Beyoncé, the undisputed queen of the music world, knows how to make a splash. In December 2013, she unexpectedly released her fifth studio album, Beyoncé, which rose to the top of the Billboard 200 chart almost instantly. She's since stuck to the format—releasing music videos into the ether unannounced, leaving her devoted fanbase perpetually on the edge of their seats.
But what Queen Bey did over the weekend trumped any of her previous escapades. On Saturday, she dropped a brand-new music video and track, "Formation," which is perhaps the star's most direct look at the issue of systemic racism in America to date. Then, on Sunday, she performed an excerpt of the song at the Super Bowl halftime show before joining Bruno Mars and Coldplay for a crowd-pleasing rendition of "Uptown Funk." Then, in a marketing ploy so perfect that it almost hurts, she announced a 40-date tour in a commercial that immediately followed the halftime performance.
After it was all said and done, Beyoncé, well, out Beyoncé'd herself over the weekend. Her calculated-yet-organic promotional schemes, paired with a seemingly never-ending faucet of hits, make this writer believe that she is in fact a goddess incarnate. Whether or not she actually possesses divine powers is irrelevant—everyone needs to bow down to Queen Bey.