Beyoncé is the Grammy Champion How she became the world's biggest pop star by destroying the line between music and politics

Beyoncé has won the most Grammys in history On February 5, she received four awards: her latest album "Renaissance" was recognized as the best dance electronic album, her absolute hit "Break My Soul" became the best song in the same genre.

Beyoncé also received awards for Best R&B Performance (for the track "Plastic Off the Sofa") and Best R&B Song ("Cuff It") Beyoncé now has a total of 32 Grammys.

We tell how she went from being a member of Destiny's Child to the main world pop star "I think it's vital that people learn from the past and realize that we tend to repeat mistakes," Beyoncé said at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

This is the kind of speech you'd expect to hear from a public figure rather than from an award-winning R&R singer B-album.

Artists and politicians are similar at least in that both need to win the hearts of fans However, there is a strong opinion that people of art should only deal with art.

Beyoncé, on the other hand, is superb at combining: her phenomenon is that, recording hit songs, releasing spectacular videos and music films, winning awards and shining in front of photographers in luxurious dresses on the red carpet, she destroys the border between pop music and politics This makes her the main American pop diva of the 21st century.

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, queen of US commercial music, is aware of her power and boldly uses it to voice her concerns Beyoncé was hailed as "Queen B" back in the mid-2000s.

She began this decade as a member of the trio Destiny's Child, produced by her father Matthew Knowles By that time, Destiny's Child, performing glib, glossy R&B on behalf of self-confident and independent girls, were very popular, and Beyoncé shone brighter than anyone else in the trio.

But Destiny's Child entered a half-life period - the members were pulled in different directions Beyoncé released her solo debut later than her bandmates, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, but soon overtook them in popularity.

The first solo album, "Dangerously in Love" (2003), was followed by a series of hits and albums, each of which hit the first place of the national chart, successful tours and film roles At the end of the 2000s, Beyonce was officially recognized by the Recording Industry Association of America as the most successful artist of the decade.

However, this was only the beginning of a marathon of records, established by the singer from Houston, Texas Beyoncé started her way in show business in a typical American way: at a very young age and under the supervision of a parent who decided at all costs to make a star out of a talented daughter who danced and sang well.

She was eight when the group Girlʼs Tyme, which later became Destinyʼs Child, appeared “Daddy made a soldier out of me,” Beyoncé sings in “Daddy Lessons,” alluding to how difficult her rise to fame and relationship with her father were.

However, this track, released in 2016, is the work of a mature, accomplished artist, and during the years that Beyoncé's career was being pursued by her father, she had to sing other songs For example, “Daddy”, which closes her debut “Dangerously in Love”, is a valentine to the parent, in which the lyrical heroine, while still unmarried, she guesses that her future husband and unborn son will be exactly the same as her father (“I want my unborn son to be like my daddy.

I want my husband to be like my daddy There is no one else like my daddy").

Luckily, Beyoncé succeeded in what her chart rival Britney Spears, for example, failed to get out of her father's care in a timely manner In 2010, she parted ways with her producer father and founded her own company, Parkwood Entertainment.

“It is important that I did not sign a contract with a large management company I wanted to follow in Madonna's footsteps, become an industry leader myself, build my own empire, and show other women that when you get to this point in your career, there is no need to share money or success with someone else - you can achieve everything yourself, ”she later commented on her decision.

From that moment on, Queen B underwent a radical metamorphosis: from a super-pro who plays flawlessly by the rules of the industry, she turned into an unpredictable, experimental artist who claims to be something more than just huge fees and high places in the charts Having gained creative freedom, Beyoncé released her fourth solo album "4" in 2011, on which she assumed the functions of a popularizer of feminist ideas.

Who run the world? Girls!" (“Who rules the world? Girls!”), she sang to electronic tom-toms in the opening single “Run the World” Beyoncé sang about the independent woman back in her Destiny's Child days, but then her idea of ​​independence was limited to financial self-sufficiency ("Question, tell me what you think about me I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own rings").

Now, her demands were much more serious: without taking off her high-heeled boots and hypersexual dress, Queen B painted in front of millions of fans the intoxicating world of matriarchy “We must act like a woman, take the lead and achieve as much as possible.

That's what I'm striving for," Beyonce explained her philosophy in the documentary "Life is But a Dream", where she acted not only as the main character, but also as a director On the next album, "BEYONCE" (2013), released in an innovative visual format (a clip was filmed for each track of the release), the singer further intensified the missionary intonation.

She sang about what to make a fetish out of the "ideal" appearance - destructive for a woman That you can look sexy and think like a feminist at the same time.

