Modern Divas Boxed Set
Page 13
Later on she would say about the whole thing, “Well, it was very flattering when it happened. She’s such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn’t know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way. There are no hard feelings with Christina at all.” Gaga added, “What it showed me was, even though I’ve only been on the commercial market for seven or eight months, I’ve really burned graphic images of my visuals onto the irises of my fans. They saw a huge, Grammy-winning star who’s been around for years and they recognized Lady Gaga. That to me is quite an accomplishment.”
Fun Facts
Did you know that…
Lady Gaga sometimes brings with her a purple teacup and saucer while out in public. She told people magazine, “I drank tea with my mom, [so teacups] make me feel at home.”
Lady is a natural brunette, but she dyed her hair blonde after an interviewer confused her with Amy Whinehouse.
In 2005, Lady Gaga, still Stefani then, appeared on Boiling Points, an MTV reality show.
Stefani, a brunette then, appeared on Boiling Points
Lady Gaga was the second most powerful musician in the world in 2010.
Lady Gaga has hit the 50 million Facebook Fans mark but is not first in Facebook Fans. But she had the most Twitter followers until recently, when she was ousted by Jennifer Lopez. More than 23 million people worldwide follow her on Twitter. In terms of Youtube views, Lady Gaga’s reached more than 2 billion views.
Lady Gaga wrote and co-produced her first album, The Fame.
Lady Gaga doesn’t leave her room without full makeup.
Lady Gaga refers to her fans as her “Little Monsters” while she is the “Mother Monster.”
Lady Gaga wrote LoveGame in just 4 minutes!
Lady Gaga is famous for buying pizza for her little monsters.
Lady Gaga explained her pantless obsession. She said that her grandmother was nearly blind but could still make out the lighter pants, like her skin and hair. Her grandmother told her, “I can see you, because you have no pants on.” And so Gaga decided she’d wear no pants so that her grandma can see her.
Lady Gaga is one of the 100 most powerful women, according to Forbes.
In 2011, Lady Gaga was No. 1 in Forbes’ Celebrity 100. In 2012, she slid down to fifth place and was replaced, in first place, by Jennifer Lopez.
Lady Gaga has tattoos, all of which are on the left of her body. During a visit to Google Headquarters in San Francisco, she explained that her father banned her from getting tattoos on the right side of her body and asked that she remain normal on one side. Here are her tattoos:
· On left Leg – a unicorn with the words ‘Born This Way’ wrapped around the horn.
· Left wrist – a peace symbol in honor of John Lennon
· Left shoulder – white roses and daisies
· The words “Tokyo Love” handwritten by Nobuyoshi Araki
· The word “Dad” written inside a heart, a tribute to her father’s successful open-heart surgey
· Left side – roses by Kat Von D
· Left inner arm – A quote from her favorite philosopher, Rainer Maria Rilke, in the native German script and translates to: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”
· The word “Little Monsters” next to the Rilke tattoo.
Lady Gaga’s very first song, To Love Again, was written in just 15 minutes.
Lady Gaga has a male alter ego named Jo Calderone.
Lady Gaga was named the “Queen of Pop” in 2011 by Rolling Stone.
* * *
Lady Gaga is not an overnight sensation, and her success today as a pop artist doesn’t seem to be slowing down a bit. With millions of fans worldwide, she’s at the height of her career. Countless books have been written about her, and even the tiniest detail about her life becomes headlines. You can expect her to continue doing what she’s best at doing, and that’s delivering music that’s certain to again top the charts. And of course, that’s alongside her never-ending experiments on fashion.
Lady Gaga has taken the world by storm in her stilettos, and she could command attention whenever she goes. One of the reasons why she’s at the center of attention is because she gives all the attention and adoration back to her loyal fans. Gaga makes it a point that when she performs in front of massive crowds, she gives good value to her fans. She believes that fame is sharable and that she doesn’t want to keep fame for herself.
It is apparent that Lady Gaga is not one who has to subscribe to Andy Warhol’s famous quote “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Her celebrity status has all the earmarks of long-lasting fame that marked the career of her own favorite artists such as Freddie Mercury. Her rise from a struggling performer in New York to a worldwide phenomenon is proof to that. And her constant reinvention of herself and her creativity in creating elaborate live shows will definitely keep her in the radar for a long time.
Beyoncé: From Destiny's Child to Worldwide Star
Jessica Jayne
Platinum Publishing
Table of Contents
Beyoncé Who?
