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"  Last Friday, at midnight, Beyonc\u00E9 stunned the world. The pop icon dropped a brand-new self-titled album\u201414 songs and 17 accompanying music videos\u2014all without a hint of prior promotion. It marked something of a music-industry coup. Apple is reporting that &amp;quot;Beyonc\u00E9&amp;quot; is iTunes&amp;#039; fastest-selling digital album, with more than 800,000 sold in just three days. More importantly, the album is the culmination of a more than a year-long, globe-trotting, top-secret undertaking\u2014one that drove Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s team to its personal and professional limits. Related: Beyonc\u00E9 Surprise Releases First-of-Its-Kind Visual Album The project&amp;#039;s release date was kept under such a tight lid, that even some of the singer&amp;#039;s closest collaborators were caught off guard when it was unveiled. &amp;quot;My DJ came upstairs into my studio and told me Beyonc\u00E9 just dropped her album,&amp;quot; producer Hit-Boy, who produced the whiplash album track &amp;quot;Flawless,&amp;quot; and assisted on several others, including &amp;quot;XO,&amp;quot; told ELLE.com. &amp;quot;I was just as surprised as everybody else!&amp;quot;  How then did Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s team keep this massive project so hush-hush? Related: The Best Looks from Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s New Visual Album &amp;quot;Well, people knew things were going on,&amp;quot; admitted Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s fashion director and confidante of over 15 years, Ty Hunter, who was charged with overseeing the 17 music videos, all shot as Beyonc\u00E9 traveled the globe on her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. &amp;quot;But the thing is, we&amp;#039;re such a tight-knit family.&amp;quot; Those on set at the video shoots were, for the most part, asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. Model Shaun Ross, who appears in the &amp;quot;Pretty Hurts&amp;quot; video, and calls the singer &amp;quot;an aunt\u2026 that I never see because she&amp;#039;s always busy,&amp;quot; says he didn&amp;#039;t have to sign one because he knows better. &amp;quot;You had to put your phone away,&amp;quot; he recalled, adding, &amp;quot;Beyonc\u00E9 has always been this person who is super-secretive with the things that she does, as far as with her camp and her family. They&amp;#039;re also very secretive and very intuitive with her vision and keeping things under wraps.&amp;quot;  The sheer scope of the project, with videos being shot over this past year, from such far flung places as Australia, Brazil, France to the US, still remains baffling to Hunter. &amp;quot;When you finally see the final project, you&amp;#039;re just like &amp;#039;I can&amp;#039;t believe we survived it,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;We were able to pull this off which is unheard of. It&amp;#039;s just a celebration for the whole team.&amp;quot; Related: Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s Best Fashion Moments According to Hunter, the project has been in the works for nearly two years. But the first video\u2014the bonus cut &amp;quot;Grown Woman&amp;quot;\u2014was shot approximately one year ago. For him, the project was most stressful not only because he had to curate Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s looks for 17 videos, but also because the clothes he hand-selected with Beyonc\u00E9, and then ordered by phone, often had to be sent overseas on a moment&amp;#039;s notice. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d have it sent and pray that the pieces and the packages would be received by different hotels in other countries,&amp;quot; he explained, adding that he felt &amp;quot;blessed&amp;quot; to have five premier stylists\u2014B. Akerlund, Lysa Cooper, Marni Senofonte, Karen Langley, and Raquel Smith\u2014assisting him.  Jonas Akerlund, director and husband of B.\u2014who directed the videos for &amp;quot;Haunted&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Superpower,&amp;quot; which featured a cameo from Pharrell Williams and reunited the members of Destiny&amp;#039;s Child\u2014first learned about the project in May when Beyonc\u00E9 invited the Swedish filmmaker to her Mrs. Carter show in Stockholm. &amp;quot;We listened to some of these songs already back then. And then we started to talk about different ideas,&amp;quot; he revealed. As timing would have it, Akerlund was one of the first directors to meet with the singer, but come September, was the last to shoot his videos. &amp;quot;So actually at the very end of it [Beyonc\u00E9&amp;#039;s team] were all waiting for my videos to be finished,&amp;quot; he says with a laugh. How soon before the album release did Akerlund turn in his finished videos? &amp;quot;Maybe 24 hours,&amp;quot; the director admitted.  Keeping the project under wraps was &amp;quot;business as usual&amp;quot; for Akerlund. Still, the filmmaker, who has worked with everyone from Lady Gaga to Madonna and The Rolling Stones, was impressed that everyone in involved stayed mum. &amp;quot;The fact that she managed to do 17 videos and the music and have it all ready, it&amp;#039;s just proof that everybody that works for her truly believes in what she does,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;Everybody that works for Beyonc\u00E9 really loves her.&amp;quot; Related: Jay Z and Beyonc\u00E9 Are Giving Veganism a Try, But That Doesn&amp;#039;t Mean You Should, Too Hit-Boy can&amp;#039;t help but admit he was beginning to wonder if the project would ever see the light of day. &amp;quot;I was just wondering &amp;#039;Is this gonna pay off?&amp;#039; I knew it was Beyonc\u00E9... when the time is right, it was gonna happen. But I worked really hard.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It was great for music,&amp;quot; he added. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re giving people a whole package where they couldn&amp;#039;t judge it before. It was amazing for all of us.&amp;quot; Hunter is more direct in his assessment: &amp;quot;This is history that has been made!&amp;quot;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/music/news/a18808/beyonce-ty-hunter-jonas-akerlund-interview/>