All Hail THE QUEEN!
Beyoncé! Beyoncé! Beyoncé! Okay Beauties, It's taken me a week to get my thoughts together. For all those who do not know, I have been a Beyoncé stan and proud member of the Beyhive since I was 17 years old and she was 16. I mean since Bills, Bills, Bills. Since the very first Destiny's Child album. I remember the Say My Name video when they debuted the two new members and was just as confused as everybody else. Today I'm going to give my thoughts on Beychella! Yassssss! But first what in the word is Coachella?
For those who don't know I did some digging for you. Cochella is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in the desert of Indio, California. The event features musical artists from many genres of music and several stages continuously host live music. Coachella is one of the largest, most famous, and most profitable music festivals in the United States and all over the world. The festival is held two across two weekends in April. There is a campground site adjacent to the venue grounds and allow for parking next to your tent and on-site facilities that include recycling, a general store, showers, mobile phone charging stations and an internet cafe with free WiFi (Wikipedia, 2015). Sounds like a good time to me! I am planning to attend next year! Who's with me? Now back to discussing Beychella!
Beychella was THE BEST CONCERT I have ever been to and I didn't have to leave my bed! No traffic, no standing in line, no crowds, I got to see all the different camera angles in real time. Shout-out to YouTube! I got to enjoy almost two hours of uninterrupted greatness! While I LOVE, me some Michael Jackson, and he was my FIRST taste of greatness! Beyoncé IS THE GREATEST LIVING ENTERTAINER OF ALL TIME! PERIOD! First of all she was the FIRST African American Female to headline the festival. (It's 2018 and we're still having African American First...smh!) After pulling out of the festival last year, because she was blessed by God with Twins, her first day back off maternity leave and she came back better than we have ever seen her, and the details were impressive! The first glimpse of The Queen was her dressed in full regalia! If you were paying attention, she wasn't just any queen she was dressed as Queen Nefertiti, an Egyptian Queen known for her beauty. The name Nefertiti mean "a beautiful woman has come". Yassssss!
The second time she comes on stage, she has changed clothes and given us our spring/summer wardrobe for 2018, that will definitely include cropped sweatshirts, and cutoff denim booty shorts and booty shorts and boots! Most of her outfits were custom made by Olivier Rousteing, current head designer at Balmain, and the pieces were adorned with Beyoncé Beychella embellishments. And the Boots, THE BOOTS! Custom made @louboutinworld boots. You could see the red soles when she lifted her feet to dance. Then there was Her Hair! Is it just me or did anyone else noticed that Beyoncé rarely wears her hair slicked back in a ponytail. For Beychella she gave us full on, performance Beyoncé! That included big, fluffy, deep curly, wavy, 30" honey blonde hair, with dark roots, that was picked out TO THE GOD'S! I was here for all of it! By the way you can achieve your own big, festival, summer hair look by purchasing 26", 24" bundles, and an 18" frontal in Peruvian Deep Wave, or Kinky Curly hair and have the natural brown hair colored honey blonde with highlights. The London Ferris (LF) bundles can be purchased here. She even inspired me to pull out my own LF custom made Beyoncé inspired wig and I wore it all week. Prior to getting started performing nearly every one of her hits, She took the time to pause and sing the best version of Lift Every Voice, ak.a. The Black National Anthem I have ever heard! With that song she paid homage to those African American Entertainers and Activists that paved the way for her to get to the level of success she enjoys today. Great move Bey!
Next up was the band! As we all know, Beyoncé became famous at an early age, and never enjoyed the Historic Black College and Universities - HBCU experience that many of us did. Her entire performance with the band and dancers from both Prairie View A&M University and Florida A&M University among other schools, was a huge deal for me! It reminded me of my high school years and my college experience at Southern University in Louisiana in 1999. Growing up in the south the Bayou Classic Battle of the Bands and Greek Show competitions were EVERYTHING! There was a week of events, a parade, fan festival and battle of the bands competition featuring Southern University and Grambling University! Oh and there was a football game that was played too. LOL! It was a time to put on your best outfits, hangout with friends, both new and old, and laugh and dance, and really let loose and enjoy ourselves. Beyoncé has clearly studied this culture, engulfed herself in it, and perfected it! From the band, to the ladies of the dance lines, to the Bugaboos, to the majorettes, to the baton twirler, no detail was missed and she did not disappoint!
Finally, there were the hits! Beyoncé came with all the hits and performed nearly every song in her extensive catalog for 1hr and 45 minutes straight! She also brought out people she loved, from her husband Jay-z, her sister Solange, (Hey Solonge! You slayed that dance off girl!) to reuniting on stage with Destiny's Child members Kelly and Michelle, she gave me my entire life! RIP Michael Jackson, I will always love you, but Beyoncé and her live shows, AMAZING! Beauties she went from surfboard to swag surfin! Like I said greatest living entertainer of our time! Listen if your whole team is not performing on a level of pure EXCELLENCE that her 100 band members and performers were at, then throw the whole team away! Beyoncé is a wife, a mother, a business woman, all at the same damn time! Pay this woman some respect, I mean what else does she have to do! She even donated $100K to four different HBCU's after her performance.
Okay my weekend wasn't totally consumed by Queen Beyoncé, I also attended a birthday party at Blue Martini, Hosted by Go Urban Vegas on Sunday night. My brother flew in from Puerto Rico and stopped to visit my sister in Utah, and me in Las Vegas, on his way to Cochella weekend II. Since so many people asked me I decided to share with you beauties my outfit, and hair and makeup details. I wore a simple polka dot dress with red heels and natural makeup to help emphasize my Fenty Beauty red Stunna Lip Paint.
**Makeup tip, if you're wearing bold lip color (like red), the rest of your makeup should be natural. I left my hair natural, full, and big from a braided twist out I did on myself. You know my saying, the bigger the hair, the closer to God! My look was very classic and I was told I looked like a black Marilyn Monroe, which I took as a compliment. Well that was my weekend beauties, what did you do? For those who stayed up with me until 11:30 pst and 2:30 est for Beychella what did you think of Beyoncé's performance? Are her live performances better than Michael Jackson? Let me know in the comments below.
