Beyoncé Knowles Biography
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981), commonly known as Beyoncé, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, music video director, actress, film producer, dancer, and fashion designer. Beyoncé rose to fame as the lead singer of the 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, Beyoncé released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love, in June 2003. The album became one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, topping the albums charts in the United States and the United Kingdom. It also spawned the number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy" and earned Beyoncé five Grammy Awards in a single night in 2004. Beyoncé's second album, B'Day, was released worldwide on September 4, 2006 to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. The album spawned the UK number-one singles "Déjà Vu" and "Beautiful Liar", as well as the worldwide hit "Irreplaceable". It also earned Beyoncé her seventh solo Grammy Award, garnering a total of ten.
Beyoncé also achieved success in the film industry, starring in such Hollywood films as the 2006 comedy The Pink Panther and the 2006 musical film Dreamgirls, which earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations—one for acting and other for Dreamgirl's soundtrack "Listen".
Early life
Knowles was born in Houston, Texas to Tina (née Beyincé), a costume designer of Louisiana Creole descent, and Mathew Knowles, a record manager and former salesman, is African American. The elder of two children, her parents decided on her first name as a tribute to her mother's maiden name. Her maternal grandparents, Lumis Albert Beyincé and Agnéz Deréon (a seamstress), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles.
She is the older sister of Solange Knowles, an actress and singer-songwriter, and cousin to Angela Beyincé, her then-personal assistant and song co-writer. By age seven, she was attending dance school and was a soloist in her church's choir. Her parents were completely taken aback and at first, could not recognize her. After that, Knowles decided on her profession and went on to win 30 local dancing and singing competitions.
As 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 Houston neighborhood of Alief.
Destiny's Child era
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. 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 late 1996, it gave the entire family a second chance at making things work.
The group underwent several name changes—Girl's Tyme, The Dolls, Something Fresh, and Cliché—before sticking with Destiny's Child, based on a passage from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible. Knowles' mother Tina had found the word "Destiny", but since that name was already taken, they settled for Destiny's Child. After making their recording debut with "Killing Time" for the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black, the group rose to fame in 1998 with the Billboard Hot 100 top five, 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.
Destiny's Child performing their 2000 hit "Say My Name", from their 1999 platinum-selling album The Writing's on the Wall, during their farewell concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' ItTheir platinum-selling debut album, Destiny's Child, released in 1998, 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 the number-one hits "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Say My Name", besides the popular singles "Bug a Boo" and "Jumpin' Jumpin'". It went on to sell eight million in the U.S. and twelve million copies worldwide. 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 the 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 and "Nasty Girl", the final single, missed the chart. In the United Kingdom, the first two tracks released reached number one consecutively. "Independent Women Part I" had been the theme song for the 2000 film Charlie's Angels, before the album's release. The title track, "Survivor", earned the group their third Grammy Award, "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals". The album has sold over ten million copies worldwide.
In 2001, Knowles won the "Songwriter of the Year" award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards, becoming 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 seven 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 went on to sell three million copies worldwide
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