You couldn’t get two more polar opposite pop stars than Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé. But in 2018, the stars aligned for a spectacular duet at New York City’s Global Citizens Festival.
Singing Sheeran’s unstoppable hit single “Perfect” the year after its release, the hype was vibrant as Ed, sporting his laid-back t-shirt and jeans garb, took to the Central Park stage with a red-carpet dressed Beyoncé, sporting a shockingly pink, trailing gown that looks plucked from a couture runway.
While their wardrobes magnified the interesting polarity between American A-list vocalists and British, Chris-Martin-casual singer-songwriters, Ed and Beyoncé’s voices proved a match made in heaven. As Ed took on the first half of his hit solo, the crowd lapped it up, and The Music Man couldn’t believe how loudly Ed’s fans belted every word of his hit back to him, almost drowning out the star. But by the time Beyoncé’s verse begins, the 60,000-person crowd fell silent, bewitched by the rare moment.
Beyoncé is one of those singers who can nail any song thrown her way, and she didn’t let the Global Citizens Fest down for a moment. Her effortlessly majestic take on “Perfect” even accentuated the otherwise unnoticeable imperfections of Ed’s following solo lines, almost sub-par to Bey’s soulful runs, and leaving fans feeling robbed of an official Beyoncé cover.
Together, Ed and Beyoncé served the mystical balance inherent to any spellbinding duet. As the last chorus finally saw the stars sing in harmony, the two would have blown the roof off if there was one – Ed’s chart-breaking original melodies topped by Beyoncé’s ribboning ad-libs. The chemistry was almost heart-melting, Beyoncé full of smiles as ever as Ed’s focus held down the fort, before bowing to Bey as his final chord rang out.
The Global Citizens Festival, est. 2012, showcases music with a mission — “calling on world leaders to fulfill their obligation to achieve the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development and end extreme poverty by 2030.” Performing on the same 2018 bill as Ed and Beyoncé were The Weeknd, Janet Jackson, John Legend, Shawn Mendes, Cardi B, and Janelle Monae.
According to their site, their extensive list of goals includes: “ensuring people don’t suffer needlessly from preventable diseases; giving every child access to a quality education; getting US states to banish child marriage with new laws; making sure all people have access to enough nutritious food and clean drinking water; prioritizing menstrual hygiene; reducing the amount of single-use plastics that are used; eliminating bail bond programs that unfairly target the poor; and more.”
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