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Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4, 1981) is an American R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, dancer, and fashion designer. Knowles rose to fame as the creative force and lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny’s Child, the world’s best-selling female group of all time.

She’s 26!

After a series of commercially successful releases with the group, Knowles released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love, in 2003.

The album became one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, topping the album charts in the U.S. and the UK. It also spawned the number-one singles “Crazy in Love” and “Baby Boy” and earned Knowles five Grammy Awards in a single night in 2004. Knowles’ second album, B’Day, which was released worldwide on September 4, 2006—coinciding with her twenty-fifth birthday—, continued her success. The album spawned the UK number-one singles “Déjà Vu” and “Beautiful Liar”, as well as the worldwide number-one hit “Irreplaceable”. It also earned Knowles her seventh solo Grammy Award (she has won ten in total).

Early Life:

Knowles is the elder of two daughters born to Mathew Knowles and Tina Beyincé in Houston, Texas. Her parents decided on her first name as a tribute to her mother’s maiden name. Her maternal grandparents, Lumis Beyincé and Agnéz Deréon (a seamstress), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles. She is the older sister of Solange Knowles, cousin to Angela Beyincé (her personal assistant and song co-writer), and aunt to Solange’s son Daniel Julez Smith, Jr. Her dance instructor took an interest in Knowles and took her star student to various competitions. Knowles went on to win over thirty local singing and dancing competitions.

Knowles and her childhood best friends LaTavia Roberson and Kelly Rowland along with LeToya Luckett formed a quartet that would perform in their backyards and at Tina Knowles’ hair salon. After singing at local events, they got their break when they entered Star Search. The group, then named “Girl’s Tyme”, were disappointed after losing the competition. Mathew Knowles, Knowles’ father and Rowland’s legal guardian, decided to help the girls reach their dreams of becoming singers. He quit his six-figure salary job as a multi-million dollar equipment salesman at Xerox to manage the group. This decision by Mathew eventually affected the whole family. Their income had been cut in half, causing the family to move into two different apartments. When the group was signed to Columbia Records in 1996, it gave the entire family a second chance at making things work.

As a teenager, Knowles attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, where she showed her musical talents. She later went to Alief Elsik High School, in the Alief neighborhood of Houston.

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