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As with all great art, Beyoncé's headline performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival this year has attracted countless breathless paeans. Before hundreds of thousands of viewers (both live and digital) Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter produced a forceful celebration of black womanhood in America. Even when the hyperbole is stripped away the fact remains that even the most dour of critics are describing the event as a defining cultural event of its generation. |
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A woman of - and for - her times. PHOTO: Frank Micelotta / Rex / Getty
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It was a show one year in the making. Initially scheduled to headline Coachella in 2017, Beyoncé cancelled due her pregnancy with twins Rumi and Sir Carter. Needless to say this time around the expectations were high amongst not only the 125,000 present in Indio, California but also the hundreds of thousands more watching online. Over the course of two rollicking hours Beyoncé and her performers shattered the collective expectation and moulded it into awe.
The sheer scale of the endeavour was staggering. Well over 100 dancers, singers and members of a marching band filled an enormous stage centred around a pyramid of bleachers. They sung, played and danced with a startling amount of physical energy that was matched only by their verve. It was a music show, theatre production, piece of performance art and dance hall rolled into one. It dwarfed the preceding sets.
On what Vince Staples had derided as "the white people stage", Beyoncé delivered a tour de force of black empowerment. The star performer arrived on stage in the costume of Nefertiti; the Nubian queen who is believed to have ruled Egypt alone after her husband's death. From there the symbolism just intensified.
To emphasise the centrality of blackness (and in particular black womanhood) to the performance, Beyoncé put on a homecoming dance from a Historically Black College or University. Known as HBCUs, these are the oft-maligned centres of education serving African-American communities. The homecoming was driven by the enormous marching band (sourced from HBCUs) replete with majorettes and drummers. Using the distinct visual language of HBCUs Beyoncé invited white America into her own fictitious black women's sorority; Beta Delta Kappa.
At the midpoint of her performance she stopped to deliver a piercing statement, “Thank you for allowing me to be the first black woman to headline Coachella... ain't that 'bout a bitch?" To the delight of the crowd, the rumoured reunion of Destiny's Child then manifested before them as Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland joined Beyoncé on stage. While her husband Jay Z and sister Solange (two stars in their own right) had cameos as well it was clear that the 90s-00s R&B girl group stole the limelight.
For most of her musical career Beyoncé has skirted issues of race in America. That changed abruptly with her 2016 album Lemonade which highlighted the plight (and the strength) of black women. Controversially, Beyoncé and her dancers had also paid homage to the Black Panthers during a Super Bowl concert. They did so again at Coachella where the distinctive berets were present once more. In a moment that will go down in American music history she sang a watershed rendition of James Weldon Johnson's 'Lift every voice and sing' (the African-American national anthem).
Beyoncé's show was a technical feat to behold. Half a million fans live-streamed the show on YouTube. Where most filmed concerts are dull; this was a masterpiece. Using dozens of cameras, sweeping transitions and intimate closeups Beyoncé set a new standard in live and filmed performance.
The pioneering media theorist Marshall McLuhan once said, "anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either." In the hazy afterglow of Beyoncé's set that sentiment certainly seems accurate.
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The man with peace on his mind. PHOTO: AFP
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This week Korea's would-be unifier outlined significant progress in his quest to formally end the 65-year-old war between North and South. South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced that the standing armistice (cosigned by the United Nations and China) must be replaced with a permanent peace treaty between the long-time rivals. In a sharp divergence from decades of policy in Seoul, Moon has identified the steps that will lead to peace; although any peace treaty would be contingent on Pyongyang relinquishing its "treasured sword": the North Korean nuclear arsenal.
Just one year ago this endeavour would have been met with derision and quite possibly laughter. Today Moon is vindicated: he relayed to Washington and Tokyo Kim's wish to not only denuclearise, but to do so without the precondition of America withdrawing its troops from the South. The 35,000 US soldiers stationed locally have been a stumbling block in previous negotiations. While many are celebrating Pyongyang's willingness to come to the table without the ejection of American forces, many at the Pentagon are worried about what other concessions Kim might seek instead.
At next week's summit between Moon and Kim the world will learn just how invested both sides are in the peace process. It will no doubt be a bellwether for the Trump-Kim talks due to be held in July. |
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Back in the spotlight. PHOTO: Washington Post
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James Comey published his reflections on leadership, the FBI and the 2016 US elections this week; in doing so he lit a conflagration. The erstwhile FBI director and current political antagonist grabbed headlines with his verdict that Trump is "morally unfit" to be president. In a blitz of television interviews Comey delivered several juicy soundbites, including his belief that an obstruction of justice investigation may succeed and repudiation of suggestions that he had played a decisive role in the downfall of Hillary Clinton. In the aftermath of the interviews Trump fired back tweet after tweet to either diminish Comey or accuse him of unnamed crimes. Yesterday Comey's memos were also released to Congress.
