Mrs. Carter looks stunning as usual in the photos shot by Santiago & Mauricio, sporting the blond wig seen on the cover throughout the shoot. There is unbelievable power in ownership, and women should own their sexuality," she says in the interview, conducted in Scotland, regarding the frank sexuality that permeates her latest album.

"There is a double standard when it comes to sexuality that still persists. Men are free and women are not. That is crazy. The old lessons of submissiveness and fragility made us victims. Women are so much more than that. "You can be a businesswoman, a mother, an artist, and a feminist-whatever you want to be-and still be a sexual being. It's not mutually exclusive."

Along with the cover story, Beyonce offered up a pair of new EDM-flavored remixes for the songs "XO" and "Blow" by French producer Monsieur Adi for the magazine to premiere.

"When I recorded "XO" I was sick with a bad sinus infection," she explains. "I recorded it in a few minutes just as a demo and decided to keep the vocals. I lived with most of the songs for a year and never rerecorded the demo vocals. I really loved the imperfections, so I kept the original demos. I spent the time I'd normally spend on backgrounds and vocal production on getting the music perfect. There were days I spent solely on getting the perfect mix of sounds for the snare alone. Discipline, patience, control, truth, risk and effortlessness were all things I thought about while I was putting this album together."