Simply Abu Dhabi III

She doesn’t worry that male collaborators might miss some of her central message. Because she broke another rule of classic female pop artistry by mostly telling women, not men, how utterly wonderful they are in song. “I have enough oestrogen for male writers, believe me,” she says. “By the end of the session they are, like, ‘Okay! I get it! I know how it feels to be a woman.’ I’m always representing the ladies. You can guarantee that.” For Beyoncé, quite apart from the Brand, girls feeling good about themselves has been her mission statement. Her golden period of pop singles, from 1999’s Say My Name to the riotous Run the World (Girls), have spelt it out in bold capitals. So cruel, then, that only five years after she’d recorded Independent Women, Pussycat Dolls, whose claim to fame was their lap-dancer style, spoilt this shift by introducing the playground chant “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?” to urban pop’s playing field. “When women don’t have friends, I’m afraid of them,” Beyoncé says. “I grew up around women. I believe that we can teach each other so much. I’m always thinking about how unselfish we are and the things we need to hear and how much pressure there is being a woman. I try to write songs that will bring out the best in all of us and keep us close together. Put a ring on it? That’s a nice little way to hint something without being the psycho that’s like ‘Marry me!’ You know? Sometimes we gain 5, 10 pounds, sometimes more. Whatever. Sometimes you have to just embrace it and find the beauty in it. So, Bootylicious. When I travelled around the world, I could see how important Independent Women was and I could see how much strength it gave women when they were able to sing Irreplaceable. For women in burqas, women who may have been accepted to not have any goals of their own. When I have women coming up to me and saying, ‘I had to sneak to listen to your music, but it makes me feel strong and now I’m saving up my money and I’m moving away from here’, it makes me feel like my purpose is so much deeper than I ever imagined. So I’m going to continue to write those songs that give women strength.” After Glastonbury, after 4, Beyoncé will be directed by Clint Eastwood in his remake of A Star Is Born. And is it? “I think maybe a star is born. I was born to do what I do. It’s just too natural. There are certain things I do that nobody taught me. Nobody can teach you. It’s just, you are. I feel like we all are stars.” 82 SIMPLY ABU DHABI Paul Flynn / The Sunday Times / The Inter view People “It’s happened gradually,” she says. “I didn’t wake up one day and, one album, two albums later, say, ‘Now I’m a star.’ I had to grind it out, probably more than any artist I know.” On the road with Destiny’s Child, “we travelled in coach. We were sharing rooms and fighting over phones, even with multiple No1 singles. We worked so hard. Sixteen-hour days. Everything that I’ve done, I’ve worked so hard for, until my toes are bleeding. And no complaints. I think the more you have to work for something, the more you cherish it. Every time I think about doing something silly or something that’s going to be detrimental to my career, I think about everything I built and all that time I sacrificed”. On the new record there are echoes of the rock-funk strut of Tina Turner; she mentions Earth Wind & Fire and the Chi-Lites as key influences. It’s her rawest, boldest yet. “I have become bolder as a person,” she explains. Beyoncé has schooled herself in her own musicology, saying she can sit for 10 hours at a time, traipsing across the internet in search of new sounds. Her sister Solange introduced her to the Brooklyn noiseniks Sleigh Bells while DJing in Williamsburg. “She needs to be in A&R,” she says of Solange, “because, I swear, all of the underground and more indie artists, my sister discovers maybe three or four years before they hit the scene.” She found another new collaborator, Frank Ocean, playing on Jay’s car stereo. “After one song, I said, ‘Okay, who is that? Because I want them on a flight tonight.” She likes the thrill of working with new artists. “It keeps me anxious. I love to give people opportunities, because someone gave me an opportunity.”

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