Chapter 1 – Childhood in Houston
Beyoncé’s Parents
Unusual Name
It Starts in the Family
Chapter 2 – The World’s A Stage
Girl’s Tyme
Chapter 3 – The Destiny’s Child
Embarking on First Album
Chapter 4 – Destiny Written On The Wall
Chapter 5 – A Period of Difficulty
Chapter 6 – A Three-Piece Success
Independent Women
Survivor
Chapter 7 – Going Solo
Crossing-Over to Acting
Back To Music
Crazy In Love
Chapter 8 – From A Pop Star To An Artist
Dangerously In Love
Reunited
Chapter 9 – Fulfilling Her Own Destiny
Music and Film
Independent Woman
Chapter 10 – Single Lady No More
Beyoncé Meets Jay-Z
Becoming A Mother
Public Perception
Beyoncé Who?
Singer, songwriter, actress, record producer, wife and mother. That’s how you can describe worldwide phenomenon Beyoncé Knowles, who goes mononymously as Beyoncé. As part of the three-piece R&B vocal group Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé has gone the prodigious journey to fame starting at the age of 9.
Destiny’s Child as a group lasted until 2005, but before their hiatus, they had become a successful global entity and ultimately, the biggest-selling female group of all time. The group’s lead singer, Beyoncé, would go on to achieve for herself her own destiny.
Beyoncé spent her whole life perfecting her talent. While other girls her age were going to the movies or hanging out with friends, she and the other girls of Destiny’s Child were busy rehearsing and working to perfect their routines. They sacrificed a lot of things, even missing high school prom, with their eyes on achieving their goal.
The Destiny’s Child indeed fulfilled their destiny, until it was time for the girls to separate and make a name for themselves. Eventually, the girls struck it out successfully in the music industry, but it was Beyoncé who would surpass them all.
With her successful albums and catchy singles, Beyoncé became known on both sides of the Atlantic. Her journey wasn’t an easy one, though, what with controversies and challenges that only made her more mature and broad-minded. But Beyoncé was determined to succeed, and she knew one way to achieve that was through hard work.
Some people who tried to write about Beyoncé’s life made claims that she is one of the least understood celebrities in this generation. Beyoncé is a very private person who doesn’t want her persona
l life to overlap with her professional life. And as it is in media, people are more interested to write about controversies and scandals. As a result, Beyoncé’s presentation in the media is often one-sided or distorted. And people are surprised when they get to know the real B.
Chapter 1 – Childhood in Houston
Beyoncé’s Parents
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles came into the world on September 4, 1981 to Mathew Knowles and Tina Knowles (nee Beyince) in Houston, Texas. Her younger sister, Solange, was born five years later. At about this time, her father worked a high-paying job at Xerox while her mother worked as a costume designer and hair stylist.
Interestingly, the time when Beyoncé was born was much better compared to those when her parents were growing up. Mathew, born in Alabama, had seen the bitterest hatred from whites and experienced segregation firsthand. During his teenage years, the country was undergoing changes. Just 6 years prior to Mathew’s birth, America had successfully fought a war and became victorious as a hegemonic superpower on the world stage.
Beyoncé’s dad and mom, Mathew and Tina Knowles, became involved in her career
However, in black inner cities, there was little reason to celebrate as people were more concerned about their basic rights and where to get their next meal. For African-Americans, there was little change. They took a significant role in the nation’s campaign in the Second World War, but they still found themselves marginalized and segregated and living in ghettos.
Mathew, born in 1951 in Alabama, had seen his situation and decided to take a better path for himself. In those times, Alabama was the most racist of all Southern states and had seen the slow progress of the Civil Rights movement and the rise of Alabaman preacher Dr Martin Luther King. Despite growing up in a poor family, Mathew was encouraged to pursue his education, and thus became one of the first African-American children to attend Litchfield Junior High in Marion as a result of the integration following the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v Board of Education in 1954.
While he was at school in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed. The legislation outlawed discrimination based on color, but it would take time before attitudes in the South changed.
Mathew was lucky enough to be able to attend the University of Tennessee via a basketball scholarship. He became one of the first African-Americans at the university, and was encouraged to participate in demonstrations and sit-ins. In the seventies, he decided to transfer to Fisk University in Nashville, one of the nation’s leading black universities. He was at Fisk when he toyed with the idea of developing musical acts in conjunction with the local radio station and applying the business techniques he had learned to music.
In 1974, Mathew Knowles graduated with degrees in economics and management. Proving himself smart and capable, he discovered that sales was the perfect area where he could use his knowledge in economics and management skills. He initially ventured to life insurance and telephone sales until he secured a job with Pickering International Medical Supplies selling medical equipment.
Before the seventies ended, Mathew was working for the Xerox Corporation, a photographic reproduction company that gained its prominence with the introduction of Xerox 914, the first paper photocopier in 1959. Mathew served as a salesman for its medical imaging division with a 10-year tenure and became very successful.
Meanwhile, his future wife, Celestine Ann “Tina” Beyince, was born in 1954 in Galveston, Texas. Coming from a poor family, the Beyinces moved to Galveston where Tina’s mother found work as a seamstress while her father was a longshoreman.
