How often do you travel for the arts? Have you ever planned a trip away from home just to see your favorite artist in concert or catch a play or a musical? Fandom travel is absolutely a real thing.
I’ve traveled abroad to see the Harry Potter Cursed Child play. I’ve driven 4 hours to Miami to see Beyonce and back home the same night so that I could catch a flight the next day.
The Bey Hive is notoriously one of the biggest fandoms in the world and they travel far and wide to support Queen Bey! I have a friend that waited for 13 hours to be on the front row for Beyonce’s Coachella performance. Now that is devotion!
I admit, the notion of being in the desert with that many people didn’t appeal to me, but after witnessing this history making performance of peak melanin excellence I would say it would have been well worth the trip!
This Beyonce Coachella performance is one of the blackest, pro black, black is beautiful, feminist, girl power, melanin overdosed performances EVER in the history of evers!
1. Homage to the Motherland
She came out looking like Queen Nefertiti reincarnated with a pyramid of risers on the stage and I swooned. The real Nefertiti, not that white lady recreation y’all tried the world with back in February. She was dripping queendom from head to toe.
I also loved how she incorporated a quote from Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie.
2. Celebration of HBCU culture
Do you know how major that is to have a 2 hour set with a marching band playing the music????? Shot out to her musical director. She had a drumline, marching band, an orcehestra, a choir, baton twirler, and majorette dancers.
It was like FAMU and Southern and Grambling had a baby. It was a literal HBCU band allstars up on that stage! It gave you all the feels of a Black College homecoming game and concert all at the same time.
3. Homage to Black Greek Letter Organizations
And yes, many of them are actually Greek! I see you Sorors!!! OO-OOP! Bey had her own Greek Letter Org mock probate right there on stage complete with line names and a step routine.
4. 100 black performers on stage
I would love to know the actual count. I have no idea how many there really were but it was peak melanin takeover happening on that stage last night for the Beyonce Coachella performance and it was beautiful and something to behold.
You know the chills you felt when we saw all that beautiful rainbow of brown beauty in Black Panther? It was something like that.
5. She sang Lift Every Voice and Sing
Beyonce sang the Black national anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson, in the opening set of the show and it literally gave me chills and moved me to tears. It was beautiful and haunting and with everything happening today in our current social climate it was 1000% appropriate.
6. She reunited Destiny’s Child!!!
Kelly and Michelle graced the stage with Beyonce to give us a Destiny’s Child trip down memory lane and I went complete fangirl. It was everything! The girls were in great voice and they looked good honey. Damn good!
7. Incorporated her family.
Her sister, Solange danced with her and it was beautiful to see their bond on display. Her hubby Jay-Z performed Deja Vu with her. Heck her mama, Tina was in the audience posting videos on Instagram.
It was Black Love and Black Family which we always need more images of.
8. They threw in some Fela Kuti and a lil Nina Simmone too
That’s major! If you don’t know who they are then your musical education is lacking and you have homework to do. Google them today. You’re welcome.
It’s in the intro to “Deja Vu” that you hear the trumpets that Fela Kuti’s music is so known for.
9. Paid homage to all the elements of black performance
There were nods to the performers of the Black Renaissance era as well as paying homage to hip hop in all it’s forms from Dirty South, West Coast, and East Coast flavors. There was afro beat and caribbean music as well.
It was a musical representation of our glorious African Diaspora.
10. Made history as the first black woman to headline Coachella
We have seen the nasty posts and people are super salty that the festival has expanded its genre beyond rock and quite honestly WE DON’T CARE. Get over it!
The Beyonce Coachella performance solidified her as a master of live performance and showmanship and she will go down in history as one of the best live performers in history.
As Drake said we gotta be “Nice For What”?
So tell me have you ever traveled for your love of the arts? What did you think of Beyonce’s Beychella performance? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
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