How Beyoncé lifted me out of darkness

In her new documentary Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, which chronicles the creation of her juggernaut $579 million-grossing global tour, Beyoncé has a simple but significant message.

“After all that we’ve been through in the world, I feel like we all want a place to be safe and connected to other human beings,” she said. “Everyone has a thirst for community.”

Whereas Lemonade, Beyoncé’s 2016 album, was largely centered on themes of grief and healing, Renaissance and its supporting tour and film call on us to release our grief and to seek joy and pleasure.

It is an admirable call, but for some of us, it was difficult to heed.

The same week I tried and failed to secure Renaissance tour tickets back in March, I was struggling with the news of my mom’s cancer diagnosis. Much as I wanted to see “motha,” I worried more about how soon and how often I could get to my mom in Texas as she fought for her life. I did manage to end up at the second Renaissance tour date in Los Angeles by way of a good friend with an extra ticket.

In doing so, I found the sense of safety and community Beyoncé aimed to cultivate, if only for a couple of hours.

Still, when I walked into the theater to see the film, I wasn’t certain whether Beyoncé would be able to do the trick this time. My mother has only been dead for a little over a month. There are truly no words to capture the pain I carry with me. But at the insistence of friends who know my love of Beyoncé has been unyielding since I was a high school student in Houston, I pushed myself to go see the film, thinking that perhaps my favorite artist of all-time might give me a bit of reprieve from grieving my favorite person in the world.

Much like the tour itself, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is sensory overload. Minutes into it, Beyoncé says, “I’m excited for people to see the show, but I’m really excited for everyone to see the process.”

Over nearly three hours, viewers embark on an in-depth look into the cost and complexity that comes with being Beyoncé. With an almost supernatural-like talent and work ethic, Beyoncé is undoubtedly one of one, but as she makes clear in the film, her process encompasses an entire community of collaborators who worked on this spectacle for four years.

They include the women and men we see construct the massive Renaissance tour set along with a bevy of creatives assisting Beyoncé in her efforts to curate every detail of the tour – helping her achieve her dreams, and in the process, living their own.

She makes it a point to highlight each of their contributions – especially the Black queer community who helped influence the sound of the album. The tour also highlighted ballroom and drag icons like Kevin Aviance, Kevin JZ Prodigy, and Big Freedia, and some of her background dancers who vogued onstage such as Honey Balenciaga, Carlos Irizarry and Amari Marshall.

As Beyoncé explains in the film, she’s adamant that these “real legends” get “the flowers they’ve always deserved.”

I have not seen such intentional consideration for those not at the top of the bill of a massive tour from a pop star like this since Madonna’s Truth or Dare. 

Besides her collaborators, the most significant contributor to Renaissance is Beyoncé’s late Uncle Johnny, who used to play for her and her sister Solange the house music that informs the album.

As someone struggling with loss, the moments focused on Johnny were the most poignant.

In the documentary, Beyoncé recalls: “Starting out in Destiny’s Child, high-end labels didn’t really want to dress four Black, country, curvy girls. We couldn’t afford designer dresses and couture. My mother and my uncle, God rest his soul, made all of our first costumes. [They] individually sewed hundreds of crystals and pearls, putting so much passion and love into every small detail.”

When she appeared in the film wearing the last dress Uncle Johnny made for her before dying from HIV complications, I thought about my own fallen angel. About how much it hurts to lose someone you love that has played such an integral role in your life and career and how that loss leaves a hole in your heart.

I worried that in the midst of singing along and releasing the wiggle in my chair, at some point, when it came to Uncle Johnny, I might be triggered in some way. To some extent, I was and found myself starting to tear up during the film.

But then I looked around the packed theater and felt the same feeling I had when I attended the actual show.

My pain didn’t immediately go away, but it did remind me that even when suffering, one has to live, one has to create, and one has to seek joy. I can understand how this most recent tour has been compared to a spiritual experience. It’s evident in the jubilation of the crowd captured in scene after scene of the film.

My mama was always amused by my Beyoncé enthusiasm. She spoke highly of her, but wanted me to remember that Beyoncé is “just a person.” I told her that while I affectionately called her my Lord and Gyrator, there was no need to worry about any false idolatry.

Some people are better than others at lifting us out of the darkness, and when it comes to grief specifically, no artist more than Beyoncé has inspired me to find community and make something beautiful out of this pain I now live with.