Beyonce Dedicates Video Music Award to New Orleans

by: Leave a comment

Beyoncé dedicated her Video of the Year Award to New Orleans at MTV’s Video Music Awards ceremony on Sunday night.

The superstar extraordinaire took home the award for “Formation,” a New Orleans-shot video that–somewhat controversially–included imagery of the city’s post-Katrina landscape, as well as shots of the singer on top of a flooded NOPD cruiser. Some fans derided the video as an unjustified appropriation of New Orleans’ Katrina experience, while others called the criticism overblown.

That debate didn’t seem to phase VMA voters, who gave the night’s biggest award to the Melina Matsoukas-directed video.

“Formation” was used as the lead single for Beyoncé’s smash hit 2016 album, Lemonade. In addition to the video’s Katrina references, the song also paid tribute to the Crescent City by including an appearance from bounce star Big Freedia and a sample of slain New Orleans rapper Messy Mya.

The award comes just a few weeks before the singer is slated to bring her Formation World Tour to New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome. tickets for the highly-anticipated show are still on sale.