Beyoncé's 'B'Day' is 20 years old and somehow running the charts again
The 20th anniversary deluxe edition of Beyoncé's sophomore album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top R&B Albums chart, knocked Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' off the top, and this week hit a new airplay milestone. Here's why the Beyhive is treating a vault drop like a new release.
In brief
Beyoncé's 'B'Day' is 20 years old and somehow running the charts again
Twenty years. That's how long it had been sitting on Beyoncé's résumé, slightly overshadowed by Lemonade, Renaissance, and Cowboy Carter. Then she dropped a 20th anniversary deluxe edition of B'Day on September 4, and the thing moved like a new album. Not a catalog curiosity. Not a nostalgia bump. A genuine chart event.
According to Billboard, Beyoncé achieved her sixth No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart as B'Day debuted at No. 1 on the list dated September 19. The new leader, released in 2006, received an expanded deluxe edition on September 4 to mark its 20th anniversary. To get there, the anniversary edition hit No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart, dethroning Michael Jackson's Thriller after 17 weeks at the top. Michael Jackson. Seventeen weeks. Gone in one tracking period.
For its coronation, B'Day, on Parkwood/Columbia Records, earned 38,000 equivalent album units in the United States for the tracking week of September 4 to 10, according to Luminate. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 22,000 (equaling 22.49 million on-demand official streams), album sales comprise 16,000, and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. The jump was a 385% spike in activity, per Billboard, for a record that first came out when Beyoncé was 24.
Elsewhere, B'Day returned at No. 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and No. 8 on the all-genre Billboard 200. Beyoncé's B'Day returned to the Billboard 200 for the first time since 2008, as the set re-entered the chart at No. 8 following its 20th anniversary deluxe reissue. That's not streaming inflation or a viral TikTok moment carrying one song. That's the full album moving units across formats.
The new single doing the heavy lifting
The deluxe edition is not just a repackage. The B'Day (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) includes rare B-sides, unreleased vault tracks, and Spanish-language collaborations. The lead new track, "Morning Dew (Donk)," did the most work on radio. The track jumped 7-1 to rule the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, becoming Bey's 14th career leader. With the result, Beyoncé extends her status as the woman with the most No. 1s on that chart, now three ahead of Cardi B, on the ranking, which began in September 1993.
The most striking chart moment belongs to the Top R&B Albums ranking, which measures the most consumed R&B projects in the United States across both sales and streaming. B'Day debuted at No. 1, giving Beyoncé her sixth leader on that chart and her first since her dance project topped it alongside several other rankings.
In a statement tied to the reissue, Beyoncé said, "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 added, "Hip-hop was taking over at the time, but I was fighting to preserve the bridges, melodies, and harmonies that have always been at the heart of R&B. The goal was to blend those two worlds through the art of sampling. I loved the minimalism of a beautiful vocal arrangement over a simple drum loop or a classic guitar like 'Irreplaceable'...but only if that 808 was banging underneath."
The bigger picture: part three is still coming
None of this happens in a vacuum. Beyoncé is in the midst of a three-album series, all of which are centered around a different kind of music. She began the run with the dance-oriented Renaissance. More recently, she won Album of the Year at the Grammys with her country project Cowboy Carter. The third installment has no announced title, release date, or confirmed genre. The Beyhive has been on standing alert for months.
Beyoncé has not announced what comes next in her ongoing musical series, but she has made clear that the wait will not be quiet. While fans hold out for a third studio chapter, she reached back into her catalog and delivered a twentieth anniversary edition of one of her earliest solo statements. The chart result suggests her audience is not just patient. They're ready.
The world is waiting for the third installment, but before it arrives, Beyoncé delivered the twentieth-anniversary edition reissue of her sophomore solo album B'Day. That full-length launches on several Billboard charts and returns to others that it has appeared on in the past, while simultaneously producing a handful of hits for the powerhouse. That's six charts in one week for a 20-year-old record. The vinyl variant alone re-entered at No. 2 on Top Vinyl Albums, per Billboard, suggesting the physical audience showed up in force.
