Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Before I even begin, I should say from the outset that I am not a member of the Beyhive.
I happen to like Beyoncé a lot. I enjoy her music. I love watching her perform. I have a great amount of respect for the way she carefully curates her image; we only get the Beyoncé that Beyoncé wants us to see.
She keeps her business to herself. She is (as far as we can tell) unproblematic. She is a legend in her own time, and she built that from the ground up, so you have got to respect it.
When I say I am not a member of the Beyhive, I want to make that clear because whenever we start to talk about the impact someone has made on the culture or the people as a whole, the first thing people want to say to discredit you is, “Oh, you must be a stan.”
I am in fact not a Beyoncé stan.
My respect and admiration for Beyoncé grew in the aftermath of Beychella.
My friend and I went over to my cousin’s house for a smoke session, and he had us watch the Beychella performance in its entirety and then had us watch the visuals from the Beyoncé album.
I was awestruck.
Queen Bey just finished her Renaissance World Tour on Oct. 1. She sold more than 2.7 million tickets worldwide and gave 56 performances in 39 cities, racking in a record $579 million in ticket sales, and that makes hers the highest-grossing tour by a female artist and the seventh highest grossing tour of all time. She edged out the legendary Rolling Stones to earn that latter title.
And if putting on her spectacular tour was not enough, a concert film of the tour will arrive in movie theaters Dec. 1, and people are already…
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