Music fans are going wild at the prospect of an epic music sequel 15 years in the making.
Super sleuths have been piecing together clues from the social media posts of everyone from Beyoncé to her mom Tina Knowles, her hair stylist, and even Lady Gaga herself.
They are convinced the A-list music stars are reuniting to bring us the long-awaited follow-up to their 2009 hit song, “Telephone.” Their chart-topping hit was accompanied by a short film music video that saw the pair play outlaws driving off into the horizon as the words “to be continued” appeared on the screen.
Beyoncé’s announced “Cowboy Carter” on March 19 on Instagram, revealing the cover and explaining how she has “a few surprises on the album, and have collaborated with some brilliant artists who I deeply respect.”
From there, excited fans began to piece together clues to work out who those artists might be—and many have concluded one of them must be Lady Gaga.
First, they pointed to the fact that Beyoncé released the first two songs from Cowboy Carter, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” on February 11, which is the date Lady Gaga’s character is booked into prison in the “Telephone” music video.
Then a visual teaser for “Texas Hold ‘Em” showed Beyoncé speeding through a desert by a huge billboard, reminiscent of the duo’s high-speed antics in “Telephone.”
But people really started to get excited when Lady Gaga posted a photo to her Instagram stories where the “Telephone” cover art could be seen off to the side. Not long after, Beyoncé’s hair stylist Vance Gamble posted an image of Lady Gaga from the “Telephone” video to his Instagram stories.
“gaga posting the telephone cover art and now one of beyoncé’s stylists posting a picture of the telephone music video… TELEPHONE PART 2 IS COMING,” @willfulchaos posted to X, formerly Twitter, in a post that has been viewed more than 967,000 times
But people started to really dig deep when they resurfaced an acceptance speech Lady Gaga made in 2020.
“A renaissance is coming, and the wrath of pop culture will inspire you,” she said while accepting the Tricon Award at the MTV VMAs. “Renaissance” refers to Beyoncé’s three-act project, of which Cowboy Carter is Act II.
The first act was Beyoncé’s Renaissance album, world tour and concert film. The album was a tribute to house music and LGBTQ+ voguing culture.
Fans pointed to Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles’, March 11 Instagram post which suggested the country album had been in the works “for years.” So, given Lady Gaga and Beyoncé are good friends, it safe to presume the former likely knew about the Renaissance project from the outset.
Lady Gaga herself is no stranger to country music, releasing the Americana-influenced album Joanne in 2016, which hit the top 10 on the charts in more than 25 countries.
