It's Beyonce's Destiny To Go Solo
Dangerously in Love by Beyonce
There have been very few setups more obvious than the plan to make Beyonce Knowles a solo star. It was set in motion almost from the outset of Destiny's Child's career. The group obviously revolved around the golden-tressed, leather-lunged Texas diva. When Dangerously in Love was released in 2003, the question then became "was Beyonce's solo debut going to sound like another Destiny's Child album?". There was definitely the threat of that happening, as Knowles had long done much of the group's songwriting.
Thankfully, Dangerously in Love turns out to be a better album than Destiny's Child had released up until that point. Spanning a variety of styles ranging from reggae to rock to pop balladry, Beyonce certainly created a style more versatile than DC's fairly standard R&B. Although there's a pretty good deal of stunt casting on this album, it's still quite clear that Beyonce is the star of this show, and she manages to keep the listener's interest for the vast majority of the album. The public and industry obviously agreed, as the album went on to sell 4 million copies and win 5 Grammy Awards.
Songs like the horn-spiked smash Crazy in Love and the bass-heavy groover Be With You have a retro vibe that suggests Beyonce has taken a lot of her style from Seventies soul queens like Tina Turner and Chaka Khan. Equal parts soul and sass, these songs are electric, despite not having a hell of a lot to say from a lyrical standpoint (give her time, she's still young). Most of her producers (who range from Outkast offshoot Organized Noize to hip-hop heavyweight Scott Storch) have some sort of simpatico with her, with one notable exception being Missy Elliott, whose Zodiac-influenced Signs contains a little too much Missy and not enough Beyonce. Hip-Hop Star is a successful merge of crunchy, loud guitar and hip-hop attitude, while Beyonce also goes toe-to-stilettoed toe with the incomparable Luther Vandross on a sumptuous cover of the Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway duet The Closer I Get To You.
It's one thing to have the talent-there are plenty of artists who have shown tremendous promise and not delivered. Dangerously in Love delivers. Whether she's shouting Aretha-style over a skeletal love song (Speechless is one of the album's highlights), flirting with boyfriend Jay-Z not once but twice, or cooing over a bhangra/reggae groove (Baby Boy), Beyonce definitely has what it takes to fly solo. Dangerously in Love is a (somewhat unexpectedly) excellent entrance.
