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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