Becoming Beyoncé

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “Momma, please!” Beyoncé said as she continued to wrap the tape round and round her waist, so tight she could barely breathe. She then pulled the top of her outfit over her shoulders and examined herself in the mirror. “There. That’s looks pretty good,” she said, satisfied. “Don’t you think?” she asked, turning around and facing her mother.

  There were actually two versions of videos for the song “Listen.” One featured a performance of the song intercut with a fashion shoot and scenes from Dreamgirls. There was also one known as the “Director’s Cut,” which was a re-creation of a photo shoot. Directed by Matthew Rolston, it appears on the Dreamgirls DVD release.

  In the “Director’s Cut” storyline, Beyoncé, her face painted to look like a mannequin, appears as a fashion model at an important photography session. Behind the old-fashioned camera is a photographer who bears a striking resemblance to legendary fashion lensman Richard Avedon. There is also a prim-looking stylist, who brings to mind powerful Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour, as well as attentive styling assistants. They all carefully watch as various elaborate looks are tried out on Beyoncé.

  Although Beyoncé looks terrific in the wardrobe, no one at the session seems happy with the results. Though frustrated, she tries her best to get through it, but it’s just not working. When an assistant attempts to liven things up by perching a ridiculously large parrot on her shoulder, Beyoncé has had enough. She storms off the set. Then, staring directly into the camera, she peels off her thick lashes.

  “Ripping off her false eyelashes was the most iconic diva stunt ever,” said makeup artist Billy B. of the video. “It’s a statement of defiance and independence. The way I saw it as we were filming it, it was a direct message to her father. It was as if she was saying to him, ‘Look at me. Listen to me. I’m my own woman and I always have been. I am not this commodity you think you created.’ ”

  Shedding her manufactured self to reveal the person she is meant to be, Beyoncé then runs up the stairs to the rooftop wearing the simple black catsuit. It’s designed to showcase her bodacious cleavage while her cinched midsection shows off her impossibly small waist. Only those aware of the backstory of what it took for her to get into the outfit realized that her tiny waist is a symbol of sacrifice, ingenuity, pain, and self-control—all of which Beyoncé has endured for years to achieve her ideal of herself.

  As the song ends, Beyoncé is breathing heavily. She is drained. She stares at the viewer with a look of insubordination and self-satisfaction. The overall message: Don’t let them change you into something that you are not. Be yourself.

  “Because I was there, it takes my breath away when I see that video today,” Billy B. added. “Every take was important to her. We were in a little studio, and she was singing full-out as if she was in a stadium in front of a hundred thousand people. With every take, she cried real tears. It was passionate, over the top, and meant everything to her. When it was over, I cried. I would bet that if you talked to anyone at that shoot, they would agree that there was no way to be in that studio and not be affected by it.”

  Billy B.’s observation that Beyoncé’s performance in the video seemed inspired by her relationship with her dad certainly seems true, even though Beyoncé didn’t write many—if any—of the lyrics. She obviously saw a parallel. In her 2013 documentary, Life Is but a Dream, she positions a performance of “Listen” at the end of a compelling segment about her crumbling relationship with Mathew. Taking it a step further, the composition can also be said to state her true feelings about the experience of all of the outspoken women in her life who went up against Mathew over the years: Denise Seals, Deborah Laday, Andretta Tillman, and Tina Knowles—maybe even LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett, especially given the lyric, “The time has come / For my dreams to be heard / They will not be pushed aside and turned / Into your own.”

  After the successful video shoot, Beyoncé was faced with having to remove the gaffer’s tape from around her waist. “Oh my God, the screams!” exclaimed Billy B. “It was very, very painful. She was absolutely wailing, and Tina was trying to help her, saying, ‘I’m sorry, Beyoncé, but I told you this was gonna happen!’ ”

  Jay Z’s “Affair” with Rihanna

  By 2006, Beyoncé—who would turn twenty-five in September—seemed truly exhausted by the demands of her career. Those around her noticed she often seemed depressed at this time, or maybe even sad. “She would just go into a corner and seem to disappear into herself,” was how one person put it.

