Survival of the fittest

‘Independent Woman Part 1’ changed everything. A worldwide No.1 hit, it wasn’t even the song, so much as Destiny’s Child’s live performance of it, on every award show, on every pop TV show, that saw the Texan threesome leap the divide between “quality R’n’B-pop” to “intergalactic superstars beamed from disco Venus”.

In an era where the pop performance has been long replaced by identically choreographed keep-fit shoulder exercises by The Kids From Fame, Destiny’s Child – all golden skin, golden loin cloths and 20-foot geysers of on-stage fire – single-handedly brought theatrics, glamour, explosive sexual energy and fantasy-figure dynamics back to the heart of the mainstream.

Furthermore, Beyoncé Knowles, at 20 years old, is not only the lead-singer, writer, co-producer and choreographer of the Destiny’s Child canon, but is one of the most beautiful women in the history of the human race, all tumbling golden curls, flawless caramel skin, cartoon curves, exceptional teeth and a permanently raised v-shaped eyebrow which can only be described as “perverted”. At school, she was known as The Girl With The Eyebrow. You should see this woman close-up.

“This eyebrow?” she says, laughing, effortlessly glam in loose black pants and tight fawn t-shirt, poking her eyebrow with a lengthy ‘piano’ finger. “When I was little it used to grow this long... (smooths finger up over her eyebrow straight into her forehead) so I had to cut it! It has a life of its own and I was too young to arch my eyebrows. Now I just comb it down. Huh huh huuuh.”

“I can’t do it!” wails Kelly Rowland, 19, Beyoncé’s cousin, screwing up her face in a failed attempt.

“Hmmn,” ponders Michelle Williams, 20, peering into Beyoncé’s remarkable face, “does that mean something?”

Well, absolutely. Spending time with Destiny’s Child on a recent U.K. and Irish promotional tour, these three millionaire superstars proved themselves exponents of the least Diva Drama in the entire history of female, black, American music. No 40-strong Jennifer Lopez-style entourage here. In four days of promotional chaos – days where they’d be reduced to 40 minutes sleep – the most outrageous demand we hear is for “more toast, puh-lease! I love your toast...”

They eat McDonald’s all the time. They love Top Shop’s “funky stuff!” They speak with a down-home, shucks-y’all, charming Southern drawl. They don’t swear once. Devout Christians, they pray “numerous times” a day. They are incredibly genial and polite and warm and calm at all times.

Michelle, from Illinois, a former backing singer with Monica, has an air of perpetual innocence, a girl who directed her local Martin Luther King Youth Union Choir of 500 voices, aged 12. Kelly is hilarious, full of camp, hands-in-the-air mannerisms. And Beyoncé is the embodiment of focus, a bright, engaging, powerhouse of passion, who punches a fist into her hand to make a point, who laughs with a low-slung “huh huh huuuuh”, who becomes so excited when talking about the last ‘Survivor’ single she practically elevates off her seat.

“It makes you feel a strength,” she’s enthusing, on the every-day tourist-style bus, on which Destiny’s Child are cruising through middle England, “makes you totally forget about the thing that got you down. It makes you feel positive and you could run ten miles.”

It’s the Destiny’s Child way. “Positivity” is their mantra, “classy” is their byword; they’re an all-new hybrid of En Vogue glamour, TLC attitude and the futuristic soundscape of Missy Elliot, with the soul and spiritual intensity of the old-skool Motown legends. Their mission: to become the biggest, and best pop band on the planet. Their celebration: strength in femininity, belief in self-empowerment and, indeed, spiritual, emotional and financial independent womanhood.

A spectacularly glamorous girl group merging R’n’B, pure pop, scatter-beat sonic experimentation, modern rites-of-passage lyrical connection and gospel gravitas, DC have become that once-in-a-lifetime rarity; as beloved by the serious music fan as the indiscriminate pop kid. And, naturally, the toast of the drag queens. There’s barely a girl alive from 5 to 35 who doesn’t want to be one of Destiny’s Child.

