Prior to squeezing it all out into Lemonade, Beyoncé was collaborating with her husband Jay Z on a joint album, a source confirms to Us Weekly.
According to the insider, the power couple (who toured together back in 2014 for their huge On the Run Tour) nearly finished a collaboration, but had to shelve the joint album because of issues with their respective labels, Columbia and Roc Nation.
“So Beyoncé decided to release her solo album first and next Jay will,” the source explains.
As exclusively reported by Us, Jay Z plans to release his own response to Lemonade, Queen Bey’s visual album which chronicles a scorned woman’s journey through 11 stages of grief and forgiveness after her man cheats.
“Jay is working on an album telling his side of things," another source close to the couple tells Us Weekly in the new issue. The rapper last dropped album Magna Carta… Holy Grail in July 2013.
Although some insist that Lemonade isn’t autobiographical — Bey’s dad Mathew Knowles tells Us that “people want to make it about her” — a third source says “the album says it all.”
“It explains how she and Jay got through their problems,” the insider says. “The good outweighed the bad, so she gave him a second chance.”
According to Billboard, the collaboration may still see the light of day. A Sony source tells the magazine that the record label is “open to” partnering with the duo on such a project.