When Renaissance dropped last summer, it was perfect timing. The masses were ready to shake off that last bit of ennui wrought by pandemic isolation, and Beyoncé exhorted us to celebrate that we were alive en masse, and to do so in the face of all that was scary: crowds, evil bosses, legislators, haters, the Supreme Court. “Break My Soul,” the single indebted to ’90s vocal house, was a jubilant, defiant protest. Its arrival on June 20, 2022, just four days before SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, meant that it soundtracked furious pro-choice rallies across the country. It also lent itself to a larger landscape: a perfect lip-sync song in the era of state-level drag bans, a song of strength devoted to Black women and LGBTQ people in the ongoing fight for justice.
Millions of people have been enthralled by Beyoncé’s live imagination of Renaissance since it hit the road this May in Stockholm. When I saw her perform for a crowd of 82,000 at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium this summer, it was impossible not to think of this timing.
That concert was one day after one of her fans, a 28-year-old Black dancer named O’Shae Sibley, was murdered in a racist and homophobic hate crime at a gas station in Brooklyn, simply for voguing to Renaissance. (The chant that followed at a memorial in Los Angeles, one of several across the country, went: “O-O-O-Shae. He was voguing to Beyoncé.”) Balenciaga took time off to join mourners in Brooklyn, and Beyoncé paid her respects. O’Shae Sibley’s death underscored the importance of her speaking directly to her queer fans, using her massive power as a place for others to reflect themselves back and, one hopes, teach everyone else respect and tolerance. The devil is working hard, but Beyoncé works harder.
https://pitchfork.com/features/article/beyonce-renaissance-tour-review/