All Hail the Queen
If you haven't had a chance to watch Beyoncé's Grammy performance, stop what you're doing right now and watch it here. Share with friends to save a life.
Dripping in jewels with her hair enshrined by a golden halo, Beyoncé's performance of Love Drought and Sandcastles (off her last album Lemonade) were the perfect homage to motherhood, redemption and self-love.
Introduced by her mother, Tina Knowles, before taking the stage, Beyoncé's performance was simultaneously a nod to traditional African dress, Mother Mary imagery, Buddhist deities and Alvin Ailey's choreographic style, invoking all manners of beauty and the divine. Holographic body doubles of herself, her dancers, her mother and Blue Ivy also played with the audiences' perceptions of reality and underscored the dream-like effect of her performance.
The artistic direction she's taken with this performance is a fitting continuation of the pregnancy photos she released several weeks ago. Accompanied by evocative lines penned by poet Warsan Shire (who also made her debut on the Lemonade album), view all of the photos from the Grammy performance and her internet-breaking pregnancy photoshoot here.
All I can say is, long live the Queen.
Feature image via