She is...Beyoncé Knowles

Beyoncé Knowles is a modern day pop phenomenon. A mere 18 at the turn of the millennium, over the past ten years she has established herself as the most successful female pop artist on Planet Earth. In doing so she has eclipsed Madonna, left Britney Spears trailing and seen off every other potential pretender to the throne. And she has done it on the basis of an extraordinary level of talent, as a singer, songwriter, musician and performer.

Beyoncé is very well aware that she’s carrying the mantle of some of the great black female singers on her 28-year-old shoulders. Yet the artist she most aspires to emulate in her career is not Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald, but Barbra Streisand.
It might seem surprising at first glance but of course it’s not. Streisand is the biggest selling female artist of all time. She has sustained a career over almost 50 years, stayed at the top and sold 150 million records in the process. Who wouldn’t want to emualte that sort of longevity?
But more on that later…

I caught up with Beyoncé in the middle of her marathon I Am...Sasha Fierce tour. A large, armed security guard hovered in the background, but she seemed relaxed and focused nonetheless. Like a Tae Kwando master, she is calm and very present, but you sense also, trained to the gills and ready for anything.
In spite of all her extraordinary success, the multiple Grammies and accolades, and her marriage to the simliarly successful rapper, musician, producer and record label boss Jay-Z, there is still an earnestness about her, an impression that inside there is still a careful Methodist girl who is intent on taking as few risks as possible.
“Honestly, I am very frugal,” she says soberly. “Very. I haven’t bought a car since I was 16. I haven’t bought any diamonds since I was 17. I have a lot of property and that’s what I spend my money on.
“I mean, I like fashion,” she adds, as if not to acknowledge it might be sinful. “I have lots of shoes but I don’t really think about it. My money is in the bank – I’ve invested it. I have my conversations with my business manager when I need to, but I worked hard as a teenager, really, really hard and I sacrificed a lot, so I can now do things because they interest me and because they’re going to make me grow and because it’s exciting.”
Beyoncé played Etta James in the movie Cadillac Records and she credits James not only with paving the way for a singer like her, but also for her influence in making the multi-million selling I Am… Sasha Fierce that much rawer than previous Beyoncé records.
“I Am is about who I really am,” she says. “I wanted people to see that I’m no different from anyone else. I can be hurt and I can be lonely and I can be insecure and that definitely came from Etta James and me learning how unapologetic she was. She wasn’t afraid to say whatever she wanted to say. She didn’t have to be the sweetheart. She could be real – and I guess my album is a lot more raw and real than anything I have done before and I owe that to Etta. I am very proud of that.”
She laughs hard as she recalls the mixture of terror and joy she experienced, on being asked to take the lead role in Cadillac Records.
“I was definitely a fan of hers, because my mother was a huge fan, and I loved At Last, but I wasn’t very familiar with more than that record,” she admits. “I always remembered her hair and I remembered her soul and her passion and the pain in her voice. I wouldn’t have a chance to be a crossover artist if it wasn’t for Etta James because she was the first African-American woman to crossover radio. I wouldn’t be here, so it was something I was really passionate about.
“I really wanted to get into the psychology of Etta James and her need, her addiction. I’ve never done any drugs before, so I had to understand, you know, it’s basically a painkiller and why was she in so much pain? And one thing I could identify with was: she didn’t just sing her songs, it was her heart and her soul and everything from her past you could hear in the way she sang her records, in the growl in her voice.”
Playing Etta gave Beyoncé pause to think about the legacy she has inherited. Talk about earning your stripes: she had the terrifying experience of performing as Etta James in front of Etta James herself.
“I actually performed ‘I Would Rather Go Blind’ for her,” she recounts. “You could only imagine how scary it is when you’re singing someone’s song, dressed up as them, and they’re still alive – and still great! I was really nervous. I know she’s very tough and when I first got on the stage I saw her, my heart was racing and she had her arms folded like ‘Don’t mess this up’.
“And I remember it was a moment where I did her famous growl and grunt and she perked up and looked at her son and she punched him in the shoulder like ‘that girl is doing it!’ At the end I hugged her and I wanted to cry because she’s one of my heroes now – and I got a chance to speak with her and she said ‘you bad girl, you bad!’”
Beyoncé herself suffered from a crippling bout of depression when she was in her late teens, so she connected on that level too.
“I didn’t want to do an imitation of her,” she says. “I wanted to basically understand where she came from and why she needed to get rid of this pain. I definitely identify with being able to use your music as a place to get rid of all of that built-up aggression and pain so I really, really felt like this was a pivotal moment for me as an actress.”
Growing up in Houston, Texas, the local church was the first place Beyoncé put her vocal talents on display, singing and dancing in the choir. Her father Matthew has been her manager from day one and members of her family remain closely involved in her professional life. It has, she believes, helped her retain a sense of scale – which explains the Sasha Fierce persona.
“It’s really important that I’m grounded,” she observes, “and I can go to the park and I can spend time with my nephew and my mother can tell me, ‘Girl, what you doing? That was wrong. You were rude’. It’s important that I am on time, it’s important that I’m a good human being. It’s really easy to get confused when people are giving you $100,000 dresses and want to take your picture.
“I’ve seen celebrities kind of get out of touch with reality, so my way of protecting me is naming my stage persona so I know it’s time for that – and then when I’m off the stage and I am not shooting the video, I’m back to me.”

