Beyoncé - Check On It

Mix by Jim Thias / Ultimix

Original Source Material: Maurice Joshua Anthem Mix

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles (born September 4 , 1981) is a popular American R&B singer , songwriter , record producer , actress and designer . She is usually referred to only by her first name, which she uses as her stage name . She was a founding member and lead singer of R&B supergroup Destiny's Child .

Her debut solo album, 2003 's Dangerously In Love , topped both the R&B and Billboard 200 charts in the U.S., as well as the album charts in Canada and the United Kingdom . Knowles has won nine Grammy Awards - six for her solo work, and three as a member of Destiny's Child. Knowles has a successful film career, having co-starred in Austin Powers in Goldmember , one of the highest grossing films of 2002 , and having worked with Oscar winning actors in each of her theatrical films. In 2006 , her song Check On It became her third number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. Knowles is currently dating rapper / record label executive Jay-Z .

During the autumn of 2002 , Knowles was the featured vocalist on singer Jay-Z 's smash single, '03 Bonnie & Clyde . In the spring of 2003, Knowles remade a duet with the late Luther Vandross , The Closer I Get To You , originally made famous by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway . In this version, the vocal parts are switched, with Vandross taking Flack's part and Knowles taking Hathaway's. The song was included on both her solo debut album and on Vandross's Dance With My Father album, and the two shared the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

In 2003, Knowles released her debut solo album, Dangerously In Love . Its first single, Crazy In Love , featured a propulsive riff and a guest rap from Jay-Z, rapidly becoming one of the biggest hits of that summer, staying at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart for eight weeks. Dangerously In Love went to the top of the album charts in the UK and Canada, and peaked on both the American Billboard pop (Billboard 200) and R&B charts. The album has sold over four million copies in U.S. and more than seven million copies worldwide [8] . When her single and album simultaneously topped the pop charts in both the U.S. and the UK, she became the first act to achieve this feat since Men at Work in 1983 and The Beatles , Simon and Garfunkel , and Rod Stewart in the 1960s and 1970s . Knowles was consequently one of the biggest selling R&B artists of 2003 [9] , and Dangerously In Love was the 6th biggest selling album in the United States.

On the televised celebration of July 4 in 2003, Knowles provoked controversy with the Grant Memorial Association for her performance of Crazy In Love , in which she danced in a "patently inappropriate" way on the steps of the tomb of President Ulysses S. Grant . Grant's great-grandsons Ulysses Grant Dietz and Chapman Foster Grant spoke up on Knowles' behalf. "The way the world is now, who cares?" said Chapman Grant, "who knows? If the old guy were alive, he might have enjoyed it".

Towards the end of the summer, Baby Boy , Dangerously In Love' s second single, which featured dancehall star Sean Paul , began to climb the charts. It went on to become one of the biggest hits of 2003, dominating radio airplay in the autumn of 2003, and spending nine weeks at number one - one week longer than Crazy In Love .

Fresh from the success of Baby Boy , Knowles released her third solo single, Me, Myself And I towards the end of 2003; Dangerously In Love's fourth single, Naughty Girl , came out in mid- 2004 . Both songs peaked at number three, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100.

At the 2004 Grammy Awards ceremony, Knowles won a record-tying five Grammy awards for her solo effort. These awards included Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for Dangerously In Love 2 , and Best Contemporary R&B Album . The other female artists who hold this record are Lauryn Hill , Alicia Keys and Norah Jones . She also won a Brit Award in 2004 for Best International Female Solo Artist in United Kingdom which made her the first female solo artist to have won prominent awards both domestically and internationally in the same year.

In December 2005 , Knowles released a new song, Check On It , featuring Slim Thug . The song is from the Destiny's Child album, #1's and the The Pink Panther soundtrack and is Knowles's sixth top five hit and third number one. Knowles announced that she will start writing songs for her new album, which she will begin to record sometime in mid-2006, after she has completed filming her new movie, Dreamgirls . Until then, Knowles has said that she will concentrate mainly on the film [10] [11] .

At the 2006 Grammy Awards , Knowles won a Grammy in the category of Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for the song So Amazing , a duet with Stevie Wonder for Luther Vandross tribute album So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute To Luther Vandross .

This text is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Beyonce".