  Many people in her life were uncertain as to exactly what was troubling Beyoncé. Was it her dad’s management of her career? Her mother’s ongoing sadness with Mathew? Maybe she was more upset about Dreamgirls than she’d let on? Or perhaps she was just pushing herself too hard. She wasn’t returning her friends’ telephone calls, which was unusual for her.

  It would seem that Beyoncé’s troubles in 2006 included her relationship with Jay and issues were rumored to have been plaguing the pair for about a year.

  In 2005, the couple began having trouble coordinating their intensely busy and overscheduled lives. If it’s true, as they say, that many couples have the same fight over and over again, with Jay and Beyoncé it would relate to work. He is said to have felt that she was too concerned and overwhelmed by it. She was definitely her father’s daughter in that she could become completely consumed by work in a way that to outsiders may have sometimes appeared obsessive. The two were said to have broken up for a time during that year.

  In 2006, Jay seemed to allude to the breakup in his song “Lost One,” when he rapped, “I don’t think it’s meant to be / But she loves her work more than she does me.” In his book Decoded, he would later explain that the lyric was “about how difficult it is to respect a lover as an autonomous human being, with separate needs and goals and timelines than yours. It’s one of the hardest things about a real relationship. But it’s worth it.”

  As it happened, a publicity stunt involving the up-and-coming Barbadian pop star Rihanna didn’t help matters. Publicist Jonathan Hay recalled, “I was working for Vada Nobles, who wrote and produced ‘Pon de Replay,’ Rihanna’s first single. Jay had just signed her to Def Jam. Well, it was my job to make sure she hit. However, when I pitched her to [the journalist] Jennifer Vineyard at MTV, she wanted a quote from Jay. I told her it should be no problem. But do you think I could get one? Hell no.

  “I started sending him text messages saying, ‘Dude! Two sentences about Rihanna. That’s all I need.’ He’d write back: ‘Hit me up later.’ I would do so, but . . . still nothing. So, out of frustration and in an effort to generate some interest, I began to plant stories in the press that Jay and Rihanna were having a hot romance, and that Beyoncé was very jealous and pissed off about it.”

  The National Enquirer was the first to run Jonathan’s sensational fabrication. From there, it erupted into a firestorm of media. The rumor of infidelity on Jay’s part caused such a sensation, in fact, that it helped propel “Pon de Replay” to major hit status almost overnight, as the track went straight to number two on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 and then Top 10 all around the world. At first no one at Def Jam paid attention to the rumor; everyone was just glad that the record was a hit. But after Jay started asking questions about the campaign, he finally figured out that a rumor about him and Rihanna was at the center of it. He wasn’t happy about it, including for a reason that hadn’t crossed Jonathan’s mind. “Jay called me and said, ‘Dude! She’s a minor!’ ” Hay recalled. “It was true; Rihanna was only seventeen; that hadn’t even occurred to me!”

  So, was Jay Z having a romantic relationship with Rihanna? “Absolutely not,” says Jonathan Hay. “It was all a stunt. Am I proud of it? No. There was no integrity to it at all. Did it work? Hell yeah, it worked. It totally launched Rihanna’s career.”

  According to well-placed sources, Beyoncé wasn’t sure about the whole story. “It added a new twist to what was already a lot of drama between her and Jay,” said a sour
ce.

  Beyoncé and Jay were at Jay’s 40/40 sports bar in New York one night with friends when they apparently got into it over Rihanna. Because it was a whispered argument over loud televised sportscasts, it was impossible to know for certain what they were saying. All that was said to have been heard over the din was Rihanna’s name uttered several times, before Beyoncé stood up and left.

  Though there are people in Beyoncé and Jay’s circle who have long believed that the couple broke up over Rihanna, blaming any schism in their relationship on the Barbadian singer is probably overstating her influence on it. Like all couples there would have been other issues. Of course, without their direct testimony it’s impossible to know what was going on behind closed doors. It’s safer to conclude that the rumors about Rihanna probably didn’t help. Surprisingly, Jay didn’t blame Jonathan Hay for the imbroglio either. He chalked it up to a publicity gimmick gone bad and—as a man who fully understands the complexities of the record business and twists and turns of public relations—decided to just let it go. “It got ugly there for a minute between me and Jay, but it blew over,” said Jonathan Hay. “I think if I hadn’t made the song a big hit, he might not have gotten over it.”

