Beyoncé’s Performance Of The National Anthem Has Fans Theorizing About Imagery On Stage
In April of this year, Beyoncé kicked off her all-stadium Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit Tour, supporting her 2024 album Cowboy Carter. This album has divided fans in the country music scene, yet went on to win the Grammy awards for Best Country Album and Album of the Year.
Now, as video from the tour begins to appear online, some fans are wondering about the presentation of “The Star Spangled Banner” leading up to her 2016 song “Freedom.”
One Instagram user responded to this video, saying, “I rebuke this video in the mighty name of Jesus.”
“The Star-Spangled Banner”
At sporting events or civic gatherings, the National Anthem is a unifying song, reminding attendees of the sacrifices made to preserve the nation’s freedom.
However, at the Cowboy Carter Tour, it’s presented in a manner which evokes a sensation of dread.
Known for her visual albums, like Lemonade (2016), this kind of performance is in keeping with what “the Beyhive” has come to expect from the genre- and media-bending artist.
Set to Jimi Hendrix’s famous electric guitar rendition of the National Anthem, the Jumbotron shows a digital display of an American flag that is riddled with holes. The flag then begins to pixelate in a glitch art style.
Then, a haunting image of Beyoncé’s face, covered entirely in white lace, turns toward the spectator as the flag glitches. A crow flies in front of her and the flag, and the screen then cuts to black.
Beyoncé then can be seen standing on stage, with a giant live image of herself displayed within the shape of a triangle as she begins singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Among the fans in the audience, few, if any, can be seen removing their hats for the song.
Around the triangle, the screen fluctuates in color as she sings, cycling between red, white, and blue. Strobe lights flicker, and, eventually, stars and stripes intermittently appear on screen.
At one point during the performance, the following words appear in red on the Jumbotron:
“Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.”
As she sings the word “ramparts,” her voice takes a dive, as if she is glitching, before the song ends at “were so gallantly streaming?” instead of concluding the song at its traditional end.
From there, the song transitions into “Freedom.”
Watch the video of Beyoncé’s performance, here:
Online Viewers Respond
In an instagram video of the performance that was uploaded on July 1, many viewers and fans had something to say of her rendition of the National Anthem.
One viewer wrote:
“This isn’t a tribute. It’s a ritual. You’re watching a coded performance of inversion, not rebellion … Y’all keep cheering because it ‘looks’ like us, but can’t see it was never meant for us. Keep clapping for your own damn spellwork. That’s how they trap you, with glitter, sound, and nostalgia. Beyoncé isn’t liberating you. She’s leading you deeper into the simulation. They all do this. Y’all need to wake up!”
Another wrote, “All I see is Satan worshipping.”
Looking to the shape of the triangle she is seen performing on screen within, one viewer wrote, “I see the illuminati triangle she performing in.”
This triangle, or pyramid symbol, is often associated with the Illuminati. Notably, Beyoncé’s husband, rapper Jay-Z, has famously brandished this symbol during his performances for many years.
Jay-Z has addressed this symbol and its use in his own performances, dubbing it the Roc-A-Fella Diamond, stating that he had been working with the R&B group Christión in 1996, with the hope that they’d sell 10 million records.
“When you sell 10 million, you go diamond,” Jay-Z said at the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library’s Book of Hov exhibit. “We believed in them so heavy it was like, ‘This group is going to sell 10 million records!’ So we start putting the diamond up for Christión. That’s how it all came about.”
One more sampling of the comments finds a fan defending Beyoncé’s artistic choices, saying:
“I dont believe that she is as ‘demonic’ as people think. Maybe its more spiritually inclined ? Idk but it seems as though she has to talk in ‘code’ because we know what happens to people who speak out against the ‘matrix.’”
Here, an earlier performance of Beyoncé singing the National Anthem at her 2025 tour can be seen:
@tomasmier Beyoncé performs Star-Spangled Banner at Cowboy Carter tour opening night in LA #beyonce #cowboycartertour #cowboycarter #beyonceconcert #beyoncefans #beyonceshow @Beyoncé ♬ original sound – tomás mier