QUEEN BEE

I WENT TO SEE BEYONCE!

What an experience. I have been a Bey fan for years and herself and Kanye West are on my bucket list of artists I want to see live. After seeing Kanye at Wireless a few years ago, I was lucky enough to see Beyonce in Cardiff on the 30th of June.

I went with six of my closest and oldest friends, we had standing tickets and thankfully found a great place to stand so we were super close to Bey but not packed in.

Her set list was incredible. I haven't listened to her new album all that closely but she perfumed her songs from across her whole era, including some Destiny's Child (IM A SURVIVOR). She opened with Formation, the tour is called the Formation Tour, so made sense and she closed with Halo. She was an incredible performer and my respect for her is frickin HUGE. The costumes were gorgeous, her band was sassy AF and her dancers were so bloody hot, the whole thing was so girl power. I felt like such a SIW (strong independent woman) walking out of there.

This is what I want to talk about. I feel like Beyonce sometimes gets some hate as she is so famous and has such a huge following (Shout out to the BEEHIVE) but some people argue she is just a product of good marketing and consumerism and isn't original with her songs. i'll admit her songs aren't a stream of lyrical genius worthy of Shakespeare but name one Artist that is. She is also far from the cheesy pop of the likes of Tay Swifty, (not hating on Tay, just an example). As as woman Beyonce is to me an embodiment of Female Empowerment. She is so sassy, beautiful, kind and humble, not to mention bloody talented. She knows her audience look up to her due to this and she is such a god role model. I can understand people might disagree in terms of her sexual image but being at her concert made me realise that all of this was just her saying 'yes I am one sexy women so why not show it off and still be badass and respected'.

For example her performance of Freedom was incredible, stripped back with the choreography in water. I feel it spoke so well to people of a similar background to herself and also to women in general. racism and sexism is unfortunately still very inherent in so much of society. I have little experience with racism which i am obviously thankful for but i see sexism all the time. For example a friend went to a talk on joining the army and was told by the officer giving the talk she would make a good army chef. UMMMM WTF. Thankfully the badass girl is pursuing her dream of being in the army with the intention to be in combat and not given a prescribed gender role. Freedom made me realise the deep importance of not giving up to inherent sexism and knowing in yourself who you are and what you are capable of.

Don't get me wrong, her concert wasn't just three hours of deep thought on gender roles and in equality! I danced like cray, sand like cray and had an all round sick time. I just also came out with a new lease of life and I love how music is what gave that to me. So thank you Beyonce for being so sassy and fabulous and out of the world talented and of course for coming to Cardiff!

For a more professional write up, which I think is a great summary of the night read this:

What I was wearing:

Black highwaisted ASOS jeans

Black strappy cami H&M

New Balances ASOS

Jewellery was given to me as a present so not sure where it was from.

#beyonce #queenB #slay #Music #Cardiff #Dance #feminist #girlpower #fun