35 year old Beyoncé has been running our world since 1997 when her self-formed girl band Destiny's Child. Since then the pop diva has broken every possible record out there as a musician, has become a mother of three and half of the Carter power couple (Beyoncé and Jay-Z), and has launched a fashion line, made guest appearances in movies (including Cadillac Records , Dream Girls and Epic), philanthropy and many other ventures.
How it all began
GIrls Tyme. Beyonce is at the rear right.
Beyoncé's singing abilities were first discovered, of all places in a dance class. The dance teacher was singing something and Beyonce finished off in perfect key. She progressed to win the school talent show with John Lenon's "Imagine" competing, mainly, against high school kids. She was 8 at the time.
That year she and met Kelly Rowland who were already friends, met LaTavia Robertson who would later form with her the original Destiny's Child trio. The three met at an audition. They passed and in 1990, Girl Tyme – a six girl was created but failed to win reality show Star Search.
Serious About Love and Everything Else
There's a good reason there have been few if any scandals regarding Beyonce'. First of all, she doesn't live in LA and she's a singer not an actor. Still, despite Jay-Z in business relations with Kim Kardashian's husband, Kanye West, there are literally no real scandals in her past. First of all, Beyonce has been focused on becoming a pop star from the moment she could muster a tune. . Most importantly, she has only had two relationships - Jay-Z to whom she's married and Lyndall Locke.
Lyndall was her boyfriend for a decade since she was 12. They broke up during her Destiny's Child tour. Lyndall's mother claimed that towards the end, when her career was skyrocketing, he was just waiting for her to come back and did nothing. Beyonce sent him tickets from every state. While she grew, he stayed in one place. And then there was Jay-Z.
Beyonce with Lyndall Locke
Family Driving Force
When Destiny's child was just beginning and money was scarce, it was her mother Tina who helped the group stand out. Tina personally sewed tailored outfits for the girls to wear during their shows, enabling them to look more better and appear to have professional backing when they preformed. In 2002, Tina published a book titled Destiny's Style: Bootylicious Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle Secrets From Destiny's Child. TIna continued to tailor outfits for Beyonce' including her wedding dress. In 2004 they launched a fashion line House of Deréon.
Beyonce's father, Mathew Knowles is the single person that has done more than anyone else to create "Beyonce". Without any business knowledge let alone showbiz experience he has managed her career since she was a child to this day. One story is him having the Destiny's Child girls run and sing simultaneously for them to build stamina.
Mathew Knowles, Beyonce and Tina Lawson
Jay-Z: The Man!
Beyonce met Jay-Z in 2003 and he was a key figure in her break-up with Lyndall. The two sparked rumors when she played Jay's girlfriend in the clip for the song "'03 Bonnie & Clyde". The two got married privately and in general have kept pretty much to themselves during their 14 year relationship.
Perhaps that's why we don't get too much juice! Beyonce' admits to being messy and long time friend Kelly Rowland can tell you horror stories, so can Jay-Z.
The couple doesn't mind doting on each other, including buying each other a Bugatti (Beyonce), a Rolls Royce Silver Line (Jay-Z), $500,00 ring (Beyonce), a $600,000 gold horse (Jay-Z), $350,000 worth of Birkin bags (Jay-Z), an Island (Jay-Z), $5 million watch (Beyonce), $50 million Bombardier Challenger 850 (Beyonce).
Jay-Z on his Bombradier
She "Sees" Music
Scientists call it Synesthesia. A condition that probably stems from childhood sensory conditioning that makes sense merge during certain sensory stimuli. What all this means is that Beyonce can not only to listen and hear music, but she can actually see music. Think of it this way, she has a whole additional sense to use when creating her brilliant music and since it's her eyesight, it's as if she can sculpture music. How cool is that?!
Beyonce isn't the only recording artist claiming to have the rare gift. Kanye West, Frank Ocean, and Mary J. Blige have also said that they have a similar condition. Perhaps that's what distinguishes music geniuses from one hit wonders!
