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Chapter 1: How did Beyoncé's childhood influence her career?
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A young girl just nine years old sweats under the sweltering Texas sun. She is running, her tiny feet are pounding the pavement along the edge of the Bayou River.
Five other girls trail behind her. They're all singing at the top of their lungs, harmonising as they go. But none of the girls are hitting the notes quite like our lead.
Because this little girl is Beyonce and she will leave everyone in the dust on her journey to becoming a billionaire.
Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money.
We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million on to a billion.
I'm Simon Jack, the BBC's business editor.
And I'm Zing Zing. I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
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Chapter 2: What were the challenges faced by Destiny's Child?
She said, both were entrepreneurs. I watched them struggle working 18 hour days. They taught me that nothing worth having comes easily. And in particular, her dad, Matthew Knowles, stressed discipline. He was really tough on her. But Beyonce has said, I wasn't doing this because I didn't have a choice or to support the family. Important for child entertainers.
All because I had to get out of a bad situation. I was just determined this is what I wanted to do so bad.
Okay. So she was making a name for herself in the local community, winning competitions. One day in the hair salon, two local mothers, Denise and Deborah, approached the Knowleses and they said, listen, we want to form a young version of En Vogue. 1990, we're out here. Groups were big at the time. There was a gap in the market for a younger version of that.
So Beyonce became the first member of a band called Girls' Time, spelled T-Y-M-E. I like that everything has to be kind of slightly off because it was en vogue, NSYNC, Girls' Time with a Y. So we put a team in place, a financial backer, producer, songwriter. They trialled 30 girls. Six were finally selected for the band. They had intense rehearsals. They practiced nearly every day.
For months at their family home, Beyonce's family home, the girls did a regular boot camp as per our opening scene. Remember, running down the river by the bayou.
And they traveled to the West Coast to record their first record. But tensions were already showing. So those involved have said that Beyonce's dad, Matthew, was trying to position her as the lead. Although Matthew obviously disputes this portrayal of himself. It's worth noting that there were a lot of people involved at this point, all of whom were developing Girls' Time for months on end.
That's not particularly unusual when it comes to girl bands or boy bands. It's estimated that back then this would have cost around $100,000 because it is expensive if you're working with a lot of people. So the band needed to sign a deal. But their producer was shopping the record around major labels for about a year. They had no success.
And their last hope was a popular TV talent show called Star Search, quite similar to, I guess, X Factor or Pop Idol today.
Yeah, like an early version of that. At the time, it was the largest national talent show. Child stars who'd been on Star Search included some big names, actually. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera. They practiced for over a month. They got tight. They got polished. They were up against an adult male rock band called Skeleton Crew. I can sort of picture that band.
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Chapter 3: How did Beyoncé transition from group member to solo artist?
They underestimated us. And because of that, they allowed us to write our own songs, write our own video treatments. It ended up being the best thing because that's when I became an artist and I took control.
That's fascinating, isn't it? So they didn't think they were going to be a big enough deal to micromanage them. So they let them kind of do their own thing. And the album thing is interesting because in the mid-90s, mid to late 90s, album sales are still where a lot of the money comes from. It's huge. It's huge. It's not like now you get one streaming or two streaming hits, whatever.
Album sales were kind of like the bulk of your earnings.
Well, in 1999, Destiny's Child took that artistic freedom, and they brought out an album which became critically acclaimed, something called The Writings on the Wall. Do you know any songs from this era?
I think, am I right in saying that Say My Name is on this album? Absolutely. Oh, there we go.
So Say My Name, Jumping, Jumping, Bills, Bills, Bills.
Okay.
Hugely influential pop songs, which actually... great music videos that still stand up.
Okay. And it sold 8 million copies, three number one singles. But often with these kind of confected pop bands in a way, the band was actually at war. So members Latavia and Latoya filed a lawsuit against Beyonce's dad and the group alleging he stole their money and threw them out of the group when they tried to seek new personal terms.
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Chapter 4: What business strategies did Beyoncé implement to build her brand?
And I think you will know the big hits from this.
I want to say Single Lady, Crazy in Love. We're not there yet, are we?
No, we are. So singles from the albums. Irreplaceable. Do you know that one?
You will probably... Don't hum it for copyright reasons. We mustn't sort of go there because we'll get sued or probably... Exactly.
So Irreplaceable, Ring the Alarm.
Okay.
Single Ladies.
Single Ladies. Now that I do know. I love that tune. And also I think it was the absolute, one of the standout videos of all time.
Exactly. Yeah. If I were a boy. No. Run the world, girls.
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Chapter 5: How did Beyoncé redefine her image and control in the music industry?
So it's a big deal, right?
Exactly. Well, artists actually, and this is interesting, they're not paid. paid a performance fee for the halftime show. But she had actually just re-signed with Pepsi for an estimated $50 million, which included a halftime commercial.
And Forbes described this deal as an unconventional multi-year deal because Beyonce would have an element of creative control with a multi-million dollar fund to support the singer's chosen creative projects, presumably including the Super Bowl.
Yeah, so every part of your, Beyonce's life now is a product in a way. And that year she wrote, produced and directed and starred, of course, in a documentary called Life is But a Dream. And she's always stressed her hands-on approach. She was actually on Final Cut Pro, that software which you use to edit video. She said, I spent a year editing.
I went through hundreds of shows worth of footage and that experience taught me to love the filmmaking process. So... You know, an early adopter then of this kind of self-executing, you know, I'm thinking of Taylor Swift here as well.