She also inserted into her own empowerment manifesto - the track "Flawless" - an excerpt from the famous speech of the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "We should all be feminists " After that, Time magazine proclaimed Queen B as the personification of the third wave of feminism.

In her videos, she embodied the limit of sexuality, and in the media she was the standard of a wife and mother; Beyonce's husband, rapper Jay-Z, is one of the wealthiest figures in American show business This brought Beyonce reproaches from radical feminist supporters: there were opinions that in fact she appropriated an ideological agenda alien to her.

However, it cannot be denied that after Beyonce took up the topic, the concept of “female empowerment” even reached the Russian gloss Beyoncé's sixth album, Lemonade (2016), was a concept record that could have been prefaced by the famous feminist motto "The personal is political.

" "Lemonade" appeared as a reaction to her husband's infidelity, however, in a therapeutic search for the causes of what happened, the artist went deep into family history and discovered the connection of a personal drama with the consequences of slavery and the oppression of African Americans in the United States In the track "Don't Hurt Yourself", an angry rebuff to her husband and one of the most outspoken songs of her entire career, Queen B inserted the words of the legendary African American rights activist Malcolm X that the most vulnerable person in America is a black woman.

Declaring their independence and success, Beyoncé sang her African-American roots in the track “Formation” (“My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama” - “My dad is from Alabama, mom is from Louisiana.

Mix a Negro with a Creole and you get Texas redneck"), her appearance, which she passed on to the children, and encouraged the "black sisters" to unite Beyonce premiered "Formation" at halftime in the Super Bowl: her performance at one of America's most popular television events caused a political scandal both because of the song's content and because Queen B's dancers wore Black Panther berets.

On Lemonade, Beyoncé celebrated her origins not only in the lyrics and images of the videos, but also in the sound - from a musical point of view, the album was an experimental urban pop, extremely saturated with references to historically "black" genres: from blues and prisoner songs to trap With this work, which the critics proclaimed her highest creative achievement, Queen B proved that it was no coincidence that she was the one who sang at the ball on the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama twice, in 2009 and 2013.

Beyoncé's recent work may seem lighter and more entertaining, but in terms of meaning and worldview, they also have a double bottom In The Lion King: The Gift compilation accompanying the remake of The Lion King, producer Beyoncé brought together the stellar powers of hip-hop and Afropop to pay homage to Africa's musical traditions while donning her imaginary crown.

The continuation of this collection was the musical film "Black is King", in which the mother of three children Beyoncé presented a "black" version of "The Lion King", telling the story of a young African prince gaining the throne African-American commentators and cultural scholars believe that this film, hypnotizing with the beauty of the picture and emphasizing all shades of brown, is able to “ignite” among the younger generation of viewers an interest in the ideas of pan-Africanism and Afrofuturism.

The credits of "Black is King" feature "Black Parade": another ode to black identity and an anthem to African-American culture from Beyoncé, written after the murder of George Floyd The recently released album "Renaissance" pretends to be a dance music set with more physiology than ideology.

In fact, this is an act of re-expropriation from the white majority of disco, house and vog culture - phenomena that originated in the african-american queer community of New York, Chicago and Detroit On Renaissance, Beyoncé honors the black pioneers of dance music: she invited some to participate in the album - for example, her personal heroine Grace Jones, as well as the creator of Chic Nile Rodgers, queer electronic dance divas Big Freedia and Honey Dijon.

She remembered others as references to their music, as happened with disco star Donna Summer and New York drag artists Moi Renee and Kevin Aviance Beyoncé dedicated the album to her uncle Johnny, who introduced her to dance music and later died of AIDS, and to all "the pioneers of culture and all the fallen angels whose contribution to its development has not been recognized for too long.

" In the track "Cozy", she encoded the colors of the rainbow flag, which has become a symbol of the LGBTQ+ movement The leitmotif of "Renaissance" is that a free man is free to look, dance and love as he pleases.

In other words, Queen B's latest album is a groove-packed "LGBT propaganda" and its distribution could, in theory, fall under Russian federal law It is not surprising that with such an ideological charge of music, Queen B has not only fans and admirers, but also haters and opponents.

There are many influential people among them, including those in the professional circles of American show business and the record industry How else to explain that in more than 20 years of a dazzling career, Beyonce - an outstanding artist, successor to Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Whitney Houston - has not received a Grammy award in the top three nominations: for album, song or record of the year.

This happened in 2023 as well "Renaissance", which made Beyonce the absolute champion in the number of gold statuettes in the history of the award, received an award only in the genre category "dance album".

So far, the queen has been left without the most desirable decoration of her colossal collection of trophies (she has over 500 of them) But rest assured, she will get to him.

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