Becoming Beyoncé

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “It’s not fair what happened to us,” Chris said.

  “Life’s not fair,” Andretta told him. “But look at us now,” she added, “and look at all of the people we have surrounding us who love us: the girls . . . their parents. If you think about it, we have a whole new family,” she concluded, “a family we get to choose.”

  Buckin’ and Poppin’

  Girls Tyme—Beyoncé, Kelly, LaTavia, Ashley, Nicki, and Nina—quickly formed an overnight sisterhood. There was no jealousy between them; they didn’t seem to care who sang lead and who didn’t, as long as they were singing together. “Singing with your best friends, there’s nothing better when you’re a little kid,” Beyoncé once recalled. “Every day felt like summer vacation.”

  Recalled Nina Taylor, “We were always teasing each other like sisters. I remember we used to tease Beyoncé because she didn’t like boys. She was only nine or ten. I don’t know what it was like for her at school, but after our shows the boys liked her a lot. But she was like, ‘Oh, gross! Get them away from me!’ ”

  At this time, 1991, Beyoncé was completing the fourth grade at Parker Elementary, an academy specifically designed for students interested in and excelling in music. There were some problems at the school, though. For instance, Mathew and Tina knew that the choral director there, Cindy Pack, was annoyed with Beyoncé for not committing to the school’s choir. After joining, Beyoncé had lost interest in it. She was too individual a performer to be in a choir anyway. Once, she had a small solo at a choral presentation, but didn’t show up for it. Mathew and Tina didn’t know about it, or they most certainly would have made sure she was present. Beyoncé wanted to sing, if not by herself, with one or two others, but definitely not in a chorus where she couldn’t be heard. She was very clear about it. Another teacher, Miss Preston, complained to Tina that Beyoncé was not doing her homework. Tina explained that the problem was that Beyoncé didn’t have time for homework; she was always practicing or performing.

  While Mathew and Tina wanted Beyoncé to have a good education, it wasn’t at the expense of her singing. In that respect the teachers at Parker were becoming a bit of a hassle. Finally Tina just told Cindy Pack that Beyoncé would not be returning for the fifth grade. They’d find another school with less structure.

  In the fifth through seventh grades, Beyoncé would attend two private Catholic schools—St. Mary of the Purification in Houston and St. James the Apostle in nearby Spring. (She would also attend the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts for a very short time.) The eighth and some of the ninth grade would find Beyoncé attending Welch Middle School, a public school. Then she would drop out and be tutored or homeschooled. She was happy about that turn of events, never feeling that she ever really “belonged” to a student body.

  “Beyoncé was just so shy,” LaTavia Roberson said. “She had to really know you before she let you in. But once you were friends with her, you knew you could trust her. You could say, ‘Beyoncé, I need to talk to you about something,’ and you knew it was going to stay between the two of you. She wouldn’t tell the other girls if you asked her not to. She was very family-oriented and wanted us to always be together. She didn’t have any other friends, actually. It was just us girls. We would ask, ‘What about the kids in school, are you friends with them too?’ And she would say, ‘Nope. I don’t know any of them.’ ”

  The Knowleses had an apartment over the garage, overlooking their backyard, that was sometimes used as a guesthouse. The girls would often have slumber parties there, feeling so grown up in their own little home. Nina recalled, “Mathew would say, ‘Y’all stay in the apartment. Don’t y’all come into the main house and wake everyone up, hear?’ In the middle of the night, we would play Truth or Dare. Beyoncé would say, ‘I dare you to go into the main house and get some ice.’ And we would all be, like, ‘No way! Mathew will kill us!’

  Meanwhile, fun times aside, there was always business at hand. Almost immediately, Ashley became more of a focal point of the group, to the exclusion of Beyoncé. It wasn’t a conscious decision on Andretta’s or Lonnie’s part. When Andretta booked the girls to sing at places like the Sharpstown or Greenspoint malls, Ashley was just so good, she had to be more featured. Beyoncé didn’t seem to mind, but even if she had it wouldn’t have altered the decision. Andretta and Lonnie felt sure they knew what they were doing, and the children certainly weren’t going to be dictating anything to them. However, the challenge Ashley presented was that even though she was an exceptional vocalist, she didn’t have much stage presence. Maybe that’s why producer Lonnie Jackson couldn’t help but secretly gravitate toward Beyoncé.

