Sheila Watko’s creativity caught the attention of Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, who shared the clip on Instagram.
Beyoncé’s long-awaited new album RENAISSANCE is now a week old, and the Beyhive is still buzzing strong with praise for the 16-track masterpiece – but a Philadelphia traffic reporter’s shoutout to Queen Bey may be the most creative yet.
NBC traffic reporter Sheila Watko this week cleverly incorporated 15 Beyoncé song titles and references into a now-viral segment that caught the attention of Tina Knowles-Lawson, mother of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles, according to NBC News.
“If you’re just waking up, I hope you had some ‘Sweet Dreams’ … I just heard a groan,” Watko begins with a laugh. “But traffic is getting ‘Heated,’ and it’s starting to ‘Break My Soul’ just a little bit.”
Watko continues to seamlessly fill the 90-second morning segment on NBC10 in Philadelphia with Beyoncé references including “All Up In Your Mind,” “Listen,” “Beautiful Liar,” “Countdown,” “Formation,” “To The Left To The Left,” “Partition,” “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “Bey,” “Crazy in Love,” and “XO.”
“We had to celebrate our girl Beyoncé,” said Watko, noting that she had been planning the shoutout since the Friday, July 29 drop of RENAISSANCE, Beyonce’s first full-length release in six years.
Watko’s colleagues joined in on the celebration following the segment, with co-anchor Erin Coleman referencing the popular lyric “put a ring on it” and co-anchor Keith Jones saying that “Watko should ‘Run the World” after nailing the non-scripted segment, according to NBC News.
Watko’s creativity was lauded on social media, and Knowles-Lawson posted the clip on Instagram with the caption: “This Soo cool !!”
According to Variety, Bey’s latest album is projected to debut at No.1 on Billboard 200 albums chart after the most successful opening week of any album this year – earning more than 50.6 million official U.S. streams on the first day of its release, reaching more than 100 million hits by day three.
Upon releasing the cover art for RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé explained via her Instagram page in June that making the album was a freeing relief for her amid the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale global shutdowns.
“Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world,” the 28-time Grammy winner wrote. “It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving.”
“My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgment,” she wrote. “A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking. A place to scream, release, feel freedom.”
theGrio’s Matthew Allen contributed to this report.
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