You know Ni'Jah. Every last inch of her gleams: her hair, her eyes, her teeth, the beads and paillettes that shimmer with each hip thrust or arm swing, but, most of all, her skin. She looks the way royalty should. Her pronouncements, delivered in songs and music videos, move mountains. And, as with any queen, her domestic orbit is common knowledge: the rapper husband with the capitalist hustle and the wandering eye, their twins, the gifted but hopelessly overshadowed younger sister. Ni'Jah's popularity alone is the subject of intense debate the masses are perpetually at war over whether she's overrated or un-derappreciated but at the edges of her public image linger other controversies: the elevator brawl, the face bite, Becky.
Yet the object of fascination in "Swarm," Donald Glover and Janine Nabers's new horror-thriller series, isn't this unmistakable Beyoncé stand-in. Rather, it's the ferocious devotion that she, or any superstar, can inspire. The show's hook is irresistible: a Ni'Jah mega-fan named Dre (played by Dominique Fishback) stalks and kills anyone who disrespects her favorite singer. A more absurdist version of the character would've been right at home in Glover's "Atlanta," for which Nabers also wrote; that show's final season featured a serial killer who targets the participants of a social-media dance challenge set to Soulja Boy's 2007 hit "Crank That." But this darker, meaner series, on Prime Video, succeeds neither as satire nor as psychological study. Give it a couple of shakes and the glitter falls right off.
This story is from the March 27, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the March 27, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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