PEOPLE Beyoncé

There was a moment, while reveling in the spectacle of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, where everyone in the arena suddenly stopped letting it all hang out, to just take it all in. “Look around, everybody on mute,” the ageless 42-year-old superstar would declare in a viral line from her song “Energy.” She would glance left to right at tens of thousands (most in silver ensembles, also by her request), perfectly still at her command. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is a literal showstopper. In stadiums from Stockholm to Kansas City, Mo., the communal moment of silence was as powerful as it was pure fun. It was also proof of fans’ reverence for Queen Bey. Seconds later the music would re-erupt and concertgoers, including this writer, were left to seriously consider the question posed…

‘BEYONCÉ IS AN ABSOLUTE EPITOME OF HOPE, INFINITY AND FREEDOM’—DESIGNER GAURAV GUPTA ‘WHEN I AM PERFORMING, I AM NOTHING BUT FREE’—BEYONCÉ ‘I’M SO PROUD AND THANKFUL TO BE YOUR MAMA. YOU BRING US SO MUCH JOY, MY SWEET ANGEL’—BEYONCÉ, TO BLUE IVY, IN A MAY INSTAGRAM POST ‘BEYONCÉ’S L.A. STUDIO REMINDS ME OF ANDY WARHOL’S FACTORY. HER ENDLESSLY CURIOUS CREATIVE TEAM PARKWOOD ARE THERE YEAR-ROUND, HELPING BEYONCÉ TO TRANSLATE HER POETRY AND SCRIPTS INTO FILMS AND ARTWORKS’—ES DEVLIN, TOUR STAGE DESIGNER ‘THE CHEMISTRY YOU SEE ONSTAGE IS THE SAME WHEN WE ARE OFFSTAGE’—AMARI MARSHALL, RENAISSANCE TOUR CO-DANCE CAPTAIN, VIA INSTAGRAM ‘I’M GOING TO LIGHT THAT WHOLE STAGE UP, AND WHEN BEY COMES ON, IT’S CALLED: “CELEBRATE LIFE TO THE NEXT LEVEL”’—DJ KHALED (OPPOSITE, BOTTOM LEFT), WHO BROUGHT TOGETHER THE SECRET…

ONE Tweet from a Senate Judiciary Committee warning Ticketmaster not to botch the presale 56 SHOWS PERFORMED BEFORE 2.7 MILLION FANS 39 CITIES VISITED IN 10 COUNTRIES 34 SONGS ON THE SET LIST FOR MOST NIGHTS $579 MILLION EARNED, MAKING IT THE HIGHEST-GROSSING TOUR BY A FEMALE ARTIST $4.5 BILLION ESTIMATED BOOST TO THE U.S. ECONOMY (SIMILAR TO THE BEIJING OLYMPICS’ EFFECT ON CHINA) *NEW YORK TIMES ESTIMATE $0 Cost of tickets gifted by the BeyGood Foundation to local groups supporting at-risk women and girls 16 Musicians & singers in the touring band FIVE CHOREOGRAPHERS: LED BY DIRECTOR OF CHOREOGRAPHY FATIMA ROBINSON (DREAMGIRLS) 9 COSTUME CHANGES PER SHOW 41 PAIRS OF BESPOKE JIMMY CHOO STAGE SHOES 148 LOOKS WORN BY BEYONCÉ $100K AMOUNT BEYONCÉ PAID TO KEEP THE DC METRO…

‘I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER WHO YOU CAME HERE WITH, WHAT YOU WORE. REMEMBER THIS NIGHT’—BEYONCÉ, AT HER HOUSTON HOMETOWN SHOW…

FOR ME, AND PERHAPS FOR A NUMBER of people like me, Beyoncé’s Renaissance is more than just a dance album—and a great one at that. It’s the history of 50 years of dance music through the lens of the Black queer community, which the singer raises to the level of iconography she has embodied throughout her career—a career built on the cultural tenets of that community. Renaissance hit me where I live, at the intersection of disco and house music. I was too young, to my adolescent chagrin, to experience disco in full, platform-heeled bloom, but it was a mainstay in my home as a youth, at family barbecues and get-togethers. It was the sound of celebration, of the best of my love. There was something about that music, the…

Working Mother She has a way with sharing personal news. Beyoncé revealed her first pregnancy by unbuttoning her jacket to show off a bump while onstage at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. Then, on Feb. 12, 2017, days after announcing she was five months pregnant with twins, she delivered an eight-and-a-half-minute Grammy-night performance of tracks from Lemonade, “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles,” a tribute to maternity. Her own mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, gave an emotional introduction before Beyoncé—clad in a floor-length belly-conscious Peter Dundas gown—materialized like a golden goddess, surrounded by celestial dancers, for a live act that integrated video of the pregnant star. As on the album, there was a recitation of poetry written by Warsan Shire for Lemonade: “Your mother is a woman,” Beyoncé intoned, “and women like her…