Modern Divas Boxed Set

by Jessica Jayne

  Chapter 6 – A Three-Piece Success

  Independent Women

  With only three girls in the group, Destiny’s Child went on their Australian tour on July 17. This was when the girls decided not to look for a replacement and instead continue as a three-piece.

  Beyoncé wrote in Soul Survivors, “That’s when we officially agreed not to bother looking for a replacement. She noted that the group had already done shows without Franklin and each one was a success. The year 2000 was particularly a year of hard work and change. It was also the year that was to cement Beyoncé as a superstar.

  Destiny’s Child toured throughout the year, and their first major worldwide 59-date tour began on July 1 and ended on December 31. The success of Destiny’s Child during this time was due to one song.

  Kelly told them one day, “Hey, the Charlie’s Angels movie is gonna be coming out soon. There were only three women in Charlie’s Angels!” Michelle thought it was a weird coincidence, and Beyoncé told them, “It’s perfect! Ladies, we can do this.”

  The group’s single, Independent Women Part 1, was a commercial success and was included in the soundtrack for the film Charlie’s Angels

  Their new single, Independent Women Part I became the lead single on the soundtrack to Charlie’s Angels movie. The inspiration for the song came one night in April 2000 after Beyoncé had an argument with her then-boyfriend, Lyndell Locke, following the criticisms aimed at her with the single Bills, Bills, Bills and the departure of Luckett and Roberson. She went into the studio alone and wrote what would become the Independent Women Part I. Her father, Mathew, and Sony, the parent company of Columbia, heard the track and decided that it was to be the single for Charlie’s Angel.

  Beyoncé said, “When the label heard it, they were like, ‘The song is hot. It has to be on the soundtrack.’ Of course, we were like, ‘That would be wonderful.’ So we changed it up and put a little Charlie’s Angels flavor in it, and there it was. It was a great experience for us.”

  The single was recorded at Lobo Recording Studios in New York. Beyoncé sang the verses while Kelly sang the bridge. Beyoncé also produced all the vocals on the track. Farrah Franklin was included in the initial sessions, but after becoming alienated from the group, it was reported that her contribution was removed.

  The record was released in September 2000 with a catchy introduction for the actresses playing Charlie’s Angels: “Lucy Liu, with my girl Drew, Cameron D and Destiny, Charlie’s Angels, come on.” The single became an irresistible hit and quickly topped the charts. The song was instrumental in introducing Destiny’s Child to a worldwide market far beyond the US.

  Being the lead single from one of the year’s highest-grossing films, the Independent Women Part I and the film as well cemented the group as a trio. The record topped the US Billboard Hot 100, US Pop Songs, US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, US Hot Dance Club Songs in November 2000. The single stayed at number one for 11 consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. During its tenth week, a lot of people expected that the single would be knocked off its perch due to strong competition, but the single sustained its position due to the high sales of the single’s maxi version and also due to the huge box office of the film. The 2000-2001 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records featured the song as the longest-running song by a female group.

  The single also debuted at number one in the UK, becoming Destiny’s Child’s first number one single in the country. The single was certified gold with 250,000 sales in January 2001. The success of the single also boosted sales of the soundtrack album to Charlie’s Angels. In 2000, Destiny’s Child was awarded the Soul Train’s Sammy Davis Jr. Entertainer of the Year.

  By the end of the 2000, Roberson and Luckett dropped the portion of the lawsuit aimed at Beyoncé and Kelly in exchange for a settlement but retained the lawsuit against their manager, Mathew. Both sides were prohibited from attacking each other publicly as part of the agreement. Roberson and Luckett formed their own group but were unsuccessful.

  Destiny’s Child continued to receive accolades. At the 2001 Billboard Music Awards, the group won Artist of the Year and Duo/Group of the Year. They again won Artist of the Year among five awards. And in September 2000, Destiny’s Child won two awards at the annual Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards: the R&B/Soul Album of the Year and Group for The Writing’s On the Wall.

