BEYONCE ON THE ROAD
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BEYONCÉ HITS THE ROAD FOR A SIZZLING SUMMER TOUR, BUT BEHIND THE SCENES IT’S A BATTLE OF PERSONALITIES
TEXT DAMON SYSON
It may seem unlikely from someone who has been single-handedly captivating crowds since she was a teenager, but Beyoncé Knowles insists she is – whisper it – a bit shy.
Talking at the Mandarin Oriental in London before a huge 100-date world tour to promote her latest (double) album, I Am… Sasha Fierce, the 27-year-old diva is explaining what went into the tour that’s set to make the next few months the summer of Beyoncé.
Sasha Fierce is her alter ego – the hotpants-wearing Amazon you see on stage, haranguing feckless men with female-empowerment anthems such as Independent Woman while showing off her extreme bootyliciousness with that trademark catwalk stalk.
Beyoncé claims she developed this sassy stage persona to help combat her natural shyness. Now, she says, she feels ready to show the public a more vulnerable, sensitive side. Hence the two distinct parts of the album. The I Am disc is comprised of softer ballads, while the Sasha Fierce disc is full of uptempo, dance-oriented songs.
“If you listen to the album title it kind of sums it up,” Beyoncé explains. “I am Sasha Fierce. I’m the same person. It’s not like I have split personalities. But when I’m on the stage I’m a different woman. People see me perform and they sometimes don’t realise that I don’t walk around like that all the time. I’m really very sensitive and very vulnerable and I wear T-shirts and jeans.”
Beyoncé first realised that most performers have this type of exhibitionist alter ego when she met another soul legend: “I was very tired on tour – I was sick, I had a cold, my voice was tired but I knew I had to perform. And I met Anita Baker, who is one of my heroes. She could see that I was tired. When she left she said, ‘Don’t worry, she’ll take over. We all have one.’”
So who exactly is the person she’ll be morphing into practically every night for the rest of the year? “Sasha Fierce is fierce,” she smiles. “Sasha Fierce is not afraid of sexuality, SF is always preaching about empowerment, SF is fearless.”
Blimey. And what about the real Beyoncé, the “I” part? “I am a sister, I am a daughter, I am a best friend. I’m a woman…” she pauses to take a breath before continuing: “I am vulnerable, I am sensitive. I am an artist. I’m a singer.”
Born Beyoncé Giselle Knowles on 4 September 1981, the girl who would one day sing at President Obama’s inauguration ball attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in her home town of Houston, Texas. While still at school she achieved huge international fame as part of Destiny’s Child, the all-girl group put together and managed by her father, Matthew Knowles.
After the group went on hiatus in 2000 when she was only 19, Beyoncé went on to become one of the biggest solo artists in the world, while simultaneously pursuing the sort of acting career that Madonna would kill for.
So, where does she find the stamina to tour so spectacularly at this stage in the game? And how does she look so good? “By eating food that’s not ver y delicious,” she grins. “Everything that tastes too good, I can’t eat it. No delicious bread and pasta and wine. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice. But because I dance so much – sometimes eight hours a day learning the choreography – it’s a little easier.
When she’s not burning calories strutting her stuff on stage for up to two hours a night, Beyoncé stays in shape with hour-and-a-half sessions in the gym, five days a week, though she readily admits: “I’m not consistent. When you have something coming up you get really focused, and then you get comfortable, and before you know it you have to get right back into the gym.”
Preparing for the I Am… Sasha Fierce tour took an exhausting eight months. Does she ever feel in danger of imploding with the overwhelming workload?
“I don’t,” she says, shaking her head. “One of the reasons I have Sasha Fierce is because she protects me. I can keep a good perspective on life and myself as a performer. I schedule time for myself. I know after five days of singing I need a day off for my voice. I know after two weeks I need to be home for a week. I’m not a machine, I’m a human being.”
The tour, which features costumes by Thierry Mugler and an all-girl band, has been a huge success with fans and critics alike. The only hiccup so far – a lighting malfunction in Rotterdam – had Beyoncé fuming to the crowd: “Somebody’s gettin’ fired.”
The tour climaxes with four nights in Las Vegas, after which, you imagine, she’ll be in need of a rest. She has hinted that she may take two years off to spend more quality time with her husband, rapper Jay-Z, whom she married last year in a secret ceremony.
Thankfully, rumours that she plans to retire at 30 are untrue (“I said that when I was 20,” she shrugs. “It made sense at the time…”), but she admits it can be hard to relax when you’re the world’s number one R&B diva.
“I love taking my nephew to the park,” she sighs. “But I can only go for about 20 minutes before the crowd starts going crazy. It gets hard with the paparazzi sometimes but I just try to ignore it and live my life. I’m very happy. My first record came out when I was only 15. Now I’m 27 and the success keeps growing and growing.”
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