Beyoncé Happened!
TheRoot.com, By Tonya Renee Stidhum, Posted August 6th 2020
On July 31—hell, on July 30—Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter reminded everyone why she is king. In fact, she reminded everyone why Black Is King.
In fact, Bey pretty much owned the last 10 or 11 days of July when she officially dropped the trailer for her visual album Black Is King, in conjunction with Disney’s live-action version of The Lion King.
Still, it was quite a sight when I realized Bey was trending on Twitter for hours leading up to the midnight (Pacific Time) drop of the much-anticipated project. By the way, I have to note that for so long, the East Coast had time zone privilege (with rare exceptions such as NBA playoffs when East Coast fans had to stay up super late on a school night during those double overtime moments) because everything revolved around Eastern Standard Time, but I have a theory that this all changed as soon as the Knowles-Carter clan decided to head west like Fievel.
So, I cackled as I saw my East Coast friends and other BeyHive members struggling to remain awake until 3 a.m. local time because they couldn’t be caught dead or alive missing what was going to be an entire experience.
Shortly before the visual album dropped though (probably around 9:30-ish p.m. PT), Bey decided to pull out one of her ol’ reliable bag of tricks: She not only dropped a surprise music video for “Already” (featuring Shatta Wale and Major Lazer), but she also released a deluxe edition of her album, The Gift. Also, I have to note that I am constantly amazed just how Bey (and the entire team at Parkwood Entertainment) is able to keep these sort of things secret and unleakable, given all of the people that are usually involved.
For the ones who did make it to the end of the road…well, let’s just say Beyoncé happened.
Oh, and I can’t wrap up this blog without shouting out the Culture Editor of our sister site Jezebel, the one and only Clover Hope, who can say she has a writing credit on Black Is King. Get into this win:
Goddamn (3x)!
The Gift (Deluxe Edition) is now available on participating streaming services. Black Is King is available exclusively on Disney+.
Staff Writer, Entertainment at The Root. Sugar, spice & everything rice. Equipped with the uncanny ability to make a Disney reference and a double entendre in the same sentence.
