If there’s any artist that’s capable of stopping the world, it’s Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter.
In 2018, she delivered her highly anticipated performance at Coachella as the festivals’ first Black female headliner and left observers completely in awe. A year later, on April 17, 2019, her Netflix documentary Homecoming premiered, which chronicles the journey she went on to craft her legendary performance. In the film, Beyoncé says “When I decided to do Coachella, instead of me pulling out my flower crown, it was more important that I brought our culture to Coachella.” Watching Homecoming was very impressive, as it gave me more insight into the hard work, sacrifice and intentionality that went into it. There were many aspects that made Beychella pure excellence, but my favorite aspect was seeing the celebration of Black culture taking center stage.
Beyoncé mentions in the documentary that she grew up near Prairie View A&M University and spent a lot of time during the early years of her career rehearsing at Texas Southern University. Her father is a graduate of Fisk University and she always dreamed of attending a Historically Black institution of higher learning. Beychella paid homage to the nine Black Greek Letter Organizations and an HBCU Homecoming ceremony, with the inclusion of steppers, majorettes, and a marching band. Although I don’t attend an HBCU, I appreciate and respect the importance and significance that they hold, and have witnessed over the years the way that they’re often undervalued. But in the words of Beyoncé, “There is something incredibly important about the HBCU experience that must be celebrated and protected.” With Beychella, she did just that.
Beychella also included her own rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”—which the NAACP dubbed the Black National Anthem—which transitioned into her pro-Black anthem, “Formation.” She and her dancers swag surfed, danced to a mix of her hit “Crazy in Love” and Juveniles’ “Back That A** Up”, and included the instrumental to C-Murders “Down For My N*****”. The same day that Homecoming was available for streaming, she released her live album of the same name, which featured her cover of Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go”, which is a staple at Black functions. Although Coachella’s audience is predominantly White (which made it all the more special that in Homecoming, the camera repeatedly focused on Black audience members), Beyoncé took the opportunity to shine a light on the pure greatness that is Black culture.
While watching Homecoming, one of my greatest sources of joy was that a light was also shone on Black women through voiceovers of icons Nina Simone and Maya Angelou, as well as the many Black women on stage. During Beychella, dancer/choreographer Edidiong Emah was given a solo, and in the film, she says she once felt she was “too short and too thick” and never dreamed she would be there. The space that Black female performers like Edidiong were given onstage was amazing.
In a voiceover, Beyoncé makes a statement that I—and I’m sure many other Black women—could relate to… “As a Black woman, I used to feel like the world wanted me to stay in my little box. And Black women often feel underestimated.” She adds, “I wanted us to be proud of not only the show, but the process and proud of the struggle. Thankful for the beauty that comes with a painful history and rejoice in the pain. Rejoice in the imperfections and the wrongs that are so damn right. And I wanted everyone to feel grateful for their curves, their sass, their honesty. Thankful for the freedom. It was no rules and we were able to create a free, safe space where none of us were marginalized.” Ensuring that her performance made Black women feel prideful, represented, and appreciated was clearly a major priority for her, something that I found very special since the world treats Black women as an afterthought. These women had various skin tones, body types, and skillsets, making Beychella all the more beautiful.
Homecoming provides an insight into the hard work and dedication that was put into Beychella: a stunning display of the beauty that exists in Black culture, Black womanhood, and Black colleges. Black people are the owners of Black culture despite constant attempts to hijack it, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the love of our culture being celebrated by one of its’ actual, rightful owners. Beychella was the embodiment of “for us, by us” and I will forever appreciate it.
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