  Destiny’s Child’s success was unstoppable, especially with the release of their first full-length album, Survivor, as a three-piece. European markets were selling enormous amounts of the double disc version of The Writing’s On the Wall and was demanding some fresh products.

  With the success of their previous album, the girls knew that their next offering must be something special. By then, The Writing’s On the Wall had sold almost five million records. Beyoncé noted, “So we’re kind of nervous, to be honest with you, because we have to top that. It’s possible, because we’ve grown and we’ve learned. Definitely the reason why the second album was so good is because we grew and learned tremendously between the first album and the second. We’ve grown and learned and things have changed … so the album will be just as hot.”

  Survivor

  And it was definitely hot. Their next album, Survivor, was synonymous to the group’s success. In fact, it was the album that everyone would recall when they hear the name Destiny’s Child. Tina Knowles did the packaging, styled similar to that of Independent Women Part I featuring the trio as women rather than girls from the previous sleeves. There was also this poster of the trio standing on rocks on a desert island.

  The cover of Survivor, which would become the group’s final album before going on a hiatus

  The album’s carrier single, Survivor, was penned by Beyoncé, Anthony Dent and Mathew Knowles. Following the departure of Luckett and Roberson and the assimilation of Williams and Franklin into the group, and Franklin’s eventual departure, Destiny’s Child was compared to Survivor, a reality TV phenomenon where contestants would get voted off an island until one solitary winner remains. It inspired Beyoncé to “write us out of all that negativity.”

  Beyoncé sang the lead while Kelly took the middle eight. The song also introduced Michelle’s gospel-influenced vocals toward the end. At the end, there was an a cappella of the chorus to emphasize the power of the combination of the girls’ voices.

  In addition, Beyoncé wanted to send a message to all the haters that she might be bruised and reeling from how she was treated by the press, but here she was, still surviving and being successful. The single was the first written for the album.

  Beyoncé said about the record, “’Survivor’ is a message to everybody. Right from the record label who dropped us when we were young [Elektra] to the people who made fun of us for having big dreams when we were in the fifth grade and to the group members who let us down.”

  In 2001, Beyoncé told Rolling Stone, “The lyrics to the single ‘Survivor’ are Destiny’s Child’s story, because we’ve been through a lot. We went through our drama with the members, and everybody was like, ‘Oh, well, no more Destiny’s Child!’ Well, we sold even more records after all of the changes. Any complications we’ve had in our ten-year period of time have made us closer and tighter and better.”

  Controversy followed the group for this single as it seemed that the message was aimed at former members, LaTavia and LeToya, who filed a lawsuit against Beyoncé, Kelly and Mathew Knowles. They claimed that some of the lines in the song, including “I’m not going to hate you in a magazine,” “diss you on the Internet,” “compromise my Christianity,” and “You thought I wouldn’t sell without you/sold nine million”, were in violation to their previous agreement that they wouldn’t publicly insult the other.

  The single was released ahead of the album and debuted at number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became Destiny’s Child’s second highest debuting single to date and quickly ascended to number two within a month. It failed to peak the charts due to Janet Jackson’s successful All For You. Bu
t in the UK, the single debuted at number one on the singles chart and sold about 290,000 copies.

  The music video for the single Survivor showed the girls surviving on a desert island

  The accompanying video showed the trio being shipwrecked and surviving on a desert island. They are seen as emerging from the sea in rags, dancing a routine on the sand before heading into the jungle. By this time, TLC was resting and the Spice Girls were disbanded. Destiny’s Child became the biggest girl group in the world.

  The video earned the girls the 2001 MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video, plus a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award for Best R&B/Soul Single, Group, Band or Duo.

