was released by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. The Gift was curated and produced by Beyoncé, who described the album as "a love letter to Africa" and recounted her determination to find "the best talent from Africa, and not just use some of the sounds and [do] my interpretation of it". Beyoncé explained that she believes The Gift "is the first soundtrack where it becomes visual in your mind". Beyoncé added: "I wanted to put everyone on their own journey to link the storyline. Each song was written to reflect the film's storytelling that gives the listener a chance to imagine their own imagery, while listening to a new contemporary interpretation." On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the single "Black Parade", in celebration of the Juneteenth holiday which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Raisa Bruner of Time called the song "a tour-de-force of references: to black history, to African traditions, to her own family and past" and described Beyoncé as "the queen of a generation providing guidance and assembling her listeners with black solidarity". Production Beyoncé called Black Is King "my passion project that I have been filming, researching and editing day and night for the past year". Beyoncé invested 100% of her earnings from Disney into making sure that they had the best crew and production for the film. The film's production was top secret, with the public not being aware of the film and some contributors not knowing the scope of the project until the release of the trailer. Development In July 2019, after the release of the music video for "Spirit", Beyoncé wanted to release more visuals for The Lion King: The Gift. At first, she intended to produce a clip for "Already", with them shooting in her backyard in The Hamptons. She then intended to shoot one-minute clips for some of the songs and make a 15-minute short film. The scope of the project then widened into creating full-length videos for each song, and her idea later snowballed into a very large production.When voicing the character of Nala in The Lion King (2019), Beyoncé delved into the history of the film and its story. She learnt about Solomon Linda, the South African composer of the song "Mbube" who received no credit or royalties from the song being used as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the original The Lion King. This angered Beyoncé