The Five Spot: Queen Bey Is For The Children...Five Examples Of Beyoncé Blessing The Babies Like A Ray Of Sun
You don’t have to love, or even necessarily like, Beyoncé’s full musical catalog. From The Wudder’s critical standpoint, while she always showed flashes with songs and increasingly impressive live performances dating back to her early Destiny's Child days, she didn’t really start hitting her stride as someone whose albums you needed to hear front-to-back until probably “4”. And if we’re gonna keep it fully real, only the last two are bonafide legacy-making classics in the grand scheme of R&B or Pop.
What cannot be debated, is her being a supreme talent. A world-class singer/beauty/entertainer, an iconic superstar of the highest order. Someone who can do pretty much everything better than any person we pretend is her competition this week. Beyoncé just turned 35. She has been dominating the game for at least half her life on this planet, including this entire millennium so far.
She’s basically like the Serena Williams of song, dance, stage and screen. Except if she was Serena & Venus combined, in their prime, dominating the men’s tennis tour since the early 2000's. Beyoncé’s husband is by most objective measurements, one of if not *the* greatest rapper of all-time. Yet even at his cockiest, while performing in a genre that's built on braggadocio, Jay-Z would never even jokingly claim to be a bigger star or more talented than his wife. The President and First Lady surprised a school of kids recently. One of the classroom's students told the Commander-and-Chief that she was disappointed when she found out it was Barack not Beyoncé who ended up being the school's mystery guest.
Kids know better. We do too. It's okay. It's nothing to be mad about. Be grateful she seems to handle being superior to us in stride, rather than rubbing it in all of our faces. She does her best to make it seem like she might play along and pretend you were on her level if you met her one day. Which is both sweet and cute.
Speaking of sweet and cute, have you seen young children when they're in the warm embrace of Beyoncé's effervescent presence? It's a powerful thing. Here are five examples of Queen Bey, visiting with the most youthful members of her flock, with the results being flawless. Give thanks and praise. Because if you can actually watch these and hate on a smiling Beyoncé, bringing big grins to the globe's freshest faces...then you have plundered deeply into depths of cynicism and self-loathing we hope to never discover.
Surprising Students at Harlem PS 161
The kids are just having an average day, working thru the paces of the dance routine they’ve been practicing in the gym of Harlem PS 161. The girl in the hoop earrings in the front middle, in particular, is doing her thing but it’s still a regular day. Then in comes a big surprise at around the minute-and-a-half mark. And while I shouldn’t be surprised that Queen Bey can hop into the middle of a dance troupe in what appear to be six-inch heels and then work her way thru the routine without missing a step or breaking a sweat…I still kind of am anyway. Credit these kids for still maintaining their focus after the beacon of light beams down on them.
Speaking to Kid President About World Humanitarian Day
Kid President (Robby Novak) is a 9-year-old (at the time of this taping) actor with osteogenesis imperfecta aka brittle bone disease. He has fractured an estimated 70-75 bones in his brief life thus far but also has his own web series, does TV work and is actively involved in heading up a wide variety of charity campaigns. Kid President, like all kids, is a big Beyoncé fan. He made a video appeal for a meeting with her around the time of her tenure as Ambassador of 2013’s World Humanitarian Day. The Queen caught wind of the request online and of course obliged…Kid President gets a little more than he could have even hoped for by the end of the conversation.
Singing Halo Acoustic in Singapore Children’s Hospital Ward
Now we’re cooking with gas, as we finally get to what Beyoncé does best: sing. This clip needs no explanation, other than if you’re somehow in a real hurry, you can skip to the 3-minute mark if you just want to hear the performance. This stripped-down, un-mic-d, non-professionally-recorded, off-the-cuff performance, for a group of sick children, on the other side of the world, somehow ends up being perhaps the best testament to the power of her vocal talent that you can find online.
At Age 12 Performing As Part Of Girls Tyme on Star Search
Now we know Queen Bey is for the children…but before she made that one of her many life’s missions, she had to first go thru the highs and lows of being a kid herself. You can see some of what made her a star present here, while in yellow she takes the singing lead, in between some horrible rapping parts, plus generally controls the stage when the rest aren’t in the way.
Kelly Rowland is present here as well, since Girls Tyme’s lineup is similar to the original four-member roster of Destiny’s Child, that Wyclef would go on to produce four years later. But mostly what you notice is how insipid the song is even for a kids’ act. It’s 1993 and all you have to do is watch this clip to see how hugely influential TLC was at the time, while also how truly impossible it was for any other act to really pull that style off successfully.
Girls Tyme are competing against a rock act called Skeleton Crew, who were the defending champions and end up holding onto their crown this night. More than two decades later, Beyoncé would snatch a “Flawless” victory, from the jaws of defeat, by re-appropriating the footage for a video album, to much commercial and critical acclaim. Remember kids, even your L’s can end up as W’s, with a little bit of time to use them for fuel, or figure out how to flip ‘em.
Blue Featuring Blue Ivy Carter
From being a kid to having one…The Queen & The Princess enjoy the Brazilian coastline, as well as various kids playing soccer, dancing, running on the beach, etc. It’s a video whose vibe calls to mind Bey’s younger sister Solange’s “Losing You” clip from two years prior. This is probably because both are shot by frequent Bey video director Melina Matsoukas. Keep the lens love in the family Bey, we’ve seen that Solange is a ride-or-die little sis. And if Solange's 2012 single had been a Madonna song, which it kinda sounds like, it would have been Madonna's biggest hit since "Music" easily, as it is pure and undeniable ear candy.
As for Yung B-I-C, just reaching the walking age at the time of this video’s making…a feature on this record makes for a nice publishing-royalty/college-fund account to tap into later. Although if Blue Ivy wants to go to your college, you’re better off just giving her a scholarship anyway, her attendance would more than pay off with all the additional enrollment her name will generate for the university. As you can see from the picture atop this post from the 2016 VMAs, Blue seems to be a quick study.