The original B'Day debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2006 with 541,000 copies sold in its first week of sales. The expanded deluxe edition swelled to 31 tracks, more than double the 2006 standard version's total. Beyoncé remastered the music videos too, per the accompanying press release, and has been releasing them in sequence. The Beyhive has been treating each one like appointment television.
Ratings, streams, vinyl sales, airplay. Twenty years out, and B'Day is charting on the same week as Iceman and Ella Langley's Dandelion. It's sitting at No. 8 on the Billboard 200. "Irreplaceable" is playing on morning radio again. And somewhere, a 24-year-old Beyoncé who recorded the whole album in three weeks in April 2006 is probably not surprised at all.
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CAN I KICK IT? screens New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument, on Aug. 22. (Courtesy SHAOLIN JAZZ)
The live-cinema series CAN I KICK IT? returns to the National Mall this month with what its producers are calling the "Gangsters on the Mall" chapter of their free outdoor summer run. On Saturday, August 22, the SHAOLIN JAZZ production brings the 1991 crime classic New Jack City to the Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument for a night of film, music, and community under the DC summer sky.
What sets the event apart is the sound. As the film plays, DJ 2-Tone Jones builds an original score in real time, reimagining one of the most iconic crime movies of the ’90s through hip-hop, soul, funk, and more. It is less a movie screening than a live performance built around the film.
The details:
Film: New Jack City (1991), with a live soundtrack by DJ 2-Tone Jones
When: Saturday, August 22 — seating opens at 7:30 p.m. (bring lawn chairs and blankets); film begins at 8:30 p.m.
Where: Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument, Independence Ave SW & 15th St NW
A parking note from the organizers: expect road closures and restricted parking east of 14th Street NW due to a separate race event in the District. Roads west of 14th Street NW will be accessible and available for parking.
New Jack City is the second of three screenings in this year’s free CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series, which opened with Black Panther at Skyland Town Center and concludes with Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial on September 5. Produced by the Washington, DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, the series has presented more than 150 live cinematic experiences at venues across the country, from Lincoln Center to SXSW.
"I wanted to be able to tell good stories with substance and remove the ‘ego’ out of the art," said Andrew Huang during a recent interview. Now, he’s building his career at the intersection of discipline, creativity and innovation.
Andrew Huang, founder of New Place Studios. (Courtesy photo)
As a Chinese American, Huang was reared with a deep respect for hard work, consistency and excellence. He describes his childhood as "not so affluent" and later attended college to hone his passion for videography. "In college I tried to do something I loved, which was video, but along the way I knew that I had to find a job. And so I thought, ‘what was the low hanging fruit to get to that stable 9 to 5 job?,’" he stated.
Later in life, Huang found himself working for corporations where his creativity was often limited, eventually leading to burnout. "I worked in a corporation for a long time and there were a lot of missing pieces. I wanted to fill in gaps missing in corporate video production," said Huang.
He later described how his upbringing and a mindset of "survival" led him toward a corporate career. However, his desire for balance and authentic storytelling ultimately pushed him to take the entrepreneurial leap.
"I founded a new place where you can create video and film with ‘substance and style,’" said Huang. His desire for work-life balance and passion for storytelling naturally evolved into a small business based in Virginia. With the launch of New Place Studios, the entrepreneur quickly found himself reconnecting with the values that would become the foundation of everything he creates behind the camera.
Huang said being a business owner has allowed him to first embrace himself. While others may see video as simply capturing moments, he sees it as a way to preserve stories that inspire, connect and leave a lasting imprint.
By combining cinematic visuals with cutting-edge production techniques and a keen understanding of branding, Huang helps organizations and individuals communicate their vision with purpose. He said understanding a client’s "why" serves as the compass for delivering the services they need.