  Not certain how to proceed with Jay, Beyoncé attended the 2005 Grammy Awards with a young and handsome R&B singer who goes by just his first name, Mario (Barrett). The two were photographed on the red carpet together—one of the rare times (maybe the only time) Beyoncé has ever been seen on a red carpet with a date other than Jay Z. Though Beyoncé looked stunning in a black gown with gold trim and a plummeting neckline, while posing with Mario she appeared uncomfortable. Of course, it has to be noted that Mathew accompanied his daughter and Mario that evening, which seemed odd to most observers. With her father present, it was as if Beyoncé wanted to be seen on a date with someone else . . . but not really be on a date with someone else.

  It was clear to most people who knew her that Beyoncé needed more time to work through her feelings where Jay was concerned. However, he missed her. He wanted them to reconcile. “Jay is always going to be the alpha male, no matter the situation,” said his childhood friend DeHaven Irby. “He’s going to let the woman in his life only have so much room before he’s going to want to have his way. A woman like Beyoncé who has been used to pleasing her father all her life is not going to have her independence very long with a guy like Jay. In other words, he’s gonna have his way.”

  In the end, after she finished Dreamgirls, Beyoncé agreed to resume their relationship. It could be said that what she did not get as a result of this difficult time in her life was a full airing of her feelings. It was her choice, though. People close to her say that her frustration, and maybe even anger, only found its true voice in “Sasha Fierce.” In fact, whenever Sasha was onstage during this time, she seemed angrier than ever. But Beyoncé? Not so much.

  In an effort to smooth things, Beyoncé and Jay planned to take time off to be together and reconnect. But then in late March 2006, about a month into a planned vacation, she told Jay that she was itching to get back to work. Destiny’s Child had just received their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and after the ceremony, Beyoncé said she was thinking of recording a new album. He had to understand that she needed her work. She was too driven, too focused to just put it aside for long. If he wanted to be with her, he would have to make the necessary adjustments; singing and performing was always going to be a big part of the life and times of Beyoncé Knowles. As an artist himself, he could relate, and he loved her enough to work it all out in his head.

  Beyoncé’s 2006 hit “Ring the Alarm” seems to be about the rumored Jay Z/Rihanna affair. Though the couple had come to terms with the issue by this time, because she is an artist who writes from her own experience the subject was bound to come up in her lyrics. The lyrics to “Ring the Alarm” rage on about her refusal to let another woman end up with the perks—chinchilla coats, diamond rings, Rolls-Royce automobiles—she feels she deserves by virtue of the heartache she’s suffered at the hands of her affluent boyfriend. “She’s sold half a million gold / She don’t love [you] that shit, I know,” Beyoncé sings. It turns out that both of Rihanna’s albums up to that time had been certified gold (half a million copies), falling short of Beyoncé’s multiplatinum status. Of course, Beyoncé later denied that the song was about Rihanna, and we may never know the truth as it’s not as if she would ever publicly confirm such a thing.5

  By the end of 2007, it definitely looked like Beyoncé and Jay had worked out any problems in their relationship. In December, she would toast their romance with friends and family at her side, proclaiming her love for him in an eloquent, honest, and emotional way. “I don’t know where to start,” she would say, gazing at him with loving eyes. Following a heartfelt speech she raised her glass of red wine toward him, and concluded, “Happy birthday. I thank God for you every day.”

  B’Day

  Because of the pressures in her personal life, 2006 definitely wasn’t the best of years for Beyoncé. However, when she found herself in the midst of emotional turmoil, she could always turn to music. Somehow her art was always able to guide her through any storm.

