What a showstopper!
ON the back of wide praise for her two-hour performance at the Coachella music festival, Beyonce on Monday said she was offering US$100,000 (RM388,977) in scholarship money to students at four historically black colleges and universities.
The Homecoming Scholars Award Program for the 2018-19 academic year will give away US$25,000 (RM97,244) in scholarship money to a student respectively at Xavier University of Louisiana, Wilberforce University in Ohio, Tuskegee University in Alabama and Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, the Lemonade album singer’s foundation said.
Beyonce’s performance at the Coachella festival in the Southern California desert on Saturday was billed as a homage to education and black American culture, featuring a marching band, performance art, choir and dance. She was supported by more than 150 performers on stage.
It was the first time a black woman headlined the two-weekend festival, one of the biggest US music gatherings of the year.
During her Coachella show, Beyonce also delighted fans with a rare reunion of her former trio Destiny’s Child.
Before some 100,000 people in the southern California desert, she headlined the second night of the premier music festival, ending a year-long hiatus from live music as she gave birth to twins.
Beyonce showed no sign of slowing down after her maternity leave, singing and strutting her stuff with little break for two hours.
Her husband, rap mogul Jay-Z, popped up on stage towards the end of her set to join in their song Deja Vu.
Fellow Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams joined Beyonce for three of the trio’s songs, including Say My Name. It was their first reunion since Beyonce’s Super Bowl half-time show in 2013.
Beyonce referred to her bandmates as her “sisters” – and was also joined on stage by her real sister, Solange Knowles.
Trade publication Variety called Beyonce’s show, her first in more than a year, a “musical, visual and physical triumph”. Beyonce will perform again at Coachella this Saturday and she and her husband are set to begin a US and European tour together in June.