Exactly. The Beckhams have done it recently as well. I know some documentary filmmakers who actually hate this kind of form of documentary filmmaking because they say if the talent or the subject gets to make the show, it's not really going to be truthful.
Yeah.
If Beyonce is on Final Cut Pro kind of editing together everything, you know, is it going to be an objective portrait of the truth?
Who knows? Yeah, in general, everyone needs an editor, right? And that editor shouldn't be you.
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Chapter 6: What impact did Beyoncé's personal life have on her career?
Where it's like her husband has cheated on her and she makes this album Lemonade all about that.
Okay. And people presumably absolutely loved it.
Oh, yeah. It was commercially a success, critically successful. A massive hit, critics loved it. It was included in every end-of-year list. It topped Rolling Stone's greatest albums of the 21st century. It even won a Peabody Award.
It actually outsold some other big names that year. We're talking about Adele, Kanye, yay, these days, Drake, Rihanna, beat them all. And to support the album, she went on the Formation Tour, playing 49 dates, the first ever all-stadium tour by a female artist. That's interesting. I thought Madonna might have done that before, but no. The tour grossed $256 million. That's $5 million every night.
Yeah. And I do remember seeing this and this was a real, I mean, this was a real phenomenon when it came to London. In 2016, she also made a major move into fashion. So she'd actually tried this before. In 2005, she launched a brand called House of Derion with her mum, Tina, which was kind of denim, skirts, dresses. It started off okay.
But in the early 2010s, House of Derion was quietly shuttered. But then in 2016, she started tapping into the growing athleisure market with a line called Ivy Park. And if you want to hear more about athleisure, you can check out our episode on Ben Francis.
So the Gymshark. Okay, that's interesting. I have to say House of Derion, as names go, I'm not a fan.
No, yeah.
Ivy Park, much more like it. In fact, I remember... The launch of that, because every day when I come to work, I have to walk past the flagship store of Topshop. And it was all over. The branding of Ivy Park was all over that for months. And it was because she'd met with the owner, Sir Philip Green, another one of our billionaires. Check out that episode.
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Chapter 7: How has Beyoncé's influence extended beyond music?
Is there some kind of country and western festival? And in a way, there was because it was basically Beyonce's cowboy era.
Exactly. Well, I mean, unsurprisingly, brands also wanted to help Beyonce capitalize on this new aesthetic. Levi's paid her an estimated 10 million for a series of commercials. And she got an estimated 50 million for a special halftime show for Netflix's first Christmas Day NFL game.
Yeah, but unlike her husband, Jay-Z, and her contemporary, Rihanna, it doesn't really seem that Beyonce's billionaire status is down to all these product things like Rihanna with Fenty and what have you was a huge part of her billionaire status. Her fortune is kind of like a good old-fashioned musician's fortune, like Taylor Swift is down to touring and the value of the music catalogue.
That is massive.
Right, because Forbes also estimated her music catalogue had increased in value to $300 million. Yeah. And through Parkwood Entertainment, she has significant ownership and control over her master recordings, especially from her self-titled 2013 album Onward.
And remember how important that is, because Taylor Swift went to the lengths of re-recording her original album so that she owned the master's, you know, the Taylor's version. So that's a huge part of their wealth, because that's an asset which keeps on giving. Every time it's used in an advert, every time it's played on the radio, every time, whatever, some money drops on the mat.
For many, many years... And so you can actually kind of work out the value of what the future revenues would be at the time. That adds up to a lot of money and a big part of these people's wealth.
Exactly. And there's so many people making money off of historic older albums, tracks, songs right now. You know, it's something that private equity has also started injecting itself into.
Because in the old days, you go in and buy an album. Let's say you bought, you know, writings on the wall or whatever. Your financial relationship with that band could be over at that point. But with streaming, you know that you're going to keep getting bits of money for years to come. And therefore, it becomes a whole different kind of financial creature. Exactly.
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Chapter 8: What does the future hold for Beyoncé as a business mogul?
all you're doing is kind of kowtowing to the temple of capitalism at the end of the day you're just telling people that you can do it through you know hard work through making money when that maybe isn't how society is set up especially not for people of color so i think it's an ongoing tension in her work really you know i think beyonce when you listen to her when you read her interviews.
She has a pretty, you know, strong idea of, you know, what her feminism consists of. I mean, she said, I'm not really sure people know or understand what a feminist is, but it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for man and woman. Ask anyone, man or woman, do you want your daughter to have 75 cents when she deserves a dollar? What do you think the answer would be?
Okay.
I think that's pretty dead on.
Okay, fair enough.
I think the whole controversy over whether Beyonce is a feminist or an arch-capitalist, honestly, it just depends on which side of the coin you like.
Controversy. Some would say ruthless. We use that word sometimes. I mean, if you look at the Destiny's Child era, there was chopping and changing. I mean, her dad saying wanting to put her front and centre. I go and see, you know, people with their kids in the football pitch on a Sunday afternoon and every dad wants their son to be centre forward. Do you know what I mean? It's...
No one wants them putting gold. Apologies to goalies out there. But I don't think that a parent angling to put their talented daughter somewhere front and centre in this thing, given that you've given up your job for it, I don't think that's entirely surprising. So I'm not going to blame them for that. I mean, she fired her dad as her manager, but we've seen that before. Yeah, exactly.
I'm going to give her quite a low score for controversy. I'm going to give her a three.
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