  “Even though she wasn’t singing lead, Beyoncé was—wow!—from the beginning she was just so soulful,” Lonnie recalled. “She wasn’t as polished as Ashley. But she had passion, and it somehow didn’t seem natural for a little kid to have that kind of passion. You watched her and thought, ‘This little girl has got something special, something memorable.’ You felt about her the same way you felt about Michael Jackson when you first saw him perform on television.

  “In fact, I spent many afternoons with Beyoncé watching Michael Jackson videos as part of her development,” Lonnie added. “She would study those videos like schoolwork, extracting movements and ideas that she wanted to incorporate into Girls Tyme. I also talked to her about music history because I wanted her to know where Michael and Prince had come from, how they were influenced by people like Jackie Wilson and James Brown. I wanted her to understand how Diana Ross came to be, what influences shaped her. I wanted her to know that she was part of a bigger context, that if she was going to be in this business, she should understand who came before her. She was curious about all of it, just wanting to learn as much as she could. Looking back, I think I had it in the back of my mind that this girl was going to end up being the focus, that we were just waiting for her to grow up a little.”

  “What’s goin’ on with that girl in front next to Ashley?” Kenny Moore asked one day during rehearsal. By this time, Andretta had brought Kenny into the fold to help her manage Girls Tyme. Kenny, a former singer in the military with a group called Black Satin, had great instincts when it came to show business. Like everyone else on the team, he had no real experience. However, what he did have was drive, ambition, and very good taste. He was also upbeat and positive, always with a smile and an encouraging word. His relationship with Andretta was so close, some people actually thought they were siblings. He would always go the extra mile for the woman he lovingly called “’Dretta.”

  “Oh, that’s Bey,” Andretta said of Beyoncé, according to Kenny’s memory. “She’s somethin’ else, that one.”

  “I’ll say,” Kenny agreed, “but, ’Dretta, why’s she buckin’ so damn hard?” he asked, tickled at the sight. “She’s really goin’ to town with those dance moves.”

  “She’s enthusiastic, all right,” Andretta observed. “But that’s just Bey. Offstage she’s shy, but once onstage, she’s a different girl.”

  “But all that buckin’ and poppin’ she’s doing is pulling focus from Ashley,” Kenny observed. “It also makes the other girls look like they’re not working as hard.”

  Andretta had to agree. “That Beyoncé,” she concluded, “she’s one little fast-tail girl, all right.”

  If she wasn’t “buckin’ so damn hard,” a very young Beyoncé could be found sitting alone, pensively writing song lyrics. “We used to have this exercise where we’d put the girls in a room and have them put pen to paper and try to write their own songs,” recalled Tony Mo. “One by one, each girl would give up and leave the room. I’d finally come into the room and Beyoncé would be the only one left. ‘I’m done,’ she’d say. ‘Well, cool, let me hear it,’ I’d tell her. And damn it if she hadn’t written a pretty decent song!”

  “You would listen to her lyrics and think, ‘Not bad. Not bad at all,’ ” Belfrey Brown recalled. “On the one hand you would think, ‘Isn’t it cute the way that litt
le girl is so serious about her music?’ But then on the other you would think, ‘Hold up! That little girl sure is serious about her music.’ ”

  When she wasn’t writing, she was still studying Andretta’s other act, Tayste, as they rehearsed. To-to, Andretta’s brother, who was a member of the group, recalled, “So, we’d be rehearsing, right? And this little kid, Beyoncé Knowles, would be sitting and watching and taking notes. And I was like, ‘What’s up with that?’ Then, when I would hear her rehearse with Girls Tyme, sure enough, she had my licks down pat, I mean, perfect. I told the guys, ‘Man, that little kid over there, that one on the end, she’s stealing from us! I ain’t kiddin’ either.’ We’d ask her, ‘Beyoncé, why are you here when we’re practicing? Go find your girls.’ And she would look at me innocently and say, ‘But I’m just watchin’. I ain’t doin’ nothin’.’ But, oh yeah,” he concluded, chuckling, “she was doin’ something, all right.”

