The quick wave and tired smile she gave fans on her arrival at Johannesburg’s Lanseria Airport on Thursday afternoon after a long-haul flight was just a foretaste of what is to come.
Arguably the world’s biggest star, Beyoncé Knowles will be headlining Mzansi’s biggest concert of the year – perhaps the decade – at the FNB stadium on Sunday.
“Queen Bey”, as she is fondly known, will be joined by her superstar husband, rapper Jay-Z, R&B singer Usher, hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams, Chris Martin, lead singer of British band Coldplay, SA megastars Black Coffee and Cassper Nyovest, Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage and singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran, among many others, at the Global Citizen Festival.
And it’s all for a good cause: the annual music festival organised by the Global Poverty Project aims to end extreme poverty by 2030, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
More than 60,000 people from SA, Swaziland and Lesotho won tickets to the festival in a draw after raising awareness of poverty through charity work, tweeting about it, signing petitions and other good deeds. The star-studded lineup has had fans losing their minds for months, and the final ticket draw left many who did not make the cut disappointed and angry.
On Thursday, a mob of fans at Lanseria could be heard screaming their lungs out for Beyoncé, who gave them a quick wave as she was hastily whisked away, protected by bodyguards and more than a dozen police officers.
One of the lucky fans to have won tickets to the event, Port Elizabeth resident Reade Foong, 18, said he was most looking forward to seeing JayZ perform live.
“I’m a big Jay-Z fan and I’ve always wanted to see him live. Pharrell and Cassper Nyovest are also acts I am keen to see,” Foong said.
Ahead of the festival, media mogul Oprah Winfrey delivered a keynote address during an event hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus on Thursday.
Winfrey shared fond memories of Madiba. “He was most concerned always about poverty and its devastation of people’s lives,” she said.
“He was most concerned about how poverty breeds violence, how poverty brings about a lack of healthcare and proper education.”
Sunday’s historic event will be presented by the Motsepe Foundation and will be attended by a host of A-listers, among them Naomi Campbell, Sir Bob Geldof, Gayle King, Tyler Perry and Forest Whitaker.