Beyoncé. Queen Bey. Beysus. For god’s sake, Microsoft Word just autocorrected her name so that the accent mark was there and in the correct place! For Beyoncé fans, including myself, none of these nicknames connotes high enough praise.
It seems like MTV cannot agree with us more because this year, they awarded her the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award for musicians. Her closing performance was over fifteen minutes long, and she performed portions of almost the entirety of her latest album. Yeah, that album that dropped unannounced with music videos for each and every song and that almost broke the Internet (or at the very least Tumblr and Twitter). And man it was amazing: How could they not give her that award this year? It was a full music video album! Only Queen Bey would have the audacity to do something like that.
The incredible medley included all the biggest hits off her latest self-titled album and then some additional classics. There was no bothering with crazy sets or multiple costume changes; she just allowed her incredible stage presence to do the talking. Popular elements of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s joint On The Run Tour made an appearance, such as the incredible choreography and props — ahem, that special chair and the poles for “Partition.”
She even had the audience sing along (and probably die a little bit from the power that is Beyoncé) to “Drunk In Love” among plenty of other awesome surprises ... like who knew full-on body glitter could really become an awesome costume-slash-backdrop for Beysus?
But let’s talk about those dance moves really quickly, because I dare you to find anyone who wasn’t even a little bit turned on by Queen Bey at some point during this performance. I can actually look back through my tweets from when I first watched the performance. Her intensity, fierceness and downright sex appeal is something I will never be able to properly emulate.
And then, making even more of a statement, Beyoncé sampled from the incomparable writer and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, proudly declaring herself a feminist — probably creating one of the most iconic images of modern feminism in the process — before launching into “Flawless.” She even threw in “that line” from the remix with Nicki Minaj, proudly defying all the haters who question her marriage and love for her family.
One of the things I love about Beyoncé is that she’s an incredible example of having it all: She works her ass off (well, not actually since she’s eternally “Bootylicious”) to be incredibly successful, she is clearly a loving mother with a supportive family and she’s a woman who is clearly in absolute control of her sexuality, who isn’t afraid to be both feminine and sexy while declaring her independence and feminist power.
Speaking of, if you weren’t a complete emotional wreck by the time she was singing “Blue” to her adorable daughter in the audience while a montage of home videos played behind her with snippets of Blue saying “mommy,” I’m pretty sure you’re not a true fan. Just kidding. But not really.
To close out the show, she dedicated one of my favorite songs on her music video album, “XO,” to her “incredible fans” and at that point I was actually crying (don’t judge me). For someone who would not call herself religious, I had somewhat of a religious experience watching Bey’s performance at this year’s MTV VMAs. She managed to be both vulnerable, powerful, sexy, maternal and more all in one performance. And let’s be honest, whenever Beyoncé says “BOW DOWN BITCHES!” everybody does.
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