CLEVELAND_Backed up by pantsuit-clad dancers, Beyonce sang "Who run the world? Girls!" and declared: "I'm with her."
Queen Bey's performance followed her husband, Jay Z, and a collection of other top rappers at a get-out-the-vote concert here Friday that doubled as a high-wattage campaign event for Hillary Clinton.
Clinton quoted Jay Z, referring to him as "Jay," in tracing the civil rights movement to President Barack Obama's election.
"We have unfinished business to do, more barriers to break, and with your help, a glass ceiling to crack once and for all," she said to the raucous crowd. "So please take this energy out with you.
Clinton's stop in Cleveland came amid a furious final week of campaigning with some of her biggest supporters from the political and entertainment worlds.
On Thursday she was joined by Bernie Sanders and Pharrell Williams in North Carolina. She'll return to Cleveland again Sunday for an event with LeBron James. And Monday she will close her campaign with her husband, daughter and the Obamas.
Friday night's event was originally advertised as featuring only Jay Z, but as Clinton headed for Cleveland after a pair of stops in Pennsylvania and Michigan, her campaign informed reporters that the rapper was bringing some special guests as well.
The series of performances, vulgar lyrics and all, were interspersed with pitches for Clinton.
"I'm here tonight because respect matters to me," Jay Z said.
"It doesn't really matter who I am. I'm here to celebrate our next and first woman president," Chance the Rapper said.
Beyonce, though, was the show-stopper, including a duet with her husband.
Beyonce recalled the pride she felt in seeing Obama, the nation's first black president, elected eight years ago. Now, the nation was on the cusp of history again, she predicted.
"But we have to vote," she said. " ... We have to think about the future of our daughters, our sons, and vote for someone who believes in them as much as we do. And that's why I'm with her."