Tina could remember clearly that her mother, Agnez Dereon, could create beautiful dresses and evening clothes that she saw on fashion magazines. Tina grew up in a poor family and at first wondered how her parents could afford to send her and her siblings to Catholic school. It was only later that she found out that her mother created the nuns’ habits, the altar clothes and school uniforms while her father drove the nuns around in exchange for the children going to private school.
While at school, Tina created a name for herself when she joined the school’s Motown/girl group influenced act, The Beltones. She began to design their costumes and would apply Creole styles and fashions, things that would remain with Tina all her life. It was her mother who taught her how to use remnants of fabric for dresses and thus save money. She would say later on, “Everything I did prepared me for what I ended up doing with Destiny’s Child, which was really a blessing.
After graduating from school, Tina found a job in a bank.
By the late seventies, the Knowles and the Beyinces relocated in Houston, Texas, and it was there Mathew and Tina met at a party. At about this time, Mathew had just begun his tenure at Xerox while Tina was working in a local bank. They spent the evening together but then forgot to swap numbers. The next day, they met coincidentally a few times and felt that fate was intervening. They married in 1979 and by the end of 1980, Tina was carrying their first child.
Unusual Name
The name Beyoncé is an unusual name for a person. It actually sounded like a last name, because it was. Beyoncé’s name was derived from her mother’s family name, Beyince. Tina was the youngest of seven children and realized that there was only one male in the family. She told Rolling Stone, “I said, oh God, we’ll run out of Beyinces.” As expected, her grandfather was not happy with the idea of having a granddaughter with a surname for her Christian name. She recalled that her entire family wasn’t happy about it, and that her father said, “She’s gonna be really mad at you because that’s a last name. “And I’m like, ‘It’s not a last name to anybody but you guys.’”
In the end, Tina won, and one of the most successful female artists today bears an unusual name that only serves to lend her an air of uniqueness.
After Beyoncé was born, her mother set up a hair salon named Headliners that immediately became a swanky and well-to-do salon for African-Americans in Houston. Her successful job along with her husband’s progress at Xerox enabled the family to move to a more comfortable six-bedroom house in an affluent section of the Third Ward in Houston.
It Starts in the Family
Beyoncé’s love for singing began in her family. In Destiny’s child’s autobiography, Soul Survivors, Beyoncé wrote: “My parents used to sing to me all the time. My dad tells me that as a baby I would go crazy whenever I heard music.” Her parents shared a love for music, starting from when they were teenagers listening to the latest African-American pop to their twenties when Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson and Prince filled the air waves. And when they had their own families, they channeled their love for music to their own children.
Young Beyoncé and sister, Solange
Beyoncé attended St Mary’s Elementary School and became interested in dance, ballet and jazz. And this was also where her talent in singing was discovered when she finished a song that her dance instructor hummed and hit the high-pitched notes perfectly. Beyoncé could clearly remember one day when she rushed home from school, eager to sing to her mother the song that she learned.
“I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I stood up to sing it for her just like my teacher had taught me. I’ll never forget that feeling. I loved performing for my mom – it was a rush.”
Beyoncé got her first taste of performing at age 7 during a dance lesson at St Mary’s. Her teacher, Sister Darlette Johnson, encouraged her to hone her dancing as well as singing abilities, which she both possessed. Beyoncé wrote, “Miss Darlette had a unique gift. She could get anybody to dance. Aside from basic moves, she taught me self-esteem, confidence, a positive attitude, and, most importantly, discipline.”
It was Johnson who felt that there was something special about Beyoncé and encouraged her to join the school talent show. Beyoncé recalled that she was terrified and wanted to back out, but Johnson gently encouraged her until she agreed. “I remember walking out and I was scared but when the music started I don’t know what happened. I just … changed.”
Beyoncé’s mother, Tina, later told Ebony magazine, “She was a sweet but really shy kid. She’d come into a room and just want to be invisible. But when she got onstage and sang The Beatles’ [sic] Imagine, we couldn’t believe it was the same kid. Her confidence came out. She’d get a standing ovation.” It was also Beyoncé’s first step to stardom.
Chapter 2 – The World’s A Stage
Beyoncé decided early on to make the world a stage, including tables, chair and kitchen countertop. “I made my own stages. That’s how I expressed myself. I only felt comfortable when I was singing or dancing.”
Mathew and Tina decided to have Beyoncé join a variety of talent competitions. “She must have done 30 of those competitions,” Mathew told Ebony magazine. “And she carried first place in every last one of them.”
Beyoncé was only seven yet she was gaining attention from the press, especially after being mentioned in the Houston Chronicles on being nominated for the prestigious Houston arts award, the Sammy Davis Jr. Awards. The Sammy awards were designed to give the young an opportunity to get some exposure.