Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Tour Felt Like A Revolution For Southern Black Women—And I’ve Never Felt More Seen [Op-Ed] - Page 2

2. Legacy Provides A Sense Of Purpose

Before the show concludes, a montage of Beyoncè’s now 28-year career appears on the screen, highlighting where it all started, from competing in Houston pageants to her days as a member of the iconic girl group Destiny’s Child, to the very beginning of her solo career. 

The show also features Easter eggs, such as salon chairs that grace the stage, nodding to her mother’s salon, Headliners, which she opened in the early 1990s, and catalyzed Destiny’s Child’s early career. As Tina Knowles, affectionately known as Mama Tina, notes in her 2025 memoir, The Matriach, the salon was a stage for the girls in the group, reminiscing about how they would sing and perform for patrons, sometimes against their will, helping them to get comfortable in front of an audience.

Other nods to the legacy she is building through her expansive music career include visual interludes where snippets from her catalog are mashed up, such as “Spaghetti” being infused with bits of “Run the World (Girls),” “My Power,” and “Flawless” being intertwined at one point. There’s a rendition of “Thique” that honors her Destiny’s Child days as it included samples of “Say My Name” and “Bills, Bills, Bills.”

On the final night of the Cowboy Carter Tour in Las Vegas, Destiny’s Child reunited on stage for the first time since Beyonce’s historic 2018 Coachella headline performance, also known as Beychella. If that’s not the ultimate nod to her legacy, I don’t know what else is. Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, and Beyoncè hit the stage as full-grown women, not missing a single beat, and in synchronization just as they were for many years before branching off for their respective solo careers.

I left both tour stops encouraged to continue to explore my family’s sharecropping roots, and what it has meant for me to tie that into my own line of work through a short documentary titled Voices Unheard, which explores my late great-grandfather, John Moses Bonner, and the role he played in the Black Farmers Movement in Central Virginia.