Synesthesia
Record Breaker
There are few records that Beyonce hasn't broken as a singer. During her career Beyonce has been able to continuously re-invent herself and her music, bringing her fans new concepts and new ideas that she works with. Despite having a distinct voice, her sound always sounds as if it's progressing. Just to mention a few of her records:
- All of her first six albums debuted at no. 1
- The most nominated Grammy Awards woman artist (62 nominations)
- Most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night (6!! Adele would match her three years later)
- The most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history
- The top certified artist of the 2000s decade
- Most VMAs won in one night for a female artist (Tied with Lady Gaga)
- Her daughter, Blue-Ivy is the youngest person in the music chart after Jay-Z sampled her two day old cries into his fatherhood track, "Glory (feat. B.I.C.),"
- In 2010, Guinness World Records named Beyonce and Jay-Z The Highest Earning Power Couple
Beyonce with Blue-Ivy
Her most Shazamed Songs (July 2017)
We all use the app Shazam. It's probably one of music lover's favorite app. You hear a song you like at the moment ... somewhere, whip out the old smartphone, and Shazam! the song you just liked is in your playlist. If you don't have it - get it. It's a must. Like every other social media, artists compete there too for attention and following.
Beyonce's top 10 Shazamed songs are:
- now Drunk with In Love - 2,939,883 shazams
- Halo - 2,913,673 shazams
- "7/11" - 2,323,068 shazams
- Crazy In Love - 2,188,861 shazams
- Partition - 1,743,548 shazams
- Love On Top - 1,635,616 shazams
- XO - 1,385,595 shazams
- Hold Up - 1,248,569 shazams
- Best Thing I Never Had - 1,243,578 shazams
- Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - 1,260,395 shazams
Beyonce's Shazam chart
Adrenaline Junkie
It's hard to believe that this gracious diva actually enjoys the feeling of putting her life at risk, but Beyonce' is a renown adrenaline junkie. On the other hand, after endless performances in front of hundreds of thousands of fans everything else get's put into perspective. In 2013, after ending her tour in New Zealand she bungee jumped 1000 ft. from Auckland's Sky Tower. She has been seen on endless roller coasters including Coney Island's famous roller coaster.
What can we say, when your life is full of extreme professional rushes and you have your personal life under control, thrills have to come with the same octane!
Beyonce on Coney Island Roller Coaster
A Real Diva!
Other than breaking almost every record out there on a professional level, Beyonce has created quite a few precedents in other areas as well. For one, in 2003, at a peak of her performance, she once flung Lorraine Schwartz earrings worth almost quarter of a million dollars to her fans. Luckily for her, roadies and other production employees were able to retrieve the earrings from the fans that caught them. That was one of the reasons she created a more bitchy and sassy alter ego - Sasha Fierce.
In 2008 the alter ego was immortalized in the dual album I am ... Sasha Fierce with the side of the dual album containing completely different musical beats and genres. In later years Sasha's role in Beyonce's career diminished. I am ... Sasha Fierce. It won 7 Grammy's all together and in 2010 awarded Beyonce (again) with a record 6 Grammy wins in one night!
Beyonce as Sasha Fierce
Record Breaking Influences
Beyonce is the first non-super model or athlete to appear on the cover of Sport Illustrated Swimsuit issue 2007. The sex appealing Diva was on her first global tour "The Beyonce Experience" that grossed almost $25 million composing of performances in 97 venues.
The pop queen had already established herself as one of the most influential and important musicians of the 2000's and one of the most influential women performers ever. Her cultural influence expanded beyond music, impacting fashion, lifestyle and she was positioned as one of the world's key artists. Her gorgeous figure and sense of style combined with her global following earned her a place on the most coveted magazine covers in the world.