  Another controversy tailed the success of the single when Miami producer Terrence Robinson aka T-Rob filed a $200 million lawsuit against Mathew Knowles, alleging that he had given a song, Glorious, to Mathew and Beyoncé in 2000 before he was able to copyright it. He also claimed that Glorious was very similar to Survivor. T-Rob’s sentiment was that “right now I would be one of the biggest, most sought-after producers” if he had been credited on the record alongside Beyoncé and her father and Anthony Dent.

  Another track from the album that caused a buzz was Bootylicious based around a guitar sample from Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen. But there are conflicting stories about the song’s origins. Beyoncé said she was inspired to write the song on a flight to Japan while she was listening to the guitar riff of Edge of Seventeen, which she said reminded her of a “voluptuous woman.” But Rob Fusari, who co-wrote and produced the track, claimed that he wanted to build a track based on Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. He was unable to locate the song, so he used Edge of Seventeen instead.

  The word bootylicious was first used by rapper Snoop Dogg in 1992, but the popularity of this track by the Destiny’s Child caused the word to be added to the revered Oxford English Dictionary meaning shapely and voluptuous, particularly in reference to the buttocks. But Beyoncé wasn’t too happy about it. “I wrote the song, but I wish there was another word I could have come up with if I was going to have a word in the dictionary.”

  But her friend Missy Elliott was simply stunned when she first heard the track. She said, “It was like wow, they’re talking about ass! They’ve got assess too. It was the first record that felt naughty for Destiny’s Child.”

  The single was released in May 2001 and entered the charts on June 9. It debuted at number 66 on the Hot 100 and reached the top on August 4. Bootylicious became the group’s fifth consecutive number one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart. In the UK, the song debuted at number 2 and sold more than 169,000 copies.

  The album Survivor remained to be Destiny’s Child’s most cohesive release to date. It entered the Billboard 200 at number one and sold more than 663,000 in its first week. The album was also certified 4x platinum in the United States and double platinum in Australia. The album has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide.

  The success of the girls was unstoppable. They were superstars in their own right. In April 2000, they played the VH1 tribute concert for Diana Ross and the next year played a concert for the inauguration of Texan-born US Republican President George W. Bush. The group embarked on their US tour and on September 7, 2001, performed Bootylicious at Michael Jackson’s 30th Anniversary Special at Madison Square Garden in New York.

  Their tour was cancelled in the wake of the September 11, 2001 bombings in New York. They joined other caliber artists in benefit concerts in New York and Washington, DC. They performed in front of more than 6,000 people, consisting mainly of police officers, firefighters and rescue workers who helped during and after the bombings.

  In October 2001, the group released 8 Days of Christmas, a holiday album that contained versions of some Christmas songs. It reached number 34 on the Billboard 200. The girls appeared on Oprah to promote the album and sang 8 Days of Christmas.

  In 2002, Destiny’s Child published their book, soul Survivors: The Official Autobiography of Destiny’s Child. Penned by James Patrick Herman, it provided a glimpse into the girls’ career from their birth to their hiatus.

  After the release of 8 Days of Christmas, the group announced a hiatus to pursue their own careers.

  Chapter 7 – Going Solo

  Crossing-Over to Acting

  In Soul Survivor, Beyoncé made a statement: “We desperately need a rest from the public and the world. And during that break we are going to work on solo projects, then we will come back and do more Destiny’s Child records.”

  Beyoncé is the centerpoint of Destiny’s Child, and it would almost be impossible not to use her looks and talents for movies. In just a couple of years, she had two significant roles in movies.

  Beyoncé’s first film

  But a singer’s transition to acting is not always the easiest; she acknowledged that the move into acting was her “biggest risk.” Crossing-over into a medium where she didn’t have experience and her talent still hidden was indeed a huge risk. “I took a risk with acting. It was scary because it was different for me. You just always have to take risks. I always go with my gut, and it’s always right.” And so Beyoncé was mindful of the pitfalls of singers who crossed-over to acting and decided to begin her own movie career in a low-key manner.