Destiny’s Child came straight outta Texas in ‘97, their song ‘Killing Time’ premiered on the Men In Black soundtrack. In early ‘98 came their debut self-titled LP, including the single ‘No No No (Part II)’ (featuring Wyclef Jean, a U.S. R’n’B chart No. 1). In July ‘99 came second LP The Writing’s On The Wall, produced by Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs (the man behind TLC’s ‘No Scrubs’). Featuring the singles ‘Jumpin’ Jumpin’, ‘Bug A Boo’, ‘Say My Name’ and ‘Bills Bills Bills’, it sold over eight million copies; the album was re-released and repackaged to include ‘Independent Woman Part 1’, written solely by Beyoncé and intended to be “as commercial as possible”, specifically for the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack.

New album Survivor, makes no apology for including ‘Independent Woman Part 1’ all over again and delivers a blend of R’n’B and pop classicism, encompassing peculiar one-offs like ‘Happy Face’, with a speeded-up hillbilly guitar, a tremendous cover of the Bee Gees’ ‘Emotion’ and the new single ‘Bootylicious’, a blinding, Prince-like, R’n’B jazz odyssey on which they sing, beautifully, “Is my body too bootylicious for ya, babe!?”

“Bootylicious does not mean you have a big bootie,” laughs Beyoncé, “because I don’t have a bootie. I don’t think I do. It just means feeling good and sexy, it’s like your mojo, everybody’s bootylicious huh huh huuuh.”

In the beginning there were four of them. In February 2000, after eight years together, just prior to shooting the video for ‘Say My Name’ (their biggest hit to date), friends and original members LaTavia Robertson and LeToya Luckett left the group, and fired their manager Matthew Knowles, Beyoncé’s father and Destiny’s Child’s manager since they were kids, filing a law-suit against him for monies allegedly “stolen” (the real reason, say Beyoncé and Kelly, was jealousy, inability, negativity, laziness and greed).

In March 2000, two new members joined, Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams and, after five months, Farrah left, citing insurmountable pressure.

Ever since, they’ve been a trio; and ever since, too, their star has been in the ascent. The rest of the world, naturally, baulked at their apparent revolving door policy, a joke which smart, tough-skinned Beyoncé re-claimed for the group, naming the LP after the TV game-show Survivor.

“People were making a joke,” nods Kelly, “saying that Destiny’s Child is the new Survivor series. Which girl is gonna be the one to get voted off the island? And Beyoncé took what everybody was saying. Sometimes you gotta take a negative and turn it into a positive. And she made it into a great song. We got the concept for the video from the Survivor series and everybody loves it, so that’s what counts.”

Destiny’s Child: six. Cynics: nil. Destiny’s Child, they’ll tell you themselves, are protected by some sort of “magical” God’s own voodoo, which has ensured, over the years, that bad people simply vanish before their eyes.

“Anything that’s gettin’ in the way of us becomin’ megasuperstars,” booms Beyoncé, “they always remove themselves from us. God weeds them out so we don’t have to deal with it. They get sick. They walk out. Anybody that we had a funny feeling about, anybody negative – they’re just...” Together: “Outta there!”

The other three must feel very foolish indeed.

“Well, I can’t imagine leavin’ a group and then a month after I leave that group, that group becomes number one,” says Beyoncé, evenly. “I couldn’t imagine tryina fire somebody that helped me get there. I would be embarrassed, I would feel stoopid, I would feel like I made a dumb decision.” Kelly (clutching stomach): “I feel sick!”

As for the law-suit – it was found to be groundless and the parties have “settled”, says Beyoncé, conclusively. Furthermore, Matthew Knowles was “audited” and Destiny’s Child were found to owe him money.

“A lotta groups woulda broke up then,” Beyoncé’s saying, defiantly, “right before they got their big success. Destiny’s Child didn’t break up. If we woulda stopped back then, we woulda been at two million records and we woulda been in the past, but now we’re at eight million records and we’re (almighty punch into palm) number one! And we are not gonna let the haters and the people that have negative things to say get in our way. Because! (punch) We have a dream! (punch) My dad had a vision! (uber-punch) We have a vision! And we want to make music and we have music inside of us and when we get on a stage it’s magical, and there’s nothin’ that any critic or any hater or any negative person, there’s nothin’ they can say or do to stop that magic comin’ through!”

Amen, sistas.

