Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (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' second album, B'Day, which was released
worldwide on September 4, 2006 - coinciding with 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". It 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".
Knowles is the elder 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.[5] Her maternal grandparents,
Lumis Beyincé and Agnéz Deréon (a seamstress), were French-speaking
Louisiana Creoles.[5] 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 friends LaTavia Roberson and Kelly Rowland
along with LeToya Luckett formed a quartet that would perform in their
backyards and at Tina Knowles' hair salon. After singing at local events,
they got their break when they entered Star Search.[6] The group, then named
"Girl's Tyme",[7] 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.[8] 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.
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 Award
for "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" that same year. She
has collaborated with Jay-Z on his eight studio 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 the R&B chart. The album has sold over four
million copies in the U.S. and over eight million copies worldwide.[9] 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 and final
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 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. 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 600,000 copies. "Déjà Vu", the album's first single, features Jay-Z
and 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. The album has had worldwide success selling 5.4 million copies
worldwide.[10]
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
website's videos 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—where it would later spend ten consecutive weeks
at number one—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 also took over on the Irish Singles Chart,
peaking at number one in its second week. "Irreplaceable" is her fourth
number one and her eighth top ten hit as a solo artist on the Billboard Hot
100 chart, as well as her 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.
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.
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