'Homecoming' a documentary about Beyoncé and her celebrated performance at Coachella drops on Netflix today.

When Beyoncé emerged as Nefertiti at Coachella in 2018, it was not an "error" that can be overlooked. It was not as simple as an artistic throwback. Emerging as Nefertiti did not stop at the quality of pure aesthetics and an ode to beauty, pleasing only to the eye. No.

The cosplay of the black queen of the Nile extends beyond the metaphor of a monarch that one bows to. Nefertiti, more than a symbol of beauty, is also recorded on the walls of multiple tombs and temples as being in a position of power and authority - often smiting an enemy. She is not a woman who proves her power, her worth, her significance.

Like the answer to an equation which will always remain constant, Nefertiti is already proven and remains proof over and over again, like so many other women of colour, that our story is not only one of constant grind, it is one of perpetual and effortless greatness.

INTENSITY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

In 1965 Nina Simone performed a song that told the story of "four Negro women". The narrative begins with the first woman who says: "My skin is black, my arms are long, my hair is woolly, my back is strong". Simone's casual chant of the song's lyrics fell on the ears of a homogenously white young crowd in Holland.

Her delivery of the song, historically, has been known to be slightly weary but sometimes, like this specific night, the maestro beat each word out with a hammer of history that fell harshly on the ears of the young Dutch listeners. Her message was old. It was one of the suffering of black women in America but it also contained the exhalation of a long-suppressed anger by those very women.

These variables, this message, this delivery, this performance by a black singer to a white crowd is not work. It is life. Pain is performance, and performance is pain and Nina Simone did not have to prove any of those things. She simply had to sing it. That night that white audience found themselves rapt in the rapture of a black woman entertainer. It was not the first time. And it would not be the last.