Tina Knowles is an amenable, bronze-haired, middle-aged woman with an eyebrow ring. She took over as Destiny’s style-director after outsiders made the girls look, “not too sexy but just... too old. It wasn’t flattering”. Back in the 60s, Tina and Matthew Knowles were in what they call “singing groups” themselves. Matthew played the piano. Tina designed outfits.

Beyoncé attended a Catholic school and, aged seven, was entered into a talent contest by her dance teacher, in which she was up against high school kids. She received a standing ovation. She turned to her parents and said, “I jus’ wanna get my trophy and my money and go ‘cos I’m hungry!” Tina was mortified. “Don’t say that because you don’t know if you won yet!” she remembers saying, adding, in mitigation, “but she was only seven...” Beyoncé won the contest and many contests thereafter, knowing, profoundly, she was “destined” to become a singer.

At nine she formed her own group, Destiny’s Child, with her cousin Kelly. They were good. Good enough for Kelly to move into the Knowles family home so they could rehearse every night after school. Good enough for Matthew to make the decision to dedicate his entire life to their success.

The Knowles’ were well off, a two-income family, Tina running her own hairdressing salon with 26 employees, Matthew a businessman in a medical equipment company. He told Tina, “they need development, training, I need to be on the phone everyday.” He quit his job, enrolled in the local college, studying ‘All-About Music’, a crash course in the music industry. LeTavia and LaToya joined and in the following years Tina and Matthew’s sole income only just got them by.

Wherever the big break beckoned, Matthew would fly to meetings. He’d pay for carefully structured promotional packages, photo-shoots, “astronomical grocery bills, astronomical phone-bills”. The bill for Kinko alone, a U.S printing company, was many times in excess of $3000. “He had a vision,” says Tina, “and I never lost the faith but it was very hard on my family.”

As (pre-) teenagers, the girls had zero private life; it was a regime of school, homework, rehearsal, bed. A voice teacher moved into the family back-room, rent-free, in exchange for lessons. In ‘95, aged 13, they were signed to Elektra by Sylvia Rhone, the force behind En Vogue and, shortly afterwards, dropped. Devastation. Within a month, they were signed to Columbia. Jubilation. Over the next two years, they recorded their debut LP with Dwayne Wiggins from Tony! Toni! Tone and collaborated with Wyclef Jean who discovered their signature speed-style vocal, which Beyoncé delivered one day, exhausted, for a “joke”. Wyclef proclaimed it “haaaht!” and so it stuck.

Beyoncé, meanwhile, from age 15, had written, produced and arranged all their multi-part harmonies. The Writing’s On The Wall was then recorded in two months as the band structure imploded, the other two persistently “complaining”. “It was,” says Kelly, forlornly, “a horrible time”. Nonetheless, the LP is now something of a modern R’n’B classic. “But it’s been a real sacrifice,” says Tina. “Sometimes I wish for them a normal life, but they can’t have that. That’s the trade-off.”

None of Destiny’s Child has a boyfriend. “In this business,” they’re saying, back on the bus, “it’s difficult”. They work, says Beyoncé, all the time. “We’re hardly ever seen in public,” adds Michelle, brightly. “But occasionally,” smiles Beyoncé, “we have guys sayin’ stuff like (goof-ball voice) ‘I’ll pay your bills bills bills... when you say my name!’”

They consider themselves to be “ladies”. Beyoncé, of course, is a Dream Woman to many – a “revelation” which startles her. “That’s overwhelming!” she says, genuinely. “We ain’t tryina be a dream woman,” says Michelle, “or... hopefully this will never come but... (whispers) sex symbols.”

Well it’s waaaaaay too late for that already! “Hihihih!” they laugh, together, looking thoroughly embarrassed.

On this European trip, the question they’ve endured daily has been about the seeming dichotomy between Christianity and Cleavage. “It doesn’t compute,” says Beyoncé, “they don’t understand American Christianity. It’s not about how you look, to God. But we’ve never been in underwears and bras and lingerie. Yeah we have our legs out but we won’t have boobs hangin’ all out and cleavage hangin’ all out with legs and thighs hangin’ all out. If we feel like anyone’s jus’ gonna be starin’ straight at our boobs or butts, then, no.”

