Beyoncé

• Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, born and raised in Houston, Texas. Born on September 4 1981. • R&B, pop, soul and hip hop recording artist as well as an actress. She became famous in the late

1990s with her girl group Destiny’s Child, which was originally brought together by Whitney Houston, and is now one of the best selling girl groups of all time.

• In 2003 she released her debut solo album “Dangerously in Love” which included hit singles such as “Crazy in Love” and “Baby Boy”, and eventually won five Grammy Awards. The album also debuted straight to number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 317,000 copies in its first week. The album sold over 4.6 million copies in the United States, and went on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide.

• Since the release of her debut album she has released four successful studio albums, with hit singles such as “Single Ladies” and “Best Thing I Never Had”.

• In Beyonce’s early videos, whether it was with destiny’s child or as a solo artist, show how her image was established. Her image was created through her clothing, hair styles and her manorism in general. In the days of Destiny’s Child her clothing was not extremely revealing (as seen on the right) and her hair styles changed from having an afro to flat hair and from long to short. Beyoncé has always had a reputation of having a good curvy body and this has always been the case since the beginning of her career, and this was seen as an asset which encouraged young women to be like her.

• Her image is changing the whole time, which could perhaps be due to her target audience. At first when she was with her group the target audience was R&B fans, but as she went solo she kept her options wide and went in other directions including pop. As her style of music changed so did her style of dressing. Her videos took on a different style as well. At the beginning her style was associated with r&b and hip hop. This was seen through her dancing and through her outfits, and the different types of shots during her music videos which concentrated on her body and her movements. Her outfits were also quite skimpy and tight, which made the audience believe she was this sex symbol. But, unlike someone like Madonna who in her videos came across as someone rough Beyoncé kept an element of sweetness.

• In her recent work Beyoncé’s look has changed drastically from the days of “Crazy In Love”. Not only her image but her body language/attitude, dancing, clothes and her music in general. As we have seen in the previous videos she came across in a way as a sex symbol, but in her new album “4” we see a completely different side to her. It is quite possible that at the beginning of her solo career she was told what to do, how to act and what to wear. However, seeing as she has become a global superstar, she has now earned the right to make her own decisions about her appearance and her career. The change we see in her latest songs and music videos is quite drastic. For example in the video of “Who Run The World (Girls)” it is almost as though she is trying to be a different person, as she becomes quite like a rock star, with a eye opening video, change of hair colour (blonde) and change of clothing. She also comes across as being quite strong spirited in the video, as it is all about women being dominant over men, so we see a new edge to her.

• The clothes she wears in her recent videos are a lot less revealing, and the camera shots do not just focus on her body like before, now she has got past that stage it is as though she has gained respect and can do as she wishes with her career.

Beyoncé through the years…

Being the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine four times shows just how successful Beyonncé has become and shows the prime years of her career…