Beyonce had everything ready for a new era

The hype
The super bowl
A world tour
Two new songs
Major endorsement deals
A music video for Grown Woman

What happened?

She can do whatever she wants.

The lead single served sixth single realness. She was smart and cared about her career.

Grown Woman is not the first-single material. The promo was good but she didnt have great music to get accompanied.

The Grown Woman video ended up being too similar to ICON R's five-weeks #1 smash "Rude Boy" and god knows she can't afford yet another stealing report.

^

I thinks it's because it's too redundant for her (woman empowering), its a fun track but maybe not 1st single material

Then why wouldn't she just wait? Every indication is pointing to her preparing for a new era and then just completely scrapping it.

I actually use Grown Woman

Ffff.

Radio paid dust to the single when it "leaked"... And coming from an era as underwhelming as 4, she knew she was entering dangerous territory (see Artpop) .
That s why they scratched the whole album.

As Neyo said, her team is stuck and doesnt know what direction to takr with this upcoming album.

She realised that it would perform on a average level like all her recent singles. I think she really wants to destroy everyone in the game again like she did before 4

She saw the writing on the wall and knew which path her career was headed if she had released that song. It's not single material.

I've heard many rumors, one was that she couldn't get clearance to use the sample in the song

Maybe Pepsi chose Grown Woman for the deal but Bey had other plans for the first single...hence why it was never released as a single