In 2009, R&B fans were sent into a frenzy when Alicia Keys and Beyoncé announced they had teamed up for a duet.
The track, “Put It in a Love Song,” produced by Swizz Beatz and featured on Keys’ The Element of Freedom album, was viewed as a major moment in music as two of the biggest voices of a generation united on one track, and teamed up for a highly anticipated music video.
But after months of anticipation, the visual never surfaced. Both artists quietly shifted focus to their own album runs, leaving fans to question what happened to what many believed would be the ultimate collaboration.
Over the years, Keys has dropped hints that the video might one day see the light of day as part of a future project, but the mystery behind its disappearance has lingered, until now.
This week, Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé’s father and former manager, offered new details about the long-shelved video during an appearance on Carlos King’s Reality with the King podcast. In the episode, Knowles reflected on his career, his daughters’ success, and the circumstances behind the unreleased “Put It in a Love Song” visual.
“They were in the projects, hood, ghetto in Rio, and Sony Records hadn’t paid the gangsters. They had to be helicoptered out of there,” Knowles revealed leaving King visibly stunned by what he had just heard. “That’s really what happened,” he reaffirmed.
Directed by Melina Matsoukas, the video was filmed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and according to reports, was completed despite what Knowles described. However, in a 2016 interview with Rap Radar, Alicia Keys shared her own reasoning for why the project was ultimately shelved.
“We had a ball in the studio, we had a ball doing the video, which was crazy in Brazil, it was outrageous, you saw pictures,” Keys said. “But you know it just didn’t quite, the video didn’t quite capture the energy that I think that we really intended it to and we just felt like it was better to just hold it, so we did that… Maybe one day it will be like some old secret… I’ll put it on Tidal.”
Whether the “Put It in a Love Song” video will ever surface remains unknown, but for now, it still stands as one of R&B’s most talked-about unreleased moments.
See the full Reality with the King interview here.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
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