By LOUISE PIMM
American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, dancer and fashion designer Beyoncé Knowles found fame as a founding member of R&B group Destiny’s Child, one of the biggest selling female acts of all time.
After a series of chart topping records with the group, she released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love in 2003, which topped both the R&B and Billboard 200 charts in the US and the main album charts in Canada and the United Kingdom. Beyoncé has won nine Grammy Awards – six for her solo work, three as a member of Destiny’s Child and is coming to Portugal in 2007.
Crazy in Love, the first single from her Dangerously in Love album became one of the biggest hits of that summer. With her album and single topping the charts in the US and UK, Beyoncé became the first, and so far, only female artist to achieve this feat since Men at Work in 1983 and The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and Rod Stewart in the 1960s and 1970s. Beyoncé was one of the biggest-selling artists of 2003.
At the 2004 Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won five awards for her solo career. She also won a Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist in the UK, which made her the first female solo artist to have won prominent awards both domestically and internationally in the same year.
Her second solo album, B’Day, was released on September 4, 2006, and sold over 540,000 copies in the US in the first week. The album’s lead single, Déjà vu, became a top five hit in the US and a number one in the UK.
As well as singing in a trio and on her own, Beyoncé has also dueted with some of the music world’s most famous names. During the autumn of 2002, Beyoncé was the featured vocalist on rapper Jay-Z’s hit single, Bonnie and Clyde and, in the spring of 2003, dueted with Stevie Wander. This collaboration won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals that same year.
In the summer of 2002, Beyoncé co-starred in the Austin Powers film Goldmember, playing Foxy Cleopatra. The film is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the highest-grossing box office film comedy. Beyoncé also recorded the song Work It Out for the film’s soundtrack, which was a top 10 hit in the UK.
Beyoncé also co-starred in the film The Pink Panther, in 2006, which was number one at the box office on its opening weekend. Beyoncé has just completed filming the movie Dreamgirls, the film adaptation of the 1981 hit 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 is scheduled for release on December 25, 2006.
You can catch Beyoncé on May 24, 2007 at the Pavilhão Atlântico in Lisbon from 8.30pm. Details and ticket information will be available soon.