  In May 2006, just before she left for the 59th Cannes Film Festival in France, Beyoncé called Columbia/Sony and asked the label’s artist and repertoire department to book recording time at Manhattan’s Sony Studios. She also provided a preliminary list of songwriters and producers with whom she wished to work, and asked the label to check on their availability. Moreover, she requested the utmost of discretion, which meant no mention to other label executives or to anyone else that she was going into the studio—and, surprisingly, this seems to have included Mathew. She would later explain that the reason she didn’t tell him of her plans was because she wasn’t sure she was actually making a recording for release, that maybe she was just recording demos for future consideration, which she did all the time.

  In fact, an album actually was contractually due from Beyoncé at this particular time. The original plan had been for her to release a follow-up to Dangerously in Love in 2004, but Destiny’s Child’s final album got in the way of it. After that, she became distracted by Dreamgirls. Still, a record was due.

  With this pending project, Beyoncé sensed that she needed to make a move toward gaining some more independence from Mathew. As much as she craved his approval, something in her made her feel that with this album in particular, she had to make a statement not only to him, but to herself. It wasn’t easy, though. As much as she wanted to spread her wings, there was still trepidation about it; he’d always been her safety net. However, when it came right down to it, Beyoncé would go deep within and somehow find the courage to do what she knew in her heart she needed to do, not only for her art but for her personal growth. It was clear to people in her life that indeed she was working on herself, taking small steps but steadily moving forward in her quest to becoming a more independent woman.

  Of course, Mathew found out about it; he almost always knew what she was up to, even when she believed otherwise. However, there wasn’t much he could do about his daughter’s plans, except maybe wonder what it portended for the future.

  For these recording sessions Beyoncé turned to a wide range of talented producers and songwriters, such as Rodney Jerkins; the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo; Rich Harrison; Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean; Sean Garrett; the team of Stargate—Mikkel Storleer Eriksen and Tor Erik Hermansen; and Ne-Yo.

  Working with a variety of producers and songwriters on one project was nothing new for Beyoncé; of course, that’s how Destiny’s Child records were made, as well as her debut solo album. However, for this record she decided to book every studio at the Sony facility in New York, and then have all of her producers and songwriters work on their respective tracks concurrently, while she went from room to room to work with them on different songs. She wanted the energy and excitement of that sort of mass creativity to be happening all at once.

  “
I came to the studio and saw the zone,” Swizz Beatz recalled. “I said, ‘Damn, everybody in here is banging out.’ Rodney Jerkins had his session while Rich Harrison had his session going on. I was like, ‘How am I going to compete with that? Okay, well . . . I’m just gonna do what I do, I guess.’ I started banging out some tracks and I thought it might be too hard, but then Beyoncé would come in the room and be like, ‘That’s crazy good.’ ”

  Actually, this way of multitask recording was a throwback to a bygone era. In the 1960s and ’70s, black pop music labels such as Motown and Philadelphia International took such a “hit factory” approach, routinely putting together teams of staff songwriters and producers to work on a specific project. The approach created a competitive spirit that, theoretically, was good for getting results. The downside was that the process didn’t always make for creating or sustaining goodwill among producers. When one producer knows that another one down the hall is trying to create music that will knock his out of the running, things can get a little uncomfortable. More significantly, a process with so many chefs in the kitchen doesn’t always serve an artist’s quest to create a singular signature sound for an album. The approach did, however, ensure that the work was done quickly. The songs that would end up on B’Day, released on September 4, 2006—Beyoncé’s twenty-fifth birthday—were recorded in roughly two weeks.

  What was exciting about B’Day—the spontaneity of its production—also proved to be its detriment. The project wasn’t allotted the scrutiny of an objective overseeing ear. Indeed, by 2006, one of the misfortunes of Beyoncé’s career was that it wasn’t afforded the direction of a seasoned executive producer. Beyoncé and Mathew were the executive producers—as always—and by this time it was beginning to seem that the duo was maybe a little out of its depth. It’s not known how much input Beyoncé let her father have on B’Day, but word in the street was: not much. Because Mathew was always known to have a more commercial ear than Beyoncé, she definitely could have used a little more of his input on the album.