Prime Video's "Swarm" Is Full of Beyoncé Easter Eggs — Here Are the Biggest Ones

Prime Video's thriller series "Swarm," starring Dominique Fishback, gives stan culture a whole new (deadly) meaning, and it chooses an enchanting Beyoncé-like icon as its main subject. The show, which premiered on March 17, is cocreated and executive produced by multihyphenate Donald Glover and "Atlanta" and "Watchmen" alum Janine Nabers. It also stars Fishback alongside notable names like Chloe Bailey and Damson Idris in the drama that follows an "obsessed fan of the world's biggest pop star who sets off on an unexpected cross-country journey."

Clearly, a lot of star power is invested in the show, but many are wondering if it has a connection to a real-life story that involves its very apparent inspiration, Beyoncé. So here's the deal.

In the weeks leading up to its release, many assumptions about "Swarm" buzzed around (pun intended) social media following the release of various trailers and small clips. In them, curious viewers have only seen brief glimpses of the show's fictional pop star, Ni'Jah (played by Nirine S. Brown), leading them to question the true inspiration behind the show.

"For us, it was really about finding the feeling that someone gives to Black women in America."

Despite Ni'Jah and her Beyhive-like fan base, called The Swarm, bearing a very close resemblance to Queen Bey's life, career, and overall aesthetic, Nabers has said that "Swarm" could be about any one of viewers' favorite icons. "For us, it was really about finding the feeling that someone gives to Black women in America," she explained to Billboard, refraining from calling Ni'Jah a Beyoncé-like character (though you can be the judge of that). "If you ask [Black women] who is the representation of them in the words of music and song and unapologetic Black girl realness, everyone's gonna have different answers. It's really about allowing us to see that Ni'Jah is that person for Dre. We can understand that the feeling is something like who we're familiar with. We're putting 'I feel that for this person' onto that face."

Still, it's almost impossible not to point out the obvious Beyoncé nods throughout "Swarm"'s seven episodes, all of which are prefaced with the following message: "This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is intentional."

So, for your viewing pleasure (and as a handy guide), we rounded up all the major Beyoncé Easter eggs you'll spot in "Swarm" ahead.

01
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 1: "Stung"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 1: "Stung"

  • The series starts in Houston, also Beyoncé's hometown, which she proudly reps in her music and real life.
  • In the episode's opening montage, one of Ni'Jah's most-streamed songs listed on Spotify is called "Love on a Cloud," similarly named after Beyoncé's "Love on Top" — which is also one of her most-streamed songs on the platform.
  • A Harper's Bazaar article in the show titled "World Domination" shows Ni'Jah and her husband, Caché, also an artist, wearing almost the exact same outfits as Beyoncé and JAY-Z from their 2018 "Apesh*t" music video. Remember the hot-pink and mint-green matching suits? The article also teases that the pair dropped a collaborative track like Bey and JAY-Z, though the latter's single was part of their surprise collaborative album, 2018's "Everything Is Love."
  • Ni'Jah's Vogue cover, in which she's wearing a flowy, pastel-colored dress with floral accents, states that she "speaks her truth." Similarly, in 2018, Beyoncé shot her September cover for the magazine wearing a similar outfit in white, but with a floral headdress, where her story was titled, "In her own words."
  • Similar to Beyoncé's rise to fame, an online bio for Ni'Jah reveals that she was discovered at a talent competition show called "Star Seek" and led an iconic '90s R&B group called XLLENT. As many already know, Queen Bey appeared on talent discovery show "Star Search" in 1993, which eventually led to her getting her big break with her legendary girl group, Destiny's Child.
  • Ni'Jah's grandiose Evolution tour promo closely resembles how Beyoncé's Formation world tour was promoted in 2016. Both artists also dropped creative visual albums (and responses to their husbands cheating on them) before their respective tours — Ni'Jah with "Festival," while Beyoncé famously released "Lemonade."
02
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 2: "Honey"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 2: "Honey"

  • It's revealed via fan tweets on Twitter that Ni'Jah is pregnant with twins. Beyoncé has twins of her own, Sir and Rumi Carter, who were born on June 17, 2017.
03
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 3: "Taste"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 3: "Taste"

  • The elevator fight that occurs between Ni'Jah, her husband, Caché, and presumably her sister is a direct nod to Beyoncé, JAY-Z, and Solange's infamous elevator scandal from the 2014 Met Gala afterparty.
  • Ni'Jah is accused of spreading anti-police messaging with her music, mainly by a conservative feminist named Alice Dudley, who criticizes the singer on social media and the news. Beyoncé faced similar criticism in 2016 when her "Formation" music video was blasted by conservatives for being "anti-cop," though she denied those critiques in a rare interview with Elle.
  • A man's jacket branded with Caché's FL:T tour information is almost an exact copy of the font and style used for JAY-Z's 2017 4:44 tour.
04
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 4: "Running Scared"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 4: "Running Scared"

  • A girl tells Dre she prefers Ni'Jah's sister over the singer, referring to her as "more spiritual." Through the years, Solange has often been compared to her big sister Bey for having a more sophisticated, spiritual vibe as far as her music goes. Most notably with her last two albums, "A Seat at the Table" and "When I Get Home."
05
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 5: "Girl, Bye"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 5: "Girl, Bye"

  • Ni'Jah's mall poster for her The Running Scared II tour uses a similar title to that of Beyoncé and JAY-Z's 2018 coheadlining On the Run II tour. The poster also uses the same font and style as Bey and JAY-Z's old black-and-white promo graphics.
06
Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 6: "Fallin' Through the Cracks"
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Beyoncé Easter Eggs in "Swarm" Episode 6: "Fallin' Through the Cracks"

  • Detective Loretta Greene says a redacted artist's fan base, though presumably Ni'Jah's, calls themselves the Hive because "she's the queen bee and they are quick to sting if they need to." According to Prime Video, Ni'Jah's fan base is technically called the Killer Bees, though all variations of the name are an obvious callback to Beyoncé's BeyHive, who also call her Queen Bey.
  • A Hive member named Darryl Robinson is seen wearing a burgundy-and-orange-striped jumpsuit, which looks awfully similar to the burgundy jumpsuit released from Beyoncé's 2020 Adidas x Ivy Park collaboration.