Announced at the start of Black History Month and billed as the “Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin’ Circuit” tour, Beyoncé will take her Grammy award-winning album on the road.
Historically, artists around the world have marketed their tours as “world” tours, all the while leaving out continents like South America and Africa. Reasons for the lack of tour dates in these continents include lack of infrastructure, limited profitability, low demand, and a number of other challenges. Yet even in instances where entire continents are routinely excluded from the tours of prominent musicians, the tour is still marketed as a worldwide event.
The announcement of Beyoncé’s upcoming 2025 Cowboy Carter tour offers hope for a future in touring where Africa isn’t erased. The Grammy-award winner did this with the omission of one word — “world”.
Beyoncé is no stranger to exclusionary tour marketing. “MRS. CARTER SHOW WORLD TOUR,” “Formation World Tour” and “Renaissance World Tour” all excluded dates for Africa. Did the continent where human life originated magically drop off the globe? No.
World tours that excluded Africa and/or South America within the past 10 years include Rihanna’s “ANTI World Tour”, The Weeknd’s “Starboy: Legend of the Fall 2017 World Tour” and “After Hours World Tour” (currently “After Hours ‘Til Dawn Tour”), Kendrick Lamar’s “The Big Steppers Tour”, and Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable World Tour”. All of these tours were marketed as “worldwide” or “world tour” events.
With her upcoming 2025 tour, Beyoncé is set to travel to nine cities, across three countries and two continents. All of the announcement material acknowledges the “16 Carriages” singer’s shows as a “tour”. In this way, continents she won’t be visiting, like Africa, aren’t erased from the world music stage and the overall erasure of Global South nations.
While it might seem trivial, there’s something ethically bankrupt about the constant exclusion of Africa from purported “world” tours. To refer to something as a world tour when it isn’t only serves to enrich the prestige of the performing artist. As sexy as it may appear to be seen embarking on a “world” tour might be, it’s disingenuous.
Many artists are globally beloved with audiences around the globe. That being said, not all entertain their global audiences with live performances — those shows are reserved for tour-friendly markets.
Artists like Beyoncé do a great service to changing how touring is communicated by being sincere about the extent of their shows. Admitting a tour’s internationality is far better than misrepresenting its worldwide aspirations.