Beyonce: Knowing the Fabulous Music Icon in Depth

Beyonce Giselle Knowles is one of the most familiar and well known figures in modern era music. Beyonce is active in music industry since 1997. She was born on 4th Sept, 1981, born and raised in Houston, Texas. She is focused on the genres including R&B and pop. She is not only popular nationally but also internationally due to her unique music and sexy appearances.

Personal Life

On April 4, 2008, Beyonce married Shawn Jay Z Carter. She formed a relationship with Jay Z Carter subsequent to their alliance on 03 Bonnie & Clyde. Beyonce and Jay Z married without publicity in 2008. They have a kid, Blue Ivy Carter, as well. It is considered that Beyonce suffered a miscarriage in 2010 or 2011 before she gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, in 2012 and she portrayed her miscarriage as the saddest thing in her life. Mathew Knowles and Tina Knowles are Beyonce's parents and her younger sister Solange is also a singer and a previous associate of Destiny's Child.

Early Success

Beyonce Knowles started performing at age seven. It is said that she performed in a variety of singing and dancing competitions as a child. She could also win over 30 local contests for her dancing and vocal abilities. She later united her cousin Kelly Rowland and classmates LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett with the aim of creating an adolescent vocal group. Their efforts finally guided to the conception of one of the globally well known female R&B groups of all time, Destiny’s Child. Beyonce's father Mathew Knowles became the girls' manager.

Fame with Destiny's Child

Beyonce became a celebrity in 1990s as lead singer of R&B girl-group Destiny's Child. She rose to fame because of her notable efforts for the all-girls group Destiny’s Child and the group also had the likes of Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. The group eventually turned into one of the world’s best selling girl groups in history and released a number of successful albums. The group has sold more than 60 million records. However, the credit for the sales can totally be given to Beyonce and Kelly Rowland.

Following Knowles' hit album Dangerously in Love, gossips began to spread about a likely divide of Destiny's Child. Obviously, each member of the group had experienced success one way or another and had continuing projects as well. Some of the popular albums of the group include Nasty Girl, Survivor, Say My Name, Soldier, Cater 2 U, Girl, Independent Women, No No No, etc. The group also gained many Grammy and Billboard awards, achieved some number-one singles and platinum selling records including No, No, No, The Writing’s on the Wall, Bills, Bills, Bills, Bugaboo, Jumpin’ Jump-in’, Say My Name, and Survivor.

Solo Career

Beyonce found even more success subsequent to following a solo career in both music and film. Beyonce creates songs that bleed country, R&B, hip-hop, pop, gospel, and rock and roll. As a solo artist, Beyonce enjoyed a highly successful music career selling more than 16 million albums in the US and globally over 100 million records. She also sold over 60 million records with Destiny's Child. Obviously, all these achievements made her to be one of the best-selling music artists in the history.

Beyonce’s debut single, Crazy in Love was a huge success and it was named VH1's Greatest Song of the 2000s, NME's Best Track of the 2000s and Pop Song of the Century. Crazy in Love was considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It also received two Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling singles in the history at approximately 8 million copies. Her many number-one albums have produced winning singles like Crazy in Love, Check on It and Single Ladies.

Beyonce's debut album was Dangerously in Love and it was released in 2003. The album was a mega hit around the globe and it established her as a solo artist worldwide. She could earn five Grammy Awards for the album Dangerously in Love and also featured the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Crazy in Love and Baby Boy. She got a 5-star album rating from Rolling Stone for her sixth album Lemonade in 2016. Remember that only 23 albums could earn such rating from Rolling Stone since 2000. She became the first female African-American solo artist to collect a 5-star rating from Rolling Stone.

Beyonce could release seventeen albums including four extended plays, six studio albums, one soundtracks, four live albums and two compilation albums. She released seven video albums, sixty seven singles including eight promotional singles, five charity singles and ten as a featured artist. She has successfully released fifty-four charted songs on Billboard Hot 100 and fifty-eight music videos. It achieved in excess of 5 billion views and 10 million subscribers on her VEVO channel. These made her as one of the greatest music artists of the modern era.

Beyonce was given the opportunity to perform during Super Bowl XLVII halftime show in 2013 and 2016. Beyonce broke records once more with her fifth studio album, self-titled Beyonce in 2013. The album amazed fans and critics in a similar way. The main reason is that there was no publicity for the album previous to its release. Beyonce labeled the album as a visual album. The album sold over 800,000 copies during the weekend. It was the fastest selling album ever distributed by iTunes in its history.

The biggest hits of Beyonce include Work It Out, 03 Bonnie & Clyde, Crazy in Love, Naughty Girl, Baby Boy, Check on It, Irreplaceable, Déjà Vu, Listen, Beautiful Liar, Until the End of Time, Single Ladies, If I Were a Boy, Sweet Dreams, Diva, Halo, Video Phone, Telephone, Run the World, Best Thing I Never Had, Partition, Love on Top, XO, Countdown, Drunk in Love, 7/11, Formation and Sorry.

Some of the people have helped Beyonce a lot with her music like Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, Sean Paul and well-known Luther Vandros. Beyonce not only enjoys a happy and satisfied marital life with Shawn Jay Z Carter but also enjoys triumphant music collaboration with him. As of April 2014, the couple had sold over a joint 300 million records collectively. They are acknowledged for their private relationship but have came together publically for some great music shows.

Other Notable Achievements

The couple also maintains a good friendship with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Beyonce performed America the Beautiful at the 2009 presidential inauguration. She also performed At Last during the initial opening dance at the Neighborhood Ball. During Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, Beyonce and Shawn Jay Z Carter carried out a fundraiser at Jay Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan and it raised $4 million. Also in the Obama's second inauguration, she performed the American national anthem.

Beyonce and Shawn Jay Z Carter attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards and she performed Love on Top during the awards. She disclosed that she is pregnant at the end of her performance. Her announcement ended up in receiving 8,868 tweets per second. Beyonce’s declaration was listed in Guinness World Records for “most tweets per second recorded for a single event on Twitter”. Her appearance and performance for the awards resulted in pulling in 12.4 million viewers. Hence, the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards turned out to be the most-viewed broadcast in MTV history.

Beyonce as a Modern-Day Feminist

Beyonce revealed in an interview that she measured herself to be a modern-day feminist in 2013. She supported "We should all be feminists" a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her song Flawless. She also supported the Ban Bossy campaign, which employs television and social media to promote leadership in girls. Beyonce had no fear to give her support to same sex marriage in 2013, following the Supreme Court question on California's Proposition 8.

Career in Acting

Beyonce tasted success in acting along with her flourishing music career. Beyonce acted in numerous commercials and some popular films, including Dreamgirls, the Pink Panther and Austin Powers in Goldmember. She owns a fashion house, cosmetics and fragrances. She is the ambassador for L’Oreal Cosmetics.

Awards

Beyonce Knowles is a multi-platinum and Grammy Award-winning recording artist. She is praised for her exciting vocals, videos and live shows. She has conducted seven concert tours, three residency shows, three remarkable concerts and 37 extraordinary live performances. Her dedication and hard work towards music has earned her numerous awards and nominations. She has received 20 Grammy Awards, eight Billboard Music Awards, six American Music Awards, and 3 World Music Awards. As per some of the reports, Beyonce have gained more or less 600 international awards nomination. She is said to be the most nominated woman in the Grammy Awards history.