Beyoncé Knowles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (IPA pronunciation: [bi.jɔn.ˈseɪ] (born September 4, 1981) is an American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, dancer, fashion designer, and model. Knowles rose to fame as the creative force and lead singer of R&B girl group Destiny's Child, the world's best-selling female group of all time.

After a series of commercially successful releases with the group, Knowles released her debut solo album Dangerously in Love in 2003. The album became one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, topping the album charts in the U.S. and the UK. It also spawned the number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy" and earned Knowles five Grammy Awards in a single night in 2004. Knowles' sophomore album, B’Day, which was released worldwide on September 4, 2006 (her twenty-fifth birthday), continued her success. The album spawned the UK number-one singles "Déjà Vu" and "Beautiful Liar", as well as the worldwide number-one hit "Irreplaceable". The album also earned Knowles her seventh solo Grammy Award (she has won ten in total).

Knowles has contributed to the soundtracks to films in which she has starred, including Dreamgirls (2006), for which she received two Golden Globe Award nominations, one for acting and another for the soul hit "Listen".


Early life

Knowles is the oldest of two daughters born to Mathew Knowles and Tina Beyincé in Houston, Texas. Her parents decided on her first name as a tribute to her mother's maiden name. Her maternal grandparents, Lumis Beyincé and Agnéz Deréon (a seamstress), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles. She is the older sister of Solange Knowles, cousin to Angela Beyincé (her personal assistant and song co-writer), and aunt to Solange's son Daniel Julez Smith, Jr. By age seven, she was attending dance school and was a soloist in her church's choir. Her dance instructor took an interest in Knowles and took her star student to various competitions. Knowles went on to win over thirty local singing and dancing competitions.

Knowles and her childhood best friend LaTavia Roberson along with Kelly Rowland and LeToya Luckett formed a quartet that would perform in their backyards and in Tina Knowles' hair salon. After singing at local events, they got their break when they entered Star Search. The group, then named "Girl's Tyme", were disappointed after losing the competition. Mathew Knowles, Knowles' father and Rowland's legal guardian, decided to help the girls reach their dreams of becoming singers. He quit his six-figure salary job as a multi-million dollar equipment salesman at Xerox to manage the group. This decision by Mathew eventually affected the whole family. Their income had been cut in half, causing the family to move into two different apartments. When the group was signed to Columbia Records in 1996, it gave the entire family a second chance at making things work.

As a teenager, Knowles attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, where she showed her musical talents. She later went to Alief Elsik High School, in the Alief neighborhood of Houston.

Destiny's Child

Destiny's Child rose to fame in 1998 with the Billboard top ten hit and R&B number-one single "No, No, No Part 2". Even after much-publicized turmoil involving the departure of LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson, Destiny's Child (eventually a trio) became one of the most successful R&B/pop acts of the early 2000s, charting four Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, several top ten hits, and two number-one albums.

Their 1998 Platinum-selling debut album Destiny's Child was produced by Wyclef Jean and Jermaine Dupri and featured the double Platinum number-one single "No, No, No Part 2". The group's second album, The Writing's on the Wall, released in 1999, featured two number-one hits: "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Say My Name". "Bug a Boo" and "Jumpin' Jumpin'" were also popular singles from the album. It went on to sell thirteen million copies worldwide and eight million in the U.S. Furthermore, "Say My Name" won two awards at the 2001 Grammy Awards: "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" and "Best R&B Song".

Their following album, Survivor, proved to be another big success, going to number one on both the U.S. Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, as well as the Canadian and the UK albums charts. Two singles from the album went to the top of the Hot 100: "Independent Women Part I" and "Bootylicious", while "Survivor", the album's title track, reached number two. In the United Kingdom, the first two tracks released reached number one consecutively. "Independent Women Part I" had been the theme song for the film Charlie's Angels (2000), before the album's release. The title track, "Survivor", won the group their third Grammy Award, "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal".

In 2001, Knowles won the "Songwriter of the Year" award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. She is the first African-American female and second overall female songwriter of all time to accomplish this.

