Destiny's Favourite Child: Beyonce Knowles

Chart-topping diva, movie star, fashion designer and all-round bootylicious babe, Beyonce Knowles is on a mission to conquer the world. And she’s nearly there…

Ruhi Shahin, Kunal Singh Sodhi

Beyonce, it’s great to have you as our cover girl for the fashion issue. Your new album I am... Sasha Fierce is doing great in India too. How do you feel about it?
I feel like this is the best body of work I’ve done so far. It’s absolutely the most time I’ve spent on an album, and you can see the time and the thought and the passion... you can hear it when you hear the album. And I’m just… very thrilled and very proud of it.

Considering you were pretty busy last year working on two movies, how did you manage to take out time for a new album?
I’ve been doing this for a while now, I had my first album with Destiny’s Child when I was 15 years old, and now I’m 27... I’ve accomplished so many things. My goal is to do something classic, legendary and iconic. I really want to do something that is huge, hot and is gonna’ be cool just for the moment. I want to do something that’s gonna’ last forever.

I felt like it was time for me to really challenge myself artistically, and I said, ‘Let me sit aside a whole year.’ At that time, I didn’t know if it was going to be a year or six months or two years, but I said I’m not gonna rush, and during that time I also did couple of movies (Laughs) because I don’t know how to sit down, sit still.

Whenever I’m passionate about something, I make the time for it. But my absolute priority was this record, and I remember the story about Michael Jackson and his best work - Off The Wall, how they recorded and how many songs they cut down on. They knew they wanted 10 songs, so whatever the least favourite song was, they tried to top that and then they kept doing that until they had this genius body of work. So that’s kind of what I tried to do and I borrowed some of what I heard and applied it to this album. I recorded so many songs and I kept saying, ‘It can be better, It can be better.’ And it evolved and
I wasn’t afraid to try different things, and over a period of time, it became this very different sound for me.

Beyonce, what was the concept behind this album? Tell us about the whole split personality thing...
It’s titled I Am… Sasha Fierce ‘coz I have so many great songs and they all sounded very different from each other... I am two people. I am, who I really am in person and in my interviews, and I also am who I am on stage, which is a different character completely, one that I’ve kind of created over the years and that’s something that’s special for my fans. I wanted to give them a piece of me and a piece of my heart and soul, and I wanted them also to have a piece of Sasha.

Take us back to the moment when Sasha Fierce came alive...
Sasha Fierce was named after one performance. I got so into it, my earring fell – I caught it. It was kind of a diamond earring that was probably a hundred thousand dollars... and I threw it on the audience on one of the fans (Laughs). And that’s very Sasha Fierce, she just doesn’t care, she just lives in the moment. When I finished the performance, I came back to Earth and I said ‘Where is my earring?’ (Laughs).

Then I decided that we have to go out in the audience and find it (Laughs). I actually sent my cousin out in the audience and she went around like ‘That’s my cousin’s earring. Where’s my cousin’s earring?’ They thought she was crazy but she actually got the earring back because I would have had to spend like two hundred thousand dollars on the earring. I don’t know how she came with the name but she was like ‘Sasha, you know you are a whole new person, we gonna call her Sasha’ and it stuck, and I said it one time in an interview. Once while performing, I saw some of the fans had “Sasha” posters up and it just kind of stuck.

How hard was it to pick songs for this album? You recorded 70, right?
It’s the most difficult thing, picking the songs. There’s a piece of me in every song. You spend hours and hours of your time to make arrangements and figuring out what you exactly wanna say, but sadly you can only have so many songs in an album. I still listen to the songs that I didn’t choose for the record. I’m like – ‘Oh God! What am I gonna do with this great song.’ But I have a lot of bonus songs for different albums and my fans will get to hear them one day.

When you had such huge chopping to do for the album, what was the criteria for picking songs?
The criteria was simple — something that connected emotionally. The songs that didn’t make you feel… I didn’t want to put them on the record.

