Beyoncé

Beyoncé, 1981- , American popular singer, songwriter, and actress, b. Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, Houston, Tx. Beyoncé first gained fame as the lead singer in the dance-R&B trio Destiny’s Child, which scored major hits with “Say My Name” (1999), and “Survivor” and “Bootylicious” (2001), before the group disbanded; a reunion album, Destiny Fulfilled, was issued in 2004. As a solo artist, Beyoncé has issued six albums, all of which debuted at the top of the Billboard Top Album chart, a singular achievement, and placed 64 songs on Billboard’s Top 100 singles chart. She has performed at three Super Bowls, including the half-time show at Super Bowl XLVII, and sang at both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations. In 2008, she married rapper Jay-Z, and the duo released “Crazy in Love,” followed by her solo hits “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Halo.” Beyoncé continued to produce chart-busting albums and hits through the next decade, both as a solo artist and in partnership with her husband. She made her debut as a film actress in 2002 in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), with her highest-grossing appearance coming in Dreamgirls (2006). Beyoncé reached an artistic and commercial height with her 2016 video/record release, Lemonade, a culmination of her growing activism as a Black woman. The critically acclaimed album was streamed over 115 million times in its first week, and sold 2.5 million copies in its first year alone. Said by Billboard magazine to be the highest paid of all pop stars, male or female, she and husband Jay-Z are estimated to have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. Beyoncé has been awarded 28 Grammys as of 2021, the most won by any vocal artist.

See studies by A. Trier-Bieniek (2016), V. Chambers (2019), K. Brooks and K.L. Martin (2019).

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