Celebrity commencement speech season is well underway, and it’s unlikely that we’ll see a lecture more entertaining than Maya Rudolph’s. On Saturday, the comic treated Tulane graduates to a few wise words, then bust out her famous Beyoncé impression to perform a raucous, over-the-top rendition of the national anthem.
Rudolph, who is actually a very talented singer, takes this joke way further than expected, filling around four minutes with ludicrous cadenzas and other vocal acrobatics. All in all, a spot-on parody of singers’ tendency to hold, elongate, or embellish each word of the anthem as though it’s a song in itself.