After the three-year journey that involved concentration on individual solo projects, Knowles rejoined Rowland and Williams for Destiny's Child's fourth (and so far final) studio album, Destiny Fulfilled, released in November 2004. The album hit number two on the Billboard 200 and spawned the hits "Lose My Breath", "Soldier", "Girl", and "Cater 2 U". It has sold eight million copies worldwide.

In 2005, Destiny's Child embarked on a world tour sponsored by McDonald's titled Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It, visiting over seventy cities throughout Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America from April to September. On June 13, 2005 it was announced that the group would disband after their world tour ended in September 2005. In October 2005, the group released their final album, entitled #1's, including all of Destiny's Child's number-one hits and most of their well-known songs. The greatest hits collection also includes three new tracks, including "Stand Up for Love". The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and number seven on the UK Albums Chart. #1's has gone on to sell three million copies worldwide.

Solo career

During the autumn of 2002, Knowles was the featured vocalist on rapper Jay-Z's hit single, "'03 Bonnie & Clyde". In the spring of 2003, Knowles remade a duet with Luther Vandross, "The Closer I Get to You", originally made famous by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. In this version, the vocal parts are switched, with Vandross taking Flack's part and Knowles taking Hathaway's. The song was included on both her solo debut album and on Vandross's Dance with My Father album, and the two shared the Grammy for "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" that same year. She recently collaborated with her beau, Jay-Z, on his latest album, Kingdom Come, providing the vocals and the hook for the track entitled "Hollywood".

Dangerously in Love (2003)

In 2003, Knowles released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love. The album entered the Billboard 200 at number one selling 317,000 copies in its first week. It was certified Platinum just three weeks later on June 22, 2003. Its first single, the funky "Crazy in Love", was a track constructed around a propulsive riff sampled from The Chi-Lites' 1970 "Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)" and featured a guest rap from Jay-Z. It rapidly became one of the biggest hits of that summer, staying at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks. Dangerously in Love went to the top of the album charts in the UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, and the Philippines, and peaked on both the U.S. Billboard 200 and R&B charts. The album has sold over four million copies in the U.S. and over eight million copies worldwide. When her single and album simultaneously topped the main charts in both the U.S. and the UK, she became the first act to achieve this feat since Men at Work in 1983 and The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and Rod Stewart in the 1960s and 1970s; she is the first and so far the only female artist to do this. Knowles was consequently one of the biggest-selling artists of 2003.

Towards the end of the summer, "Baby Boy", the second single from Dangerously in Love, which featured dancehall artist Sean Paul, began to climb the charts. It went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2003, dominating radio airplay in the autumn of 2003, and spending nine weeks at number one — one week longer than "Crazy in Love". Afterwards Knowles released her third solo single, "Me, Myself and I"; Dangerously in Love's fourth single, "Naughty Girl", came out in mid-2004.

At the 2004 Grammy Awards ceremony, Knowles won five Grammy Awards for her solo effort, which included "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" for "Dangerously in Love 2", "Best R&B Song" for "Crazy in Love", and "Best Contemporary R&B Album". Three other female artists hold this record: Lauryn Hill (1999), Alicia Keys (2002), and Norah Jones (2003). She also won a BRIT Award in 2004 for "International Female Solo Artist" in the United Kingdom.

In December 2005, Knowles released "Check on It", featuring rappers Slim Thug and (on the official remix) Bun B. The song was from the Destiny's Child's greatest hits compilation, #1's and the soundtrack to the 2006 film The Pink Panther and it was Knowles' sixth top five hit and third number one in the U.S.

At the 2006 Grammy Awards, Knowles won a Grammy in the category of "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" for the song "So Amazing", a duet with Stevie Wonder from the Luther Vandross tribute album So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross.

B’Day (2006)

Knowles' second studio album B’Day was released worldwide on September 4, 2006 and on September 5, 2006 in the U.S. to coincide with the celebration of Knowles' twenty-fifth birthday. In its first week, the album sold more than 541,000 copies in the U.S., immediately coming in at number one, making it her highest first-week sales as a solo artist. This is also the highest first-week sales of any solo female artist in 2006, a record which used to be held by pop singer Christina Aguilera whose album Back to Basics sold 346,000 copies in its first week. In the UK, it debuted at number three with sales of 35,000 copies, and, with combined sales with the deluxe edition, has sold 407,000 copies, making the album Platinum. "Déjà Vu", the album's first single, features Jay-Z. Also with the co-production by Rodney Jerkins. Other co-producers on B’Day included Rich Harrison, The Neptunes, and Swizz Beatz. Currently, the album has been certified triple Platinum in the U.S. for shipments of over three million copies. It has also sold 5.1 million copies worldwide.