  While Destiny’s Child was completing their third album, MTV approached Beyoncé and offered her to play the lead role in Carmen: A Hip Hopera. They had seen Beyoncé act in the group’s music videos and believed that she was the perfect choice to play the lead role. The made-for-television film premiered on May 8, 2001, the same week that Survivor was released.

  Playing the character of Carmen was a challenge for Beyoncé mainly because the role was her complete opposite. She was God-fearing while Carmen was “a devious and shady lady.” Beyoncé needed to portray a woman who’s evil and seductive and whose love for a policeman got her into so much trouble. When Beyoncé got the initial script, she requested for the role to be sweetened slightly. She was concerned about the seduction part.

  She said, “I knew that in order for me to seduce a guy, I would have to do something that was, well, seductive. At the same time I had to maintain my image and not do anything I wouldn’t want kids to see.”

  Beyoncé knew that as a singer crossing-over to acting, she might jeopardize her career with the role she was to play. “I was not about to participate in an R-rated love scene, and yet, if I wanted to be an actress, a real actress, I had to play this part. I had to realize that I wasn’t playing Beyoncé; I was playing Carmen. She is not a Disney character! This movie was a lot sexier than Snow White!”

  Upon its release, the film garnered mixed reviews, with Allmovie grading the film with two-and-a-half stars out of five. While it may not be as successful, the film demonstrated that Beyoncé had great potential in acting.

  When Beyoncé was preparing for a solo career, Beyoncé said that “if nothing happens with our solo records, there’s still Destiny’s Child. And if something happens with our solo records, there’s Destiny’s Child.” Beyoncé’s second film came right after the Destiny’s Child disbanded. She chose Austin Powers in Goldmember, indicating that she would no longer appear in old films.

  Beyoncé starred in Austin Powers in Goldmember opposite Mike Myers

  And taking part in the Austin Powers series was a good move for Beyoncé. The series had become big business. Mike Myers, a Canadian comic actor, created the first film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, to spoof James Bond and all the copycat films that came out following the James Bond films in the 60s. The second installation, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, was also a box office success. The first film grossed $67 million worldwide and the second grossed $312 million. With these successes, it was clear that there would be a third film.

  The casting for the third film began in 2002. Beyoncé and her mother, Tina, met the director Jay Roach, Mike Myers and producer Toby Emmerich and auditioned for the role of Foxxy Cleopatra, Austin Powers’ female interest in the film. Eventually, Beyoncé got the
part.

  The movie was a success, grossing $73 million on its opening weekend, thus breaking the opening weekend record for a spoof movie. Beyoncé recorded her first solo single Work It Out for the film’s soundtrack. The track topped the US Hot Dance Club but failed to top the mainstream US charts. But in the UK, the song reached number 7.

  The film boosted Beyoncé’s career and made way for celebrity sponsorships and endorsements. She had already endorsed Pro-Line hair products and New York’s Candie’s Shoes, but it was at the end of 2002 that Beyoncé was chosen as a new face of Pepsi. She appeared in various commercials and culminated in the Pepsi’s Gladiator homage where Beyoncé appeared with Britney Spears and Pink and performed Queen’s We Will Rock You.

  The following year, Beyoncé starred alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. in the romantic comedy film, The Fighting Temptations. She also recorded a few songs for the film’s soundtrack, including Fighting Temptation and a cover version of Fever. The movie received mixed reviews but was a low box office hit.

  Back To Music

  Beyoncé met the man who would become the most significant man in her life in October 2001 at The Concert for New York City. Jay-Z, a rap mogul, would be recording with Beyoncé and beginning a relationship with her.

  Beyoncé and Jay-Z met in 2001 and embarked on their first collaboration together, the 03 Bonnie & Clyde

  Their first collaboration was the 2002 single 03 Bonnie & Clyde which immediately climbed to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Rap Songs chart and became Beyoncé’s first Top 10 single as a solo artist. In the UK, the single peaked at number two and peaked in the top 20 in other countries. The track was certified gold by the RIAA and platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).