Today (Dec. 13) marked the 10th anniversary of Beyoncé’s self-titled fifth studio album.
Released unexpectedly on iTunes in 2013, the project featured 14 songs, each with its own visual companion, plus three additional clips. Among those was the video for “Grown Woman,” a record notable for its absence from Beyoncé‘s audio tracklist.
In celebration of the LP’s decade milestone, Beyoncé finally made the Timbaland-produced cut available on streaming platforms. The song initially captured fans’ attention via a Pepsi commercial in April 2013, ahead of the full-length project’s release. Stream it below.
In the chorus, Beyoncé proclaimed, “I’m a grown woman / I can do whatever I want/ I can be bad if I want/ I can say what I want/ I can live fast if I want/ I can go slow all night long.”
Meanwhile, the music video for “Grown Woman” combined clips from Beyoncé’s personal home movies with footage of her as an adult. Characterized by African-inspired drums and the pop icon’s assertive vocals, it amassed over 145 million views on YouTube.
“My message behind this album was finding the beauty in imperfection. I had this image of a trophy and me accepting these awards, and kinda training myself to be this champion, and at the end of the day, when you go through all of these things, is it worth it?” Beyoncé shared regarding the LP’s meaning.
“You get this trophy, and you’re like, ‘I basically starved. I have neglected all of the people I love. I conformed to what everybody else thinks I should be. And I have this trophy. What does that mean?’ The trophy represents all of the sacrifices that I made as a kid,” she added. “All of the time that I lost being on the road and in the studios as a child, and I just wanna blow that s**t up.”