You may know her as Bey, Queen B, Sasha Fierce or Bee – or, if you’re an ardent fan, as Mother. You may even be a proud member of the superfan community known as the Beyhive. But even the most casual observer is aware of her enormous impact on modern music.
Darlette Johnson-Bailey, her childhood dance teacher, has recalled that the young Beyoncé was incredibly shy. “Backstage, she would hold on to me for dear life,” she said in 2018. “Beyoncé was quiet and reserved and didn’t say much, but on the dance floor she was a force to be reckoned with. And she had a golden voice.”
Tina Knowles has confirmed her daughter’s shyness, recalling that they first realised there was something special about her when she sang John Lennon’s Imagine in a contest at the age of seven. “When she got onstage she was just a different kid; she was so confident and she looked so happy, and we were, like, ‘Who is that?’” sheIt was as a member of Destiny’s Child that the world first heard of Beyoncé Knowles.
Her second album, B’Day, followed in 2006, hot on the heels of the final Destiny’s Child album and after a period that Beyoncé spent establishing herself as an actor, with roles in Dreamgirls and The Pink Panther, among other films. I Am ... Sasha Fierce, her 2008 album, was her attempt at cultivating a Ziggy Stardust-style alter ego – all the best musical icons have one, after all.
“There is no summarising Beyoncé,” says the Irish photographer Bríd O’Donovan, who has been an obsessive fan since she was 11 and says that the star’s work ethic has hugely influenced her own creative process. “There is no denying she was born to do what she does, and how hard she has worked to become a master in her industry is so inspiring.