5:40 PM

BlackBook talks about Beyonce’s amazing all-female band

One of the coolest things about Beyoncé’s live show won’t get nearly as much play as the impressive choreography or the light show or the ’90s-kid-Twitter-detonating reunion, and that is The Suga Mamas, Beyoncé’s all-female tour band, with whom she has been touring for years (as NPR’s Ann Powers helpfully pointed out, “not a gimmick”).

An all-female backing band may be part of her image and a very deliberate decision, but in an age where women playing rock instruments is still totally novel to a lot of people because most of America and the world is in a dumb time warp about stuff like this and women who are guitarists, drummers, etc. still have to “prove” themselves more than their male counterparts, to have The Suga Mamas on the biggest and most mainstream stage, performing to millions the world over, is really goddamn impressive, even if they were supporting one of the biggest names in music and of course they’d be there. 

And leading this pack is Bibi McGill, who in addition to having a pretty incredible stage presence and complementing Our Bey well, can play like nobody’s business. It’s a shame people probably missed her playing because everyone was waiting so attentively to see if Destiny’s Child would show up, because it was boss. There were pyrotechnics. There was shredding. The planets aligned and all was well.

Find out about every member of The Sugar Mamas, Beyonce’s all female band here.