AceShowbiz - Beyonce and Jay-Z's surprise album Everything Is Love was finished just three hours before it was released online.

Talk about the project has been rumoured since Beyonce released her last solo effort, Lemonade, in 2016, but the couple waited until the weekend, June 16-17, to announce the release of the joint album at their London Stadium On The Run II gig.

They also played the glossy six-minute video for lead single Apes**t, which was shot in Paris art gallery the Louvre.

And according to editors at Rolling Stone magazine, the perfectionists were still putting the finishing touches to the nine-track Tidal exclusive minutes before hitting the stage.

"People were still recording parts an hour and a half before the last show in London," producer Andre Lyon, of production duo Dre & Cool, told the music mag. "They were still putting last-second touches on."

Being part-owners of streaming service Tidal, meant Jay and Beyonce had the means to distribute Everything Is Love as soon as the files were ready.

Lyon was one of several writers and producers who travelled to Europe with the stars, setting up an ad hoc recording facility backstage to "feed (them) beats every day".

"Us being there was key," he added. "(Beyonce and Jay) don't have rules. No one can get away with the things they do - and when I say get away with, I mean pull off."

Everything Is Love, which isn't the couple's first collaboration, acts as the final chapter in a trilogy of albums about the couple's strained marriage. It began with Lemonade, on which the Formation singer discussed her husband's infidelity, and continued on his confessional disc 4:44.

The stars will head back to North America later this summer for stadium dates at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on 23 September and NRG Stadium in Beyonce's native Houston, Texas on 23 September, among others.