, and she doesn't sound at all like a stranger over hard instrumentation. amorphous told Complex the idea came to him when he was driving home one day last week. He said ideas flowed naturally since he grew up on R&B artists like Destiny's Child and Aaliyah.
"I was playing one of Jay's tracks in the car," he said, "and I started to sing 'Formation' over the beat. I immediately rushed home as I knew that I had something interesting on my hands and got to working. I completed it in several minutes, adding some small production elements of my own...I [tried] to find songs that worked together lyrically in some aspects but truly complimented each other."
Even if it's not your style, the Bey-Z project is a quick reminder of how many classics are in each artist's respective catalog. There are countless hits that got left on the cutting room floor for the mashup, and an enterprising producer could probably put together a totally different project without reusing any of the same songs amorphous utilized.
With Beyoncé taking a step back from music for a moment to focus on her children, this is probably the closest thing we're going to get to a collaborative album from her and Jay Z anytime soon. You can check out a preview of the tracks from Bey-Z up top and listen to the full thing on Bandcamp here.
