You Won’t Break Her Soul
It’s not the diamonds, it’s not the pearls– Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter has always been that girl. The Houston-born singer, songwriter and business mogul will undoubtedly go down in history as a top-tier powerhouse in global pop culture. Her 2022 album, Renaissance, and its subsequent stadium world tour the following summer served as a reminder of the massive scale of Bey’s star power.
The dance album pays homage to her late Uncle Johnny, a queer Black man who introduced Beyoncé to house music. Renaissance is a living love letter to Harlem’s underground ballroom culture, interlaced with vocals from Black queer icons like Kevin JZ Prodigy and Ts Madison and production by DJ Honey Dijon.
The 16-song album is a sparkling soundtrack of bona fide celebration and rebirth, a vibe that saturated stadiums this past summer during the Renaissance World Tour. As Beyoncé took 56 stages across North America and Europe, venues became epicenters of effervescence and safe havens for self-expression. Whether you had front-row seats in Club Renaissance or your TikTok For You Page was flooded with videos of the “mute” challenge, the tour was nearly inescapable. According to Live Nation, the Renaissance World Tour earned $579 million at the box office, ranking the venture among the top 10 highest-grossing music tours.
With the Renaissance World Tour simultaneously paired with the overwhelming success of Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour, it fueled a fan-based conversation arguing over who is the best female popstar: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift.
On the one hand, comparing two female musical sensations with incredible talent and insurmountable fan bases is pointless. It’s an age-old misogynistic narrative that states that only one woman is worthy of being the most successful. Why pit women, both of whom have proven their friendship time and time again, against each other?
At the same time, the ongoing questioning of Queen Bey’s reign is a harrowing example of a predominately white audience undermining Black women’s success. It contributes to the painfully familiar narrative that Black women have to work ten times harder than everyone else just to be seen. How many more records and stadium world tours does she have to sell, Grammys she has to win, Super Bowl halftime shows she has to perform, businesses she has to own, and films she has to star/direct in before the multihyphenate is credited as the most culturally defining artist of our time?
As a loyal enjoyer of both Swift and Knowles-Carter’s music, I gawk at the question of which artist is the better performer. I have always seen Beyoncé as the standard of pop stardom next to Michael Jackson, whose level of prominence is unfathomable, even posthumously. Without even being a certified member of the BeyHive, many Black people would agree that Beyoncé is the most remarkable talent alive simply because “she’s Beyoncé.” She’s a woman whose level of influence and royalty extends beyond words. Taylor Swift is also incredibly talented and iconic, whose strength lies in her songwriting, but the video comparisons between the Rensiassance tour and the Eras tour alone speak for themselves.
Another example is her snub at the 65th Grammy Awards, where Renaissance lost the crown-jeweled Album of the Year award to Harry Styles. Sure, it was a monumental night for Beyoncé as she won for Best Dance/Electronic Album, breaking the record for the Grammy-awarded person of all time. However, Beyoncé was snubbed for the top award of the night for the fourth time. Her groundbreaking albums I Am…Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé, and Lemonade lost in previous years. To witness Renaissance, an innovative album that honors and uplifts the nuanced intersection of Blackness and queerness, losing to Styles’ solid pop record was utterly confusing.
It was even more complicated for me, a faithful fangirl of One Direction and Harry’s solo career since my preteen years, to watch him win over the Black female icon I’ve looked up to my whole life. If white institutions like the Recording Academy will humble Beyoncé, of all people, every time she gets too close to attaining all of the glory she deserves, what does it mean for every other Black woman?
It is easy to become jaded at the idea that America has a problem with Beyoncé in a similar fashion that America has a problem with Black women, period. This was further displayed on IMAX theater screens with her concert documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. For example, we witness the star being told that she can’t get a specific camera lens because it doesn’t exist, even though she did her own research and proved that it does exist.
Nonetheless, by the end of the documentary, Beyoncé comes to an inspiring conclusion that affirms that despite all of the pushback she has endured in her 42 years of life, she has nothing to prove to anybody. As Beyoncé says in the film, “I spent so much of my life as a serial people pleaser and, finally, I don’t give a f--k.”