Beyonc is going on a world tour: Why she should include Africa2023 Grammy Award winner, Beyonc announced the Renaissance World Tour on the first day of Black History Month.
by The Conversation
08-02-2023 13:49
in Entertainment
Beyonce world tour Image: Twitter
Beyonc announced her highly anticipated Renaissance World Tour on the first day of Black History Month - an annual observance in the US that honours the African diaspora. Social media erupted and ticketing websites crashed briefly as fans worldwide rushed to secure tickets. Following her record-setting 32nd win at the 2023 Grammy Awards for her album Renaissance, the US singer-songwriter's tour is the most sought-after musical event of the year. It will run from May to September 2023, with performances so far scheduled only across Europe and North America.
--
ALSO READ: Beyonce breaks all-time Grammy record with 32 wins
African fans were disappointed, but no doubt not surprised - Africa is almost always excluded from major world tours organised by global record labels. To be clear, it's not just Beyonc .
Still, this particular exclusion is compounded by Queen Bey's love of the continent - especially of former South African president Nelson Mandela - and the influence she's drawn from it in her work. Of course, hope remains for her African fandom that destinations could still be added to the tour.
--
As a popular music scholar, I'm interested in how Beyonc addresses social issues in her music - and how this is perceived by listeners in Africa. I argue that African destinations should be included - and not just because Beyonc incorporates African elements in her music. But because of how large and fervent her fanbase is in Africa and how her social awareness messages resonate with these fans.
Snubbing Africa In a capitalist commercial music industry, stadium world tours significantly affect an artist's revenue and exposure. Almost without fail, African countries are erased as possible destinations, leaving many fans asking why.
While we may never know the answer - unless record labels blatantly state their perspectives - many are left to wonder if big name artists and their management teams think that Africa does not have adequate infrastructure to accommodate their grandiose sets. Or if they believe that stadiums will not fill up with patrons such as those across the global north do.
--
One of the ways that we can start to make sense of Africa's exclusion is by applying an intersectional lens to western popular culture. (This is a framework to understand the distribution of power - social, economic, political and cultural - in society, how it is maintained, and why certain groups of people are marginalised.) By thinking particularly about the relationships between class and geographic location, western popular culture can be viewed as a product of a capitalist society that prioritises the generation of profit. Capitalist record labels put making money first.
In popular culture, Africa has traditionally been cast as a backward continent plagued by famine, poverty and war. This shapes how the continent is viewed when assessing its capabilities to generate profits. The management teams and record labels of global pop musicians could see Africa as a high-risk, low-reward destination. They would rather travel to destinations where profitability is guaranteed based on infrastructure and previous experiences.
However, some major artists have had successful tour performances in Africa, such as Ed Sheeran in 2018 and Lady Gaga in 2012. Even though both performed only in South Africa, they did not wholly snub the continent. And their South African dates were commercial successes.
Beyonc and Africa What further confounds many African fans is that it seems such a natural fit for Beyonc to revisit the continent. Her love for Africa is evident. Her visual album, Black Is King, is a testament to this. She explores and celebrates her African heritage through it. At the same time it highlights the diverse tapestry of culture and tradition on the continent and across the diaspora. Various musical, visual, language and wardrobe elements from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa are fused in it.
Beyonc may never have brought a world tour to Africa, but she is one of the few major global pop musicians to perform here. In 2003 she appeared at the 46664 Concert in Cape Town. Hosted by Mandela, the concert aimed to spread awareness of HIV/AIDS in the country. In 2018 she headlined the Global Citizen: Mandela 100 Festival in Johannesburg together with her husband Jay-Z. Interestingly, most tickets for the performance were earned through acts of social activism, so we will never know if it was a commercial success. But the stadium was filled to capacity.
It's probably not a coincidence that Beyonc 's two African performances were at events connected to Mandela. In 2018 she expressed her adoration for the late president, highlighting his lessons of forgiveness. These lessons she portrayed through her desire to break generational curses in her seminal Black feminist visual album Lemonade.
Both concerts raised awareness of growing inequalities across South Africa and the continent. Beyonc has advocated for social justice and calls attention to power relations that marginalise people based on elements such as race, gender and class.
Why she should return Undoubtedly, Beyonc 's Renaissance World Tour tickets would sell out as fast in any African city as a city in the global north. (Sheeran sold 230,000 tickets for his stops in Johannesburg and Cape Town.)
In addition to her musical and dancing talents, Beyonc addresses social issues in a way that many people can understand. She reminds people who have been marginalised that they are greater than the dominating forces have led them to
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Beyonc is going on a world tour: Why she should include Africa2023 Grammy Award winner, Beyonc announced the Renaissance World Tour on the first day of Black History Month.