The album's lead single "Déjà Vu" became a top five hit in the United States and a number-one hit on the U.S. R&B chart and the UK chart, making it Knowles' second UK number-one single, when it climbed twenty spots to take the top spot over Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean's "Hips Don't Lie" in the week of August 27, 2006.

The second single, "Ring the Alarm", was leaked to the Internet on August 8, 2006. The video for "Ring the Alarm" was released on August 16, 2006 on Yahoo.com and peaked at number one on the site's video chart. "Ring the Alarm" became Knowles' highest-charting single debut, when it debuted at number twelve on the singles chart but only peaked at number eleven.

Outside North America, "Irreplaceable" was released as the album's second international single in October 2006. The single debuted at number eighty-seven on the Hot 100 and number forty-two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the Australian Singles Chart. It has also been taking over on the Irish Singles Chart, peaking at number one in its second week. "Irreplaceable" is her fourth number one as solo artist on Billboard Hot 100 chart. It is Knowles' eighth top ten hit in the U.S. as a solo artist and fourth number-one hit on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. In December 2006, a Spanish-language version of "Irreplaceable", called "Imprescindible", was released. "Irreplaceable" spent ten consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

On December 6, the nominations for the 2007 Grammy Awards were announced, and Knowles received five, of which she won "Best Contemporary R&B Album".

On February 28, "Beautiful Liar", a duet with Latin superstar Shakira, and "Upgrade U", Knowles' fifth collaboration with Jay-Z, were released as the latest singles from B’Day. To promote the new releases, Knowles premiered music videos for both singles on MTV's Total Request Live and BET's 106 & Park on February 28, 2007, respectively.

Deluxe edition and B’Day Anthology Video Album

Knowles re-released B’Day as a deluxe edition on April 3, 2007. It features new tracks — including "Beautiful Liar", which made Billboard history when it jumped from number ninety-four to number three in one week on March 29, 2007. Also included are Spanish-language versions of "Irreplaceable", "Listen", and "Beautiful Liar".

On April 2, full-length videos for "Get Me Bodied", "Green Light", and "Suga Mama" premiered on BET to promote B’Day Anthology Video Album released the following day. A fifty-seven-second preview of "Kitty Kat" was included also, appearing in the beginning of "Green Light". Sony BMG has released all of the videos (with the exception of "Still in Love (Kissing You)") from the DVD to their official music video website, Musicbox.

In Australia, the deluxe edition of B’Day was released on April 16, 2007. Unlike the U.S. release, the Australian edition comes packaged in a CD/DVD combo featuring nineteen tracks on the CD and twelve music videos on the DVD. The Australian release does not feature the track "Still in Love (Kissing You)" on either the CD or DVD. However, the CD does feature tracks "If" and "Check on It", which are not featured on the U.S. release. Additionally, "World Wide Woman" appears as a hidden track on the U.S. release while it is an officially-listed track on the Australian disc. Finally, apart from the track "Amor Gitano", the Australian disc does not feature any of the Spanish tracks. The European and the Asian edition of B’Day are the same as the Australian release.

On the week of April 21, B’Day jumped from number sixty-nine to number six on the Billboard 200 thanks to sales of the re-release on April 3 with sales of 126,000 units on the first week.