Considering it’s Valentine’s month, what would you recommend to listeners, who are hopelessly in love?
If you’re in a relationship, if you’re in love, if you have a long distance relationship or if you’ve just fallen in love with a new person, I would recommend “I Am”.

I let people hear the songs, and even people that are really professional, who are not expecting to be so connected to the music, when they finish hearing the song its like ‘Wow, did you write that for me?’ It’s really personal and it’s all the things that you feel but you may not now the words to say. “Sasha Fierce” I would recommend if you are about to go out to a club, if you need to get over a boyfriend (Laughs). If you know that you are better than the relationship you are in, you need to have that strength, if you just wanna seduce someone, and you need some nice sexy music (Laughs), Sasha Fierce is your album!

…And where did “If I Were A Boy?”
“If I Were A Boy”… it’s my song, my favourite song on the album right now. They always change, but it’s the first single and I loved it instantly. I did this movie Cadillac Records and I played this incredible hero, her name is Etta James, and she was very passionate and unapologetic and bold and fearless and it gave me a different prospective in my life and in my musical career.

After I did that movie, I was inspired because she did whatever she wanted and she didn’t really care about being in a box and being labeled. She did R&B, she did soul, she did rhythmic blues, she did rock & roll, she did whatever. I love folk music, alternative music and I love soul. Just because I am a pop R&B, whatever you want to call me, artist it doesn’t mean I can’t step outside of what people’s expectations are. I've kind of got that rebellion streak from playing Etta James' character. And that was the first song I recorded that had an alternative folk sound to it.

It was kind of a beginning of the vibe of the music work of the record "I Am". I love “If I Were…” because it’s so honest and it’s forever, it’s infectious. Because it’s about real issues and not about infidelity, it’s about the little things that people do in relationships when they take advantage of you, I basically talk about all the things I would do if I were a boy and it’s not that I would go and cheat on you.

Would you actually like to be a boy for a few days?
I think it’s more fun being a woman, but I would like to be a boy for a couple of days. I think I would be a very good boyfriend (Laughs), but I would like to. I think it would be fun to be a guy for a couple of days, only a couple of days. I like myself a little too much.

…And then “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”?
“Single Ladies” is Sasha Fierce and in the very first video, I have my Sasha Fierce clothes and I have the hair and it’s vampy, sexy and full of energy. “Single Ladies” is for the ladies that have a ring on their finger. It talks about a woman who’s been in this relationship and her man has never taken it to the next level and now she is in the club and she sees him and she’s having a good time looking great, dancing with another guy and her boyfriend or her ex-boyfriend is jealous and she’s saying ‘should have put a ring on it, sorry I moved on’ (Laughs). So, the guys will hate me once again and the girls will have an anthem (Laughs).

What was your inspiration in creating the sound on the first disc 'I Am…'  which is a departure for you?
I was listening to Adele, I was listening to some of Etta James stuff just because I was filming that movie around the same time. A lot of the classic, R&B stuff like Stevie, like Donny Hathaway and also Coldplay.  Some of  the music sounds like the Beatles. It’s like the mixture of all the things I love my goal was simplicity. Even the drums are live, that’s something that sonically never goes out of style. I added a little bit of electronica. My goal was to create something new for me and something you can’t label and say… this is pop, this is R&B, this is urban. It’s just good music.

Since the first time we were introduced to Beyonce, you have grown up a lot. Tell us about the journey…
In my last concert, I had a song called “Flaws and All” from my last album, it basically was saying that you love me despite my flaws and I do all of these bad things but you still love me. I got such a great response from people saying the real Beyonce not Sasha Fierce is getting mature and more comfortable with being vulnerable. I feel vulnerability is stronger at times than kind of hiding behind, being extra tough you know.

Would you like to say something to your fans, here in India?
Thank you, big thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support over the years. I hope you love this album, I have put my heart and soul into it and I can’t it to come back and visit all of you.