Back to me. She may genuinely want to be seen as the same as everyone else but Beyoncé Knowles lives in an extraordinary, rarified zone nonetheless. She is said to generate income of $40 million per annum, give or take a few million. And her husband is worth a few dollars too.
In fact Beyoncé got hitched to Jay-Z in 2008 in a secret ceremony in his New York apartment. She kept the marriage under wraps for over six months. It is an issue on which she remains permanently guarded, and understandably so. She believes that privacy is good for their relationship.
“I have the same wants in me as every other person and I am a very fulfilled woman,” she says. “It’s difficult having a relationship, especially when you have a lot of people that feel like they’re involved. It’s kinda like when you tell all your friends and then everyone has something to say. Well, just imagine if it’s, like, millions of people that feel they’re involved – so we decided to just keep that private and not talk about our relationship. Not because we’re not proud of it, or that we’re not happy, but just to protect it.
“And it’s really difficult. Jay and I have had a relationship longer than most people in the industry – and I’m still very young and hopefully it will last even longer. So it’s worked and it’s just really important when something is honest and something is real and it’s not about a photo op and it’s not about the glamour or people – it’s not about your lifestyle being flaunted, it’s just about it being real. Our way of keeping it that way is protecting it and keeping it to sharing it with just us and our families.”
Travelling everywhere with an enormous entourage, Beyoncé has become even more security conscious since the murders of fellow Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson’s family last year.
“They don’t tell me everything,” she laughs, “but there are some people that are really crazy. Last week in New York this guy was arrested because he said he was coming to marry me and this crazy stuff – so the security is for the crazies, not for the press, honey!
“It’s really frustrating not being able to just go where you want when you want, but it’s the price I have to pay. As for poor Jennifer, I felt as devastated as anyone. If it wasn’t Jennifer, just for any human being to have to go through that, is beyond words.”
Beyoncé has often been compared to Diana Ross, whom she (sort of) portrayed in her other major movie success Dreamgirls. But it’s not a name that trips from her tongue when she talks about the people she wants to emulate. Instead, this is where Barbra Streisand comes in: Beyoncé mentions her several times as a role model.
“If there was one person I could say I’d love to have a career like it would be Barbra Streisand,” she reflects. “For me, respect and real talent are the most attractive thing and she was someone that was an incredible singer and such a great actress and had a great balance. Everything she did was just quality and timeless and iconic and I just really respect her.”
Last December, she got to meet Streisand at the Kennedy Centre, where she sang one of Steisand’s classics, ‘The Way We Were.’
“I want to be like Barbra Streisand,” she repeats. “I want to have a long career. I want to be respected and I don’t want to get off track. You know, it takes effort to get grounded.
“You have to decide early who you want to be. Most of the people that are around you are people you employ and I think when you have that emptiness and that void – and that pain – then (there is a risk that) you will go to other things to give you that happiness. Everyone around you is blowing smoke up your ass. But my work is not my success. I was always taught that if I couldn’t sing or act, I could still have a life.”

Beyoncé has just performed in Ireland for the sixth time and although she doesn’t need to flatter the local audience, she does anyway.
“The concerts always go so well anytime we’re in Dublin,” she enthuses. “The audiences there are really special and just give back so much.”
It was notable that for the Sasha Fierce tour, Beyoncé was accompanied on stage by twenty female musicians as well as dancers. She says that empowering women, where she can, is extremely important to her.
“I have a 20-piece band, all women – I had this idea years ago because I’m all about empowering women. Music basically gave me purpose as a kid and I have women of all sizes, of all races, of all ages – and I want every young girl in the audience to see my show and say ‘I could be her. I could be on the stage. If I work hard, if I’m focused, I can do that’.
“I’m really proud of my female musicians because everyone was telling me: you’re not going to find a trumpeter that can hit those beats like that, you’re not going to find a horn player. Listen, they are better than any guy band in the world and I’m so proud of them.
“People like Etta James and Nina Simone opened the doors for us and it’s a lot easier for women nowadays.”
Easier. But Beyoncé has the knack of making it look easy, which of course couldn’t be further from the truth. The single that made Destiny Child, and established Beyoncé in the front rank of contemporary artists, ‘Independent Woman’, was released in 2000. Since then – some tough battles notwithstanding – her story has been one of success following success, with cumulative album sales surpassing the 100 million mark.
No wonder that for so many she is the Artist of the Noughties. The scary thing is that, at 28, she’s really
only starting…