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Culture > Entertainment

Black Pride, Feminism, A Destiny’s Child Reunion & More: Everything You Missed From Beyoncé’s Iconic Coachella Performance

Allison Crist

After Beyoncé headlined the iconic music and arts festival on Saturday night, it became official — Coachella is no more. It will now be known as “Beychella.” DJ Khaled certainly didn’t coin the term, but he increased its popularity after a clip surfaced of him declaring, “Coachella will have to change the name to Beychella.” The term remained on Twitter’s top trending topics throughout Sunday morning, making it clear that Beyoncé didn’t just show up and perform — she made the festival hers. 

 

A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on

The performance was also quite literally historic. Beyoncé was the first-ever black woman to headline the festival. She acknowledged the milestone during her set, “Thank you Coachella for allowing me to be the first black woman to headline. Ain’t that ‘bout a bitch?”

In the process, Beyoncé highlighted themes of black pride (singing what’s often referred to as the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and quoting Malcom X), feminism (performing her empowered hits “Diva,” “Formation,” and “Flawless,” asking the women in the audience and those watching at home, “Are we smart? Are we strong? Have we had enough?” and her prelude to the feminist “Run the World (Girls)” when she thanked the women who paved the way for her), along with higher education (using a full-on HBCU marching band and displaying a slew of historically black college/university traditions), to name a few. 

Twitter went particularly crazy for the latter, and many said they were ready to enroll in Beyoncé’s “HBeyCU.” The star donned a variety of costumes throughout the show, some of which doubled as what appeared to be school merchandise for a Beyoncé-themed university. One particular outfit had a customized school crest, complete with an image of Nefertiti, a black panther, a black power fist, and a bee.

Another outfit was reminiscent of college: a yellow sweatshirt with the Greek letters Beta Delta Kappa. Instead of interpreting their literal translation, many fans thought Beyoncé wanted people to see how they read in English — BAK. As in, Beyoncé is back.

 

A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on

And while there’s no doubting that Beyoncé was the star of the show even among the incredible marching band and talented dancers, she also brought out a few guests; most notably, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. Yep, Destiny’s Child reunited. The trio sang “Lose My Breath,” “Say My Name,” and “Soldier” in coordinated camouflage outfits.

 

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Beyoncé’s sister Solange and Jay-Z also made appearances. 

The show ended on a perfect note, too.

Check out more highlights — from both the performance and reactions — below.

 

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Follow Allison on Twitter @AllisonMCrist.