In a surprising turn this week the Trump posse also sparked what could best be described as a philosophical debate: what makes a journalist a journalist? This is a question that perhaps seems best suited to academia but it burst into the public domain this week. Fox News stalwart and Trump confidante Sean Hannity was revealed to have been a client of the president's embattled personal lawyer Michael Cohen. This - along with claims that Hannity "basically has his own desk" at the White House - added weight to cries that he should be required to declare his vested interests to his 3m+ nightly audience. On the contrary, the Fox host tweeted that he is an "opinion journalist" or "advocacy journalist" and is therefore unfettered by high-minded journalistic codes of conduct. Keep an eye on this. |
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Changing of the guard in Havana. PHOTO: Reuters
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- This week Raul Castro handed the Cuban presidency to little-known engineer Miguel Diaz-Canel; ending his family's 60-year reign (started by brother Fidel in 1959)
- Former navy pilot Tammy Jo Shults has been hailed as a hero for successfully landing the stricken Southwest commercial jet after a dislodged fan blade blew up one engine (killing one)
- Turkey's increasingly authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan moved forward his country's elections by more than a year to tighten his grip on power
- The Chinese navy conducted a bellicose series of live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to deter Taiwanese nationalists (whom Beijing deems separatists)
- An advance team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons investigating the attack in Douma came under small-arms fire; the further delays raised fears of a coverup
- NASA's new Transitory Exoplanet Survey Satellite was carried into orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket on a mission to search for planets beyond the solar system that might sustain life
- The husband of the slain Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia accused the government of shielding the mastermind of the car-bombing that killed her
- King Mswati III of Swaziland marked 50 years of independence by officially renaming his nation the Kingdom of eSwatini in a bid to discard the last vestiges of its colonial past
- Recent efforts to deport members of the Windrush generation (Caribbean citizens invited to work in Britain after WW2) were met with outrage in many quarters
- The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is set to meet amid suggestions that the powerful oil cartel may get outflanked by a Russo-Saudi agreement
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A rare victory for China's LGBT community. PHOTO: AFP
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A dominant view in the West is that China's internet censors (manning the Great Firewall) wield absolute power. This week we've seen that average Chinese internet users can push back against censorship with stunning results. The censors began trawling Sina Weibo (the homegrown Twitter-equivalent with 400m users) and deleting content that 'promoted homosexuality'. But the Weibo users retaliated, rallying around the hashtag #IamGay in huge numbers. In a sign of the times, the censors relented.
Amongst all the horror stories that decry runaway pollution; there has been a ray of positivity. Remember the name 'ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6', it might just save the world. It's a bacteria that Japanese scientists accidentally discovered was doing something fascinating: eating plastics. Now the same team that discovered it is experimenting with ways to speed up the process by which the bacteria breaks down a common plastic used in disposable drink bottles. It's a novel step in the right direction!
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Little more than a photo opportunity. PHOTO: AFP
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It seemed almost too good to believe when Myanmar's government announced the first repatriation of a Rohingya family this week. It was. United Nations and Bangladeshi authorities have released a joint announcement panning the 'repatriation' as a staged propaganda shoot - they could find no evidence of a family leaving the refugee camps of Cox's Bazaar. To date the UN still believes that Myanmar is not a safe, let alone acceptable, environment for the beleaguered Rohingya to return to.
This week President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo made jaws drop around the world by firing 256 judges. While the country is in the midst of civil strife (and one can by no means ignore the possibility that the sackings are politically motivated), it appears that the judicial officers in question were practicing without law degrees.
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Your weekend long read... Here's a humorous take from Bloomberg Businessweek: how a couple of drunk economists discovered the real value of Bitcoin.
Quote of the week... “The possibility of the U.S. thinking about Japan is zero” - A Japanese commentator shoots down a hopeful colleague's remark that Shinzo Abe's official meeting with Trump may yield some results
What's new and shiny... This week inkl launched a new personalisation feature called My Topics. It's a newsfeed within the app dedicated to surfacing the events, topics, stories and peoples that you follow. If you haven't checked it out: run, don't walk.
One last thing... If you haven't purchased an inkl plan as yet, we're offering you a month for just 99c. That's just 3 cents a day to read the world's best news coverage. It's a deal too good to miss!
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