Ever since January 2017, the world has anticipated Beyoncé’s headlining performance at The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (usually referred to as merely Coachella or Chella for short). At the time, the songstress was set to headline the 2017 festival but postponed, as she was pregnant with twins Rumi and Sir Carter. Because of this, she was replaced by friend and fellow performer Lady Gaga. In reality, we have been waiting for Bey to take the Coachella stage for over a year, and it was well worth the wait.

As Beyoncé Knowles took the Coachella stage on April 14, 2018, she proved that she never ceases to make monumental moves in not only her career but in pop culture. She is the first woman of color to headline the renowned festival solo, but that did not stop her from bringing out special guests like sister Solange, partner Jay-Z, and Destiny’s Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

Beyoncé’s set was also the longest running in Coachella’s history, totaling up to nearly 2 hours (aka her own concert), and it broke records for being the most viewed performance on YouTube live-stream. Naturally, the phenomenon is breaking records left and right, and it is no surprise.

What came as a shock to many, however, was Beyoncé’s choice to infuse significant aspects of black culture. One of her performance outfits paid homage to traditional African fashion, and its gloriousness served as a look that could have come straight from Black Panther’s fictional country, Wakanda. According to Doreen St. Felix of The New Yorker, Beychella accentuated the “[horns of] New Orleans, Houston and its chopped and screwed beats, Brooklyn and its rap velocity, Kingston and its dancehall, and Nigeria and the legacy of its dissenter, Fela Kuti.”

While her set consisted of a variety of hits such as “Crazy in Love,” “Say My Name,” and “Run the World (Girls)”, Beyoncé also graced the audience with a cover of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, a song that was popularized by the American Civil Rights Movement. Every single performer on that stage, whether they be a dancer, backup vocalist, or marching band, was also a person of color. If you ever wondered what black excellence truly is, it’s Beychella.

Beyoncé was determined by the influences of her ground-breaking performance and what she wanted to pay homage to. Knowles fruitfully brought her vision to life in front of “a predominantly white crowd that mostly failed to pick up the reference,” according to Caroline Framke of Vox.

Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, stated that she was “afraid that the predominately white audience at Coachella would be confused by…the black culture and Black college culture,” regarding the singer’s choices.

She then proceeded to reveal her daughter’s reasoning: “She wanted to use her platform to elevate and educate people and to do what’s best for the world and not what is most popular.” While Beyoncé purposely referenced historically black colleges and universities (HCBU), she announced that she will sponsor scholarships to universities such as Tuskegee, Xavier, Wilberforce, and Bethune-Cookman this year. Through her performance, the singer wanted to encourage more students to attend these historical universities.

While the Coachella—pardon, Beychella—stage may never be the same, we can only anticipate what Beyoncé is going to grace us with during the second weekend of the notable music festival. How will she outdo herself this time?