Beyonce on the cover of Sport's Illustrated
Bootylicious
Beyonce is sexy, Beyonce is hot. Beyonce is completely aware of her amazing figure and looks and she has never been afraid of pushing the boundaries. The controversial track at the time celebrated women's sexuality. Furthermore, Destiny's Child performers (and others like Jennifer Lopez) strut their wider hips and thighs proudly steering fashion and style away from the predominantly Caucasian figure and looks as a beauty consensus.
The clip showed the trio together with their co-dancers in figure tight provocative clothing and featured close-ups of backsides, hips, and thighs while the dancers danced suggestively. The track's success rendered the word into the english language and the Oxford Dictionary. Beyonce added a word to the English language!
Bootylicious
Twitter Moments Etched in Time
Unlike many other modern recording artists, Beyonce's career started before social media was as prominent as it is today. True, fans didn't have to source and record audio and VHS cassettes to follow her, but social media became a new form of communication when she took to the stage. Still, like everything else she touches, Beyonce holds a couple of twitter records.
- Super Bowl 2013: Her performance during the Super Bowl half time show, spawned 268,000 tweets per minute and currently holds the second place.
- 2011 MTV Video Music Awards: Beyonce announced at the end of her performance that she was pregnant revealing her "baby bump". 8,868 tweets were generated that second
MTV 2011 Baby Bump
Documentary Freak
When most people go on TV, they have no problem obtaining the footage for their personal use. When you are Beyonce, you get charged for it from the footage owners, because, why not? Don't mess with the pop queen. After MTV demanded royalties to use footage of her on the set of one of her music videos she decided that it's ridiculous to pay for your own image. So she hired her own personal visual director to film her every waking moment.
The archive is build based on NBC's archive, Now, when a network wants footage of Beyoncé it has to borrow or license footage from her personal archive. The archive is stored in a "temperature-controlled digital-storage facility" in her New York office. Now, when a network wants footage of Beyoncé it has to borrow or license footage from her personal archive. That's how you beat the system!
"Life is but a Dream". Beyonce's 2013 documentary
Surprise!
Beyonce, if you haven't got it by now, likes two major things: The first is to keep re-inventing herself and forms of communicating with her fans and the second is adrenaline. Now what could be a better match for both of these guilty pleasures than dropping a surprise album out of the blue. That exactly what she did in 2013 when she suddenly posted "Surprise!" on her Instagram account with a link to iTunes and her new album“Beyonce”. She wasn't the only artist looking for new marketing avenues including hubby Jay-Z who released an album-as-android-app.
Still, it was Beyonce's launch that had the biggest impact.
Beyonce performing 2013
The Twins
In 2017 Beyonce' surprised the world posting a photo of her on Instagram with a Bordeaux bra, a veil and a new baby bump. Beyonce was pregnant with twins. In June 2017 Beyonce' gave birth to Sir and Rumi Carter. As usual both artists - Beyonce and Jay-Z rushed to the studio to record a new parenting song. Jay-Z shocked the world with 4:44 where he admits to infidelities claiming that these have been the worst mistakes of his life and asked through his music for Beyonce's forgiveness.
Since the song's release, we have only been given the twin's names (and we were held in suspense for those too!) and little has been added. We know the couple are very private and tend to suddenly drop bombshells. All we can do is wait!
Beyonce's twins anouncement
The Future
What does the future hold in store for our pop diva? Beyonce is going to be historically revered up there with the Beatles, Elvis Presley and other music giants. The talent, experience and maturity is there. She has always been focused on being the best female musician out there ever. So much so that when Girl Tyme were selected to do an advert, everyone but Beyonce was worked up but little diva said "this isn't what i want to do!"
If we assume that things with Jay-Z will be patched up (she has warned him in her lyrics that he is treading on thin ice with her), there is nothing but a happy ending for them. All we can do is enjoy her art and expect nothing but greatness from her and perhaps even from little Blue-Ivy, Sir and Rumi.