Are you pioneers of a new pop morality? Presumably, like Britney Spears, you won’t be having sex before you’re married?

“Well we never talk about... um, sexuality,” says Beyoncé, looking 200% distressed. “We think that’s private. Everybody has their own preference and we’re not trying to put our beliefs on anybody. There are a lot of people that have had sex before marriage, and who are we to tell them that that’s wrong? Or right?”

When Destiny’s Child first arrived, fully-formed, in the music business, Tina and Matthew Knowles already had The Rules laid down. No producers or anyone else working with the girls were allowed to use any drugs at all, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol or use “profanity” in their company. If hardcore rap and hip-hop was the background music on photo shoots, Tina would insist it had to go. She tells people to put their cigarettes out, stop the cursin’, has almost gotten into fights with men who’ve made “inappropriate” comments.

Today, The Rules remain. At one photo-shoot on this tour, muthafuckin’ NWA is out... the Andrews Sisters’ Chattanooga-boogie is in (photographer’s respectful choice. A delight, actually.)

“In the beginning,” says Tina, cheerfully, “somebody very powerful in the industry told me the girls would never make it because producers did drugs, used profanity. But we’ve changed the industry somewhat. We’ve been labelled controlling and that’s too bad. You don’t wanna expose yourself to things that you don’t feel comfortable with, just to fit in. Be your own person and don’t deal with the peer pressure.”

Unsurprisingly, the girls insist they’ve never taken drugs. They’ve never seen anyone on drugs. Beyoncé believes drug culture is “something you go through” until you realise “it ain’t gonna help you”. They are sheltered, they know, and in this they feel “very lucky”. As a Force For Good, they’ve already saved lives, had letters from fans saying “certain songs prevented them from committing suicide”.

A driving force in their quest for success is the possibility of earning colossal amounts of money they can give away to charities – to help, as Kelly shouts, “change the world!” This is not just a PR line: they’ve built homeless shelters already.

“But if we never sell another record,” notes Beyoncé, “we’ve been successful. We already have something to be happy and proud about.” “That’s right,” hollers Kelly, “well said!” And Destiny’s Child batter the table in collective, crusading glee.

God’s children, naturally, have their enemies. Within the music industry, their piousness is easily mocked, The Rules routinely condemned, the girls accused of being barricaded into a fantasy realm entirely removed from a world they believe is wholly wrong and everyone else believes is merely real.

They also deal, daily, with what’s become known as “the Diana Ross issue”, the will-she-or-won’t-she speculation surrounding Beyoncé’s supposed solo ambitions, and the related assumptions she is Madame Fear Herself.

“Diva Drama,” says Beyoncé, derisively, now crumpled, exhausted, in the back of a people carrier scooshing through Dublin, all uber-soft, in grey Gap scarf and fawn woolly hat, looking a great deal like Lauryn Hill. “I am totally not that type-a person. That’s what’s so wonderful about the group now, the diva drama’s all gone.”

Mooted plans for the girls to release solo records – “pop-R’n’B” from Beyoncé, “alternative r” from Kelly, and “gospel R’n’B” from Michelle – are currently on hold as the Destiny’s Child starship appears universally unstoppable. Rumours persist, however, of a solo career. You’re definitely staying together as a group?

“Definitely,” says Beyoncé, emphatically, loosening the coil of scarf, looking troubled for the first and only time we’re together, “definitely. But we also know there comes a time when you are no longer Number One. A time where you are no longer the hottest thing, or music changes and you can’t relate. And then you become a part of history. And I just pray we make it to that point.”

She loosens the scarf some more.

“It used to really affect me,” she says, “as soon as one person believed a rumour or had a bad opinion about Destiny’s Child, I was so passionate about tellin’ ‘em it was not true. It really got to me. An’, you know, it still does. Some nights I still cry. All the rumours, the haters, it still hurts. And I think ‘gosh, I wish people really knew us’. I jus’ pray that we make the best of our time, that we’re positive and that we enjoy it. And we have so many great stories to tell. And I pray that we make a difference.”

Biggest and best pop band on the planet. A part of history. Making a difference. Congratulations, ladies, you already made it.