  First Recording Session

  At the beginning of 1991, Andretta Tillman and Lonnie Jackson arranged for Girls Tyme to go into the recording studio for the first time and cut some songs. This of course was a big deal; everyone was excited. The intention was to record a tune called “Sunshine,” which, as produced by Lonnie, would go on to become the group’s signature song. “That was actually a very good song,” Beyoncé would recall years later, calling it “our ‘Heal the World’ type song.” The recording would be made at Digital Services Recording Studio in Houston, a major establishment, not some small mom-and-pop operation. In years to come, Destiny’s Child would either record or mix many of their best songs there.

  Mathew and Tina accompanied Beyoncé, who was still nine, to the session, with Solange, of course, in tow.

  By this time, Solange, who was barely four, had pretty much decided that she too wanted to be a singer and songwriter. She carried with her a notebook in which she jotted down poems whenever they came to her. Mathew was more encouraging of her aspirations than Tina was. “I know Beyoncé’s got talent, but you should see what Solange can do,” he told Kenny Moore one day. “She’s a star too.” The next day, Mathew brought Solange to rehearsal. During a break, he pushed her into the middle of the room. “Go on and sing that song you were singing at home,” he told her. Though she was extremely bashful, the youngster closed her eyes and sang. “See,” Mathew said proudly, “I told you! Better get her now while she’s hot.” Kenny Moore recalled, “I thought to myself, yeah, well, Mathew you’d better just keep ridin’ the horse you’re already on, okay?” After Solange’s impromptu audition, Tina asked Mathew to wait a little longer before working with her. She had already started to have concerns about how fast things were moving for Beyoncé, and if it were up to her, Solange would focus on some other aspiration—any other aspiration.

  During the recording session, Mathew, Tina, Solange, and the other girls’ family members all watched on one side of a glass booth as their daughters worked out the harmonic arrangements of the songs on the other. Lonnie and Tony Mo. coached them every step along the way. Lonnie was a perfectionist, eager to make sure everything was just right. Tony Mo. was more patient with the girls, carefully explaining his ideas behind the songs and doing whatever he could to get the girls excited about and then invested in the material. Of course, Andretta was present too, as were Deborah Laday and Denise Seals.

  “What I found intriguing right away was that even though she had a cold or an allergy that day, somehow she rose above it,” recalled Tony Mo. of Beyoncé. “Most kids are whiny when they’re sick. Not her—she forced herself to sing even when she could barely talk.”

  Actually, throughout her life, Beyoncé has suffered from severe sinus problems. Armon Tillman recalls, “Okay, this is gross kid stuff, but it’s true. Her nose was stuffed up all the time. It was an ongoing problem. She would lay a sheet of paper down on the floor and then stand over it. Then she’d put pressure on one nostril with her index finger and blow out. And the snot would just go flying. She’d do the same with the other nostril. We’d all say, ‘Beyoncé, that is just nasty,’ and she’d laugh and said, ‘I know! But if y’all want me to sing, this is what I gotta do! Turn y’all backs if you don’t wanna see it.’ ”

  “Sometimes, before she would practice, she would lay on the couch with her head hanging off it,” recalled Nina Taylor, “and she would put her thumb on the roof of her mouth and just wait for her sinuses to drain. Miss Ann would say, ‘Come on, Beyoncé! We gotta get to work,’ and she would say, ‘Y’all get started. If my sinuses are messed up, so’s my voice!’ I remember so many times she would be laying on the couch with one hand in her mouth, and the other snapping us on cue as we sang and danced. She’d be draining and spitting and counting, all at the same time, at the age of about nine. (“My nose runs a lot,” Beyoncé, as an adult, has said, “and when you’re singing, you can’t blow it. So, there have been moments”—she laughed—“when I’ve had the occasional bubble.” As it happened, Beyoncé would record her popular 2013 song “XO” while sick with a sinus infection. She liked the rawness and imperfection of her performance, though, which is why she decided not to redo it. The vocal she recorded while ill was ultimately the one released to the public.)