On the week of April 22, the deluxe edition of B’Day and the B’Day Anthology Video Album that include the song "Still in Love (Kissing You)" were pulled from distribution due to a lawsuit filed by English singer Des'ree. The lawsuit is over Knowles' cover of Des'ree's 1998 "I'm Kissing You" which was granted permission — within certain limits. For one thing, they would allow use of the song, but not in video form. They would also allow use of the song only if the title was not changed. Despite follow-ups, they didn't hear back from Knowles' camp. On March 27, according to the complaint, they discovered that Knowles and her record label planned to proceed with their plans to include the song on the re-release anyway which they changed the title to the song and and made a video from which they didn't follow copyrighted laws. In a letter they wrote to Knowles' lawyer and her distribution group Sony, the Royalty Network called the move "completely unacceptable. Des'ree is apparently seeking $150,000 in damages".

Knowles has recently embarked on her lengthy The Beyoncé Experience concert tour which has sold out various shows worldwide. She is expected to have Robin Thicke, Lemar (Europe only), and Chris Brown (Australia only) as her opening acts. She will tour from the beginning of the spring of 2007 to the end of the summer of 2007. She will also release a live album from the tour after its conclusion in late 2007.

Film career

In 2001, Knowles turned to acting, starring alongside actor Mekhi Phifer in the MTV made-for-television film Carmen: A Hip Hopera.

In the summer of 2002, Knowles co-starred in the film Austin Powers in Goldmember, playing Foxxy Cleopatra opposite Mike Myers and Michael Caine. Knowles also recorded the song "Work It Out" for the film's soundtrack. "Work It Out" was a top ten hit in the UK and a top forty hit in the Netherlands, Australia, and Ireland, despite being Knowles' biggest commercial disappointment to date in the U.S., where radio stations barely played the song and the video received very minor exposure, playing only on digital video channels, MTV Jams, and VH1 Soul.

In 2003, Knowles starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the film The Fighting Temptations, and recorded a song for it called "Fighting Temptation", alongside female rappers Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free. Unlike Knowles' own singles, the song did not become a hit, although the film was a moderate success at the box office.

Knowles co-starred in the film The Pink Panther, playing the role of Xania, an international pop star, opposite Steve Martin, who plays Inspector Clouseau. The film was released on February 10, 2006, and was number one at the box office on its opening weekend.[15] With Austin Powers in Goldmember and The Pink Panther, Knowles appeared in two films that opened at number one at the box office; the two films have grossed over $481,364,728 worldwide.

Knowles' latest film work is Dreamgirls, the film adaptation of the hit 1981 Broadway musical about a 1960s singing group loosely based on Motown all-female group The Supremes, as the Diana Ross-based character Deena Jones. The film received a limited release on December 15, 2006 and a wider release on December 25, 2006. On December 14, 2006, Knowles was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for the film Dreamgirls — "Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy" and "Best Original Song" for "Listen". The film opened number three at the box office with an eight-million-dollar opening weekend. Knowles was quoted to say this was her first real acting film. Dreamgirls was nominated for eight 2007 Academy Awards — including "Best Original Song" for "Listen" —, of which it won two. The film has passed the $100 million dollar gross mark in the United States.

Philanthropy

Knowles, music producer David Foster, and his daughter, Amy Foster Gillies, wrote Destiny's Child's single "Stand Up for Love" for World Children's Day, an event which takes place annually around the world on November 20 to raise awareness and funds for children's causes worldwide. Destiny's Child lent their voices and support as global ambassadors for the 2005 World Children's Day program.

Knowles and Kelly Rowland, along with Mathew Knowles, Tina Knowles, and sister Solange Knowles recently announced the formation of the Survivor Foundation, a charitable entity set up for the purpose of providing transitional housing for 2005 Hurricane Katrina victims and storm evacuees in the Houston, Texas area. The Survivor Foundation extends the philanthropic mission of the "Knowles-Rowland Center For Youth", a multi-purpose community outreach facility in downtown Houston.

Controversy

Animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have voiced concern over Knowles wearing and using fur in her clothing line, House of Deréon. After winning an online eBay auction, offered by VH1 for the Save the Music Foundation, to dine with Knowles in June 2006, two PETA members confronted the singer at a restaurant in New York City about her use of fur. Knowles did not respond, and the PETA members were escorted out. PETA also wrote a letter of concern to Knowles about the treatment of baby alligators in a photoshoot for B’Day.

Discography

Further information: Beyoncé Knowles discography

Albums

• 2003: Dangerously in Love
• 2006: B’Day