One benefit of working with a small business, he said, is that clients get to see the production process unfold through a micro lens while working with the same faces throughout the entire project. "The work feels personal," said Huang.
Huang does not regret leaving behind the flash-over-substance mentality and corporate hustle culture. That does not mean the Asian American entrepreneur has been without challenges in the industry. "It’s relatively hard to find other Asian American creatives or people who would want to work with me in the DMV," said Huang.
He identifies the industry culture in which everyone is trying to blend in, creatives may fear displaying their Asian identity and some feel pressure to adopt an American corporate persona. He also points to what he describes as a level of gatekeeping within the industry. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 statistics, Asian American and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs own more than 3 million businesses and employ 5.2 million people in the United States.
After tapping into organizations such as SCORE, which offers free small business mentorship, New Place Studios has become a trusted creative partner throughout the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia). The company produces a range of creative services, including commercials, corporate branding, documentaries, film, 2D animation, motion graphics and photography.
For Huang, entrepreneurship has become more than a departure from corporate life. It has given him the freedom to create with intention, build meaningful connections and tell stories that go beyond the surface.
The 2026 CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
For three Saturdays this summer, some of Washington’s most familiar public spaces will do something they rarely do after dark: fill up with blankets, lawn chairs, and the sound of a movie being scored live, in real time. CAN I KICK IT?, the traveling “live cinema” series produced by the DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, is bringing a free outdoor run to the city — pairing three era-defining films with an original soundtrack performed on the spot by DJ 2-Tone Jones.
The premise is what sets it apart from a normal screening in the park. Rather than simply pressing play, 2-Tone Jones builds a score as the film unfolds, pulling from hip-hop, soul, funk, jazz, rock, electronic music, and sounds from around the world. The result, the organizers say, is less a movie night than a one-time performance — the same film you know, wired to a soundtrack you have never heard and will not hear again. Guest DJs warm up the crowd starting at 7:30 PM before each 8:30 PM screening.
The 2026 outdoor schedule
All three events are free and open to the public.
Saturday, August 8 — Black Panther at Skyland Town Center. A pop-up marketplace and community activities kick off the evening; guest DJs at 7:30 PM, film at 8:30 PM. Marvel’s superhero epic gets a one-night-only live score in Southeast DC.
Saturday, August 22 — New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument. Seating begins at 7:30 PM; the film starts at 8:30 PM. The 1991 crime drama plays out at the foot of one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.
Saturday, September 5 — Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial. Seating at 7:30 PM; film at 8:30 PM. The series closes with Brian De Palma’s crime saga against the backdrop of the Memorial, scored live from start to finish.
First up: Black Panther at Skyland Town Center on August 8. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
A DC company with a national footprint
SHAOLIN JAZZ describes itself as a Washington-based arts company working at the intersection of music, film, art, and culture, and CAN I KICK IT? is its signature production. According to the organizers, the series has staged more than 150 live cinematic experiences around the country — at performing arts centers, museums, festivals, and cultural institutions including Lincoln Center in New York, SXSW, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Republic Square in Austin, the Tacoma Armory, and The Cary Theater.
“CAN I KICK IT? has always been about creating a shared experience,” said Gerald Watson, co-founder of SHAOLIN JAZZ. “When you combine iconic films with live music in public spaces, something special happens. People aren’t just watching a movie — they’re experiencing it together. That’s what makes these nights so memorable.”
Cinema as a community event
The DC run lands as cities across the country look for new ways to activate public space through arts and culture — and this series is a straightforward pitch for how to do it: take a landmark everyone already knows, add a film everyone has an opinion about, and let a live soundtrack turn the evening into something neighbors experience shoulder to shoulder. Families, film buffs, and music fans are all invited, and admission won’t cost a thing.
The CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series runs August 8, August 22, and September 5. All events are free; check SHAOLIN JAZZ (shaolinjazz.com) for the latest details and any weather updates before heading out.
