We Should Be Rooting For Blue Ivy Dancing On Tour With Beyoncé — Not Hating On Her

After an extended hiatus from the stage, Beyoncé is officially back and doing what she does best: killing it onstage. Just a few stops into its European leg, the Renaissance World Tour is already the Afrofuturistic dance extravaganza of our dreams, and it’s solidifying Bey’s place as the world’s greatest living performer. Well, soon, she may be the second greatest — after her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.

Beyoncé dropped Renaissance almost exactly a year ago, and, of course,  the world stopped. The 16-track masterpiece marks Beyoncé’s best vocals yet — no small feat considering her near-flawless discography — and is a glittering fusion of disco, pop, house, dance, and R&B, paying homage to the beauty of the ballroom scene and the often undervalued contributions of queer people to pop culture as we know it. It rocked the music industry, making history at the 2022 Grammy Awards and nearly sweeping the awards show. (Watch your back, Recording Academy. The North remembers.) 

Naturally, the announcement of the Renaissance World Tour months later sent the BeyHive into a frenzy. We didn’t know what we were going to get when the tour started in May other than Beyoncé’s standard excellence, but the Grammy winner somehow managed to even exceed our sky-high expectations. Crisp studio-quality vocals, gorgeous couture costume changes, a diverse group of dancers plucked straight from the ballroom scene, a Les Twins comeback, pyrotechnics and robotics, a star-studded guestlist — the shows were everything and then some. And just when we thought the tour couldn’t get any better, Beyoncé pulled a card we never saw coming: a Blue Ivy guest performance.

During her performance of Black is King sleeper hit “My Power” on the Paris stop of the tour, Blue Ivy rises from beneath the stage dressed in the same bedazzled red uniform as her mom and the dancers. Smiling shyly at the raucous applause that followed, the 11-year-old waved to the crowd before breaking out into the fast-paced choreography. To the surprise of no one, Blue was absolutely fantastic onstage. Yet somehow, there were still adults rushing to Beyoncé’s internet with something nasty to say about a literal child having fun, questioning why she was on the stage to begin with and even calling her dancing “mid.” Grown people. Criticising a kid. Not on my watch! 

Let’s talk facts: Blue Ivy is actually a really great performer. Sure, she might have been a little shy the first time (ever!) sharing the stage with her mom, but who among us hasn’t gotten a case of stage fright before? Especially as a kid! More importantly, whatever nerves she might have been working through didn’t even last all that long; Blue Ivy has popped up during multiple “My Power” dance breaks since her stage debut, and each performance has been better than the last. There’s more energy in her movements, more precision, more personality. She’s keeping up with seasoned dancers and not losing her cool in front of sold out stadiums, which is something that even professional artists struggle to do every now and then. We’re seeing, in real time, this baby become more sure of herself by the second on stage, and it’s a beautiful testament to Beyoncé intentionally fostering the love of music and performing that runs in Blue Ivy’s veins. Queen Bey isn’t pushing Blue in the same way that she and Destiny’s Child were primed to be the next big thing (we all know about the infamous Matthew Knowles bootcamps), but just by simply letting her be who she naturally is: a star. 

Beyoncé has been subjected to an intense level of scrutiny and negativity over the years, and now it’s clear that she’s being intentional about protecting all of her children and making sure that they can be comfortable in their skin. There’s a reason why she’s so careful about where her kids are seen these days; a lot of people have been horrible to Blue Ivy since the moment she came into this world. She’s been cyberbullied for everything from her facial features to her hair texture to her “attitude,” and now people are taking issue with her dancing and having fun with her mom at work. 

It’s unfortunate to see so many people falling over themselves to speak negatively about a child just living her life, but it hurts even more when that negativity comes from within our own community. Little Black kids are supposed to be able to be happy and silly and free, to have fun and act like kids without being bullied for it. She’s not our daughter — she’s our internet niece — but we should still be rooting for her, cheering her on so she knows that, in a world that so often snuffs out the joy of Black children, we’re on her side. At the very least, she should be safe with us, so we’re supposed to protect her, not be her first bullies.

Ultimately, Blue Ivy will keep doing her thing regardless of what the naysayers (who, by the way, are chatting nonsense from their beds but will likely never ever get the chance share a stage with Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter) say or tweet, and she’s only going to get better with time and practice. (We’ve seen the BTS footage from Homecoming. Our niece goes full-out in those rehearsals.) Under the proud but watchful eye of her mum, Blue Ivy will continue to thrive. So don’t be ugly — be grateful. We should be so lucky to be able to bear witness to a legend in the making.