  What’s probably most compelling about the final product of “Sunshine” is the contrast between Ashley’s and Beyoncé’s voices. In this feel-good midtempo song, Ashley immediately commandeers the recording with her opening lines. When Beyoncé finally comes in for her middle lead, hers is clearly a different sound; it’s not nearly as developed as Ashley’s. However, what Beyoncé lacks in style, she makes up for in conviction. The girls also recorded an upbeat new jack swing number song called “Say It Ain’t So,” lyrics by Tony Mo. and music by Lonnie Jackson.

  This environment was a whole new world for Girls Tyme as they were exposed not only to the recording process but to elements of the music business they’d never before known. “I used to smoke a lot of weed back in those days,” Tony Mo. recalled. “I would go outside to write, smoke a little, write a little, and Beyoncé would come out and find me and innocently ask, ‘So, whatchu’ doin’ out here, Tony?’ I would quickly hide the joint and, searching the sky, I’d casually lie, ‘Oh, I’m just out here talkin’ to the birds, Bey.’ Though she was just a little kid, she was on to me. From that point on, whenever anyone couldn’t find me, Beyoncé would say, ‘Oh, Tony’s probably just outside talkin’ to them birds again.’ ”

  “All of this is pretty damn great,” Mathew Knowles said to Lonnie and Tony Mo. when the recording session was finally completed. He seemed a little starstruck by the proceedings. “This is very professional, top-of-the line stuff, isn’t it?” he asked as the producer and songwriter began to pack up the tapes.

  “Only the best for these kids,” Lonnie said.

  Mathew then asked the men what they thought of Beyoncé. They both agreed that she was coming along nicely, but hastened to point out that all of the girls were making progress. Though Mathew said he couldn’t argue with that conclusion, he added that he felt Beyoncé was “just a little more special” than Ashley.

  “Yeah, but Ashley has an incredible maturity to her sound,” Andretta observed as she approached the fellows. She quickly added that she enjoyed the way the two girls worked together, and then complimented Lonnie and Tony Mo. on the concept.

  Mathew didn’t look very convinced. “She’s all right,” he said of Ashley, “but Beyoncé, now she’s got something Ashley doesn’t have. I mean, am I nuts, or what?”

  “Not nuts,” Andretta said with a tolerant smile, “but maybe a little biased.”

  With a smile of his own, Mathew agreed that Andretta was probably right. Besides, he said, he trusted that she and her team knew what they were doing. “I’m just a parent carrying my kids’ stuff around from one place to the next,” he offered. However, he couldn’t help but add that, in his opinion anyway, Beyoncé should probably get a little more play. It was just a suggestion, he said. As he walked away from them, Lonnie,
Tony Mo., and Andretta looked at one other with raised eyebrows. “That was sort of interesting, huh?” Tony Mo. observed.

  “Yeah,” Lonnie said. “Very interesting. What do you think that was about?”

  Andretta seemed a little troubled. “I think we need to watch out for Mathew Knowles, that’s what I think,” she finally concluded. “I definitely got my eye on Beyoncé’s daddy. Trust.”

  California Bound

  One evening in the summer of 1991, Beyoncé Knowles came home from rehearsal at Andretta’s with a big announcement. As she sat at the dinner table with Mathew, Tina, and Solange, she exclaimed, “Guess what? We’re going to California.”

  Tina looked at her daughter with surprise. “Says who?” she asked.

  “Says Miss Ann,” Beyoncé responded.

  After dinner, Mathew telephoned Andretta to find out what she had in mind. Andretta said that her late husband had once told her about a West Coast talent gathering called the Gavin Convention, also known as the Gavin Seminar for Media Professionals. Calling upon an important contact of hers in California, Teresa LaBarbera Whites, who worked as an A&R scout for Sony (artist and repertoire is the division of a record company that signs new talent and assists acts already on the label), Andretta was able to book a coveted slot for Girls Tyme at the convention, which was coming up in July. This gig promised to expose them to a wide range of record company executives. There would also be an array of performers from a cross-section of musical genres, including LL Cool J representing hip-hop. Andretta explained that she was going to pay not only for the children’s airfares and accommodations, but also for the parents’. Mathew couldn’t help but be not only intrigued but impressed.