There's a music industry myth about divas who demand that "the little people" refrain from making eye contact with them. It's been associated with all the superstars: Whitney, Madonna, Mariah.
At just 21, Beyoncé (no Knowles needed) already has everything those women have — platinum albums, movies, celebrity boyfriends. The eye contact thing, though, she'll never have that.
On a recent rainy afternoon in a neighborhood not far from where "The Wonder Years" was filmed, all the Destiny's Child singer can do is look people in the eyes. Sure, she spends a divalike amount of time in her trailer, but when she's actually on the set of her next video, Beyoncé makes genuine conversation with those who cross her path.
"I can tell from people's eye contact if they are telling the truth or not," Beyoncé later reveals, sitting on a prop couch in a crippled old house. "Trust is really important, just in relationships in general. I really don't like people that aren't real people around me at all. I don't like people that are 'yes' people. I don't like people that tell me what they think I want to hear."
Today people are telling the singer everything is going well, which is not exactly true. The downpour outside has made shooting the "Fighting Temptations" clip — which features Missy Elliott, MC Lyte and Free — a fighting pain in the ass. And then there's the fire marshal, who's having a field day with the old house, which seems to be sinking into the wet ground.
In the bigger picture, however, things are looking good — no, make that downright bootylicious — for Beyoncé. After a year of delays, her debut solo album is finally in stores, and its first single, "Crazy in Love," is a legitimate hit, welcomed with the sort of fanfare that constitutes the song's unforgettable hook. And from Pepsi to Ford to "Saturday Night Live" (not to mention Jay-Z, but more on that later), everyone seems to want a piece of this independent woman.
The lyrics on her album, Dangerously in Love, talk a lot about honesty. Not because of any particular event in her life, she says — rather, she just wanted to write songs about love, and that particular theme kept returning.
"I wanted to have an album that was timeless, and I wanted to have an album that everyone could relate to and would listen to as long as I'm alive and even after," Beyoncé explains, adjusting her sleek orange dress. "Love is something that never goes out of style. It's something everybody experiences, and if they are not in love, people usually want to feel that. So if you hear the album, it's very romantic."
 "I wanted to have an album that was timeless, and I wanted to have an album that everyone could relate to and would listen to as long as I'm alive and even after," |
After years of watching her sing and dance alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, fans are eager to see what Beyoncé does solo. That she's the last of the three to release an album and that she's singing about such personal subjects makes Dangerously in Love all the more intriguing. The album's title almost seems to imply the sort of love that leads to stalking, though Beyoncé insists she's never spied on a man.
"But I have friends who have!" she says with a laugh.
"You feel certain things when you get to that point [when you fall in love]," she explains. "There's something exciting when anything in life is a little scary, you know, and that's what I mean by dangerous. I don't mean you're going to hurt yourself or him."
Not that her album only focuses on the beauty of love, because, as she says, "it's not always squeaky clean and wonderful."
"I have a song that's called 'Me, Myself and I,' which is one of my favorites, and it basically talks about a girl who the guy's not right for her and he's cheating and whatever," Beyoncé says. "And usually women feel stupid and silly and they blame themselves 'cause you have all the signs most of the time, but you love the guy so you don't want to see them go. And in this song, it's kind of like a celebration of the breakup, because I like to look at it when something like that happens that the guy kind of taught you a lesson and now you know yourself and now you know better than those excuses."
On another track called "Yes," Beyoncé sings about a woman who insists on having some degree of control in the relationship. "This first time I say no it's like I've never said yes," she repeats in the chorus.
"I can sign a million autographs and the first time I have to say, 'Sorry, I'm gonna miss my plane,' it's like I never signed the other million," she explains. "That happens all the time with all different situations of life. That's why I thought it was such a good concept."