It’s not a Beyoncé comeback if it doesn’t “trigger all this dialog”, and the musician’s first live performance in additional than 4 years has been no exception. Over the weekend, Beyoncé was paid a reported $24m to carry out on the unofficial opening of luxurious Dubai lodge Atlantis the Royal, in entrance of an invitation-only viewers of celebrities, influencers and journalists. However this selection of location for Beyoncé’s return to dwell efficiency – her first because the launch of final yr’s extensively acclaimed Renaissance, though not one of the album’s tracks have been on the set listing – has proved divisive.
Followers could nicely really feel disillusioned to see Beyoncé prioritise a non-public efficiency in Dubai for largely rich attenders, together with Ronan Keating and Michelle Keegan of all folks, on condition that she’s but to launch movies for the album, not to mention announce the long-anticipated Renaissance tour – for which ticket costs are anticipated to be eye-watering. However the majority of on-line criticism has been pushed by UAE’s legal guidelines criminalising homosexuality and gender reassignment.
To some, Beyoncé’s efficiency within the UAE undermines the specific goal of Renaissance, which she has devoted to Black queer tradition. As anticipated, the efficiency has led to a heated on-line tug-of-war between righteous criticism and livid defence from devoted stans. Some defenders of Beyoncé have famous that UAE isn’t the one nation with anti-LGBTQ+ laws, questioning if folks would protest at her performing in her residence state of Texas – the place laws outlawing sodomy, although made defunct by the Lawrence v Texas 2003 supreme courtroom ruling, nonetheless exists, and should even be reinstated following the overturning of Roe v Wade – and saying that queer Emiratis need to see Beyoncé dwell, too. And lots of have accurately identified that Kylie Minogue’s New Yr’s Eve set at Atlantis the Royal ought to have come underneath equal hearth – though the anticipation for Beyoncé’s dwell return, plus her wider worldwide enchantment, heightened the response to her efficiency. (In the meantime Spice Lady Melanie C cancelled a New Yr’s Eve efficiency in Poland after being made conscious of points “that don’t align with the communities I assist”: extensively inferred to be the state of LGBTQ+ rights within the nation.)
Representatives for Beyoncé haven’t responded to requests for touch upon her determination to carry out within the nation. Defenders amongst her fanbase have additionally famous that there have been no recorded arrests, prosecutions or state punishments for same-sex sexual exercise within the UAE since at the least 2015. But it surely bears stating that 88.1% of UAE’s total population is made up of migrant workers: what this implies in follow, as research by the London School of Economics has shown, is that each homosexual Emiratis (by citizenship) and rich migrant staff (by class) have been privileged sufficient to successfully navigate UAE’s underground homosexual social scene whereas evading Emirati authorities. However for poorer, queer migrant staff from India, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines, lots of whom are undocumented, or have been denied birth certificates, it can’t be assumed {that a} lack of recorded prosecutions signifies that the UAE has been secure for them.
The problem of migrant labour provides a further dimension to conversations on the ethics of concert events – it’s as a lot about the place Beyoncé performs as who she’s carried out for and who she’s accepted cash from, particularly enterprise magnates whose actions are inextricably linked with the state and irritate the worst excesses of inequality and exploitation. The UAE has legal guidelines and initiatives to guard migrant staff, and but allegations are rife that a lot of Dubai’s luxurious playground has been constructed underneath appalling circumstances amounting to indentured servitude.
The particular labour circumstances behind the development of Atlantis the Royal – owned by Kerzner Worldwide, which has an estimated yearly income of $3.1bn and was based by the late South African enterprise magnate Sol Kerzner – are unknown. However with the Funding Corp of Dubai, the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, purchasing a stake in Kerzner in 2014, there’s a direct shared curiosity between the state and the constructing of luxurious lodges. {That a} hypothetical rich homosexual Emirati may take pleasure in seeing Beyoncé carry out is of little relevance to this materials actuality. Renaissance’s lead single, Break My Soul, could have been billed because the pro-worker Nice Resignation anthem of final summer time, however it’s muted when cash talks.
Even ardent Beyoncé followers ought to discover it onerous to be shocked. As writer and broadcaster Emma Dabiri wrote of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2022 Oscars afterparty crossing the picket line of Chateau Marmont workers, rich celebrities are “untroubled” by the “inconvenient calls for” of exploited staff – although within the case of Atlantis, staff don’t also have a voice or discussion board for criticism because of the UAE’s lack of commerce unions. And but, many followers nonetheless prostrate themselves to defend her, unwilling to countenance the capitalist realities of her mission as if it would undermine their love for her deeply felt music. It’s not a contradiction for each to coexist. Why not have it each methods? Beyoncé actually does.