Grown Woman | Beyoncé

*I had to use a fan-made cover for this review due to the fact that the official cover has not been released yet. Once the official cover is released, I will replace the existing image.

Rating: ★★★★★

Earlier this year, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter exploded back into the music scene from her pregnancy leave, and after telling the world to "Bow Down," our bootylicious friend is finally ready to admit that she's a "Grown Woman." (I just learned today that 'bootylicious' is actually considered an adjective by the Oxford English Dictionary...)

I was not the biggest fan of "Bow Down / I Been On" when it was officially released on Knowles-Carter's SoundCloud account in March; it was a pretty bold move for Bey to proclaim herself as a queen, but the song didn't help her live up to that title. However, I still had high hopes that the rest of her upcoming album (which still doesn't have a release date, may I add), might sound just a bit better than what I had just heard. Now, with the leak of "Grown Woman" this week, I must say that my expectations have been set quite high for this new album.

The song starts with a baseline beat, consisting of some drums, bass, and some computer-generated voices that I can't really name. It's a nice sound that gets even better as Beyoncé starts to sing and some vocal instrumentation and percussion are layered over the real instruments. The sound of a screaming crowd can also be heard throughout the entire piece, but I think that may be a tag put on the song by whoever leaked it, because the screaming doesn't appear in the snippets of the song that are featured in the Queen B's Pepsi endorsements.

I like the song's instrumentation, but one of my favorite parts of the "Grown Woman" has to be the beautiful harmonies on the lines, "It ain't no fun, if a girl can't have none / You really wanna know how I got it like that / Cause I got a cute face and my booty so fat / Go girl / She got that bomb, that bomb / That girl / Can get whatever she wants / Go girl / She got that tight, that tight / Them boys / They do whatever she like."

The only problem I have with "Grown Woman" is the obnoxious person that is doing some sort of stupid wailing noise from the 3:05 mark to the 3:48 mark. I don't know who was making the noise in the song, but I want them to know that ain't nobody got time for that. He (or she) sound like a dying whale trying to do a mating call. I guess it could be worse, but the song would definitely be completely spotless without that annoying yelling halfway through.

I would embed a YouTube video or SoundCloud stream of "Grown Woman," but every time the song is posted on those sites, it is taken back down within a day or so. I'm assuming her record label isn't too happy about this leak, but they're going to have to realize that it's out there now, and pulling down YouTube and SoundCloud streams isn't going to change that.

With this song, I am officially hooked on Beyoncé once again. I'm just really hoping that this next album has the payout that I'm now expecting. If the material on Knowles-Carter's upcoming album is anything like this, I can easily say that it could be her best album to date, but I guess only time will tell.