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My friend, you lost your head again
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Hot hands, you’re on to my neck
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A drug test and you’re still failing me
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All you do is take, take, take
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Black boots and her French heritage
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She’s scaring me with your friends
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She’s 20 now and ahead of it again
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While I’m still afraid, afraid, afraid
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Do you get afraid, afraid, afraid?

(Chorus)
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Ah, ah, ah ah ah, show me the water
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Ah, ah, ah ah ah, swim deep ’til you come home
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Ah, ah, ah ah ah, it’s all that we’ve wanted
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Ah, ah, ah ah ah, and all that you’ve ever known
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Swim deep, you gotta make it better
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I’ll be waiting on you forever
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Swim with me, get to someplace better
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I’ll be waiting on you forever

NIGHT SWIMMING REM

KEY OF G

Dedicated to its Requestee
ARTHUR 4080 THIS ONE’S FOR YOU!!

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Night-swim-ming de-serves a qui-et night.

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The pho-to-graph on the dash-board,

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Tak-en years a-go,

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Turned a-round back-wards so the

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Wind-shield shows.

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Ev-er-y street-light re-veals the pic-ture

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in re-verse.

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Still, it’s so much clear-er.

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I for-got my shirt at the wat-er’s edge.

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The moon is low to-night.

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Night-swim-ming de-serves a qui-et night.

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I’m not sure all these peo-ple un-der-stand.

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It’s not like years a-go,

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The fear of get-ing caught,

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Of reck-less-ness and wa-ter.

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They can-not see me na-ked.

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These things, they go a-way,

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Re-placed by ev-ry-day.

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Night-swim-ming, re-mem-ber-ing that night.

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Sep-tem-ber’s com-ing soon.

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I’m pi-ning for the moon.

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And what if there were two

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Side by side in or-bit

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A-round the fair-est sun

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That bright, tight for-ev-er drum

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Could not des-cribe night-swim-ming.

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You, I thought I knew you.

7 7 7 -7 7
You I can-not judge.

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You, I thought you knew me,

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This one laugh-ing quiet-ly

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un-der-neath my breath.

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Night-swim-ming.

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The pho-to-graph re-flects,

7 -7 8 -8 7 -7 -7 7
Ev-ry street-light a re-min-der.

7 -7 7 -5 8 -8 7 -7 7
Night-swim-ming de-serves a qui-et night,

-5 8 -8 7 -7 7
de-serves a qui-et night.

ENJOY!!!

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FREE PDF DOWNLOAD OF DANCE # 1 PIANO SHEET MUSIC BY ANNE BRITT

Dance is a type of art that generally involves movement of the body, often rhythmic and to music. It is performed in many cultures as a form of emotional expression, social interaction, or exercise, in a spiritual or performance setting, and is sometimes used to express ideas or tell a story.

Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans or other animals, as in bee dances and behaviour patterns such as a mating dances.Definitions of what constitutes dance can depend on social and cultural norms and aesthetic, artistic and moral sensibilities. Definitions may range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet.

Martial arts kata are often compared to dances, and sports such as gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are generally thought to incorporate dance. There are many styles and genres of dance. African dance is interpretative. Ballet, ballroom and tango are classical dance styles. Square dance and electric slide are forms of step dance, and breakdancing is a type of street dance.

Dance can be participatory, social, or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial, competitive or erotic. Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, as in ballet or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary or symbolic meaning as in some Asian dances. Choreography is the art of creating dances. The person who creates (i.e., choreographs) a dance is known as the choreographer.

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD OF DANCE # 2 PIANO SHEET MUSIC BY ANNE BRITT

Dance is a type of art that generally involves movement of the body, often rhythmic and to music. It is performed in many cultures as a form of emotional expression, social interaction, or exercise, in a spiritual or performance setting, and is sometimes used to express ideas or tell a story.

Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication between humans or other animals, as in bee dances and behaviour patterns such as a mating dances.Definitions of what constitutes dance can depend on social and cultural norms and aesthetic, artistic and moral sensibilities. Definitions may range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet.

Martial arts kata are often compared to dances, and sports such as gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are generally thought to incorporate dance. There are many styles and genres of dance. African dance is interpretative. Ballet, ballroom and tango are classical dance styles. Square dance and electric slide are forms of step dance, and breakdancing is a type of street dance.

Dance can be participatory, social, or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial, competitive or erotic. Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, as in ballet or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary or symbolic meaning as in some Asian dances. Choreography is the art of creating dances. The person who creates (i.e., choreographs) a dance is known as the choreographer.

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter (/biːˈjɒnseɪ/ bee-YON-say; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, actress and record producer. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Beyoncé is often cited as an influence by other artists.

During Destiny’s Child’s hiatus, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut with a role in the US box-office number-one Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) and began her solo music career. She became the first music act to debut at number one with their first six solo studio albums on the Billboard 200. Her debut album Dangerously in Love (2003) featured four Billboard Hot 100 top five songs, including the number-one singles “Crazy in Love” featuring rapper Jay-Z and “Baby Boy” featuring singer-rapper Sean Paul. Following the disbandment of Destiny’s Child in 2006, she released her second solo album, B’Day, which contained her first US number-one solo single “Irreplaceable”, and “Beautiful Liar”, which topped the charts in most countries. Beyoncé continued her acting career with starring roles in The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), and Obsessed (2009). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am… Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the UK number-one single “If I Were a Boy”, the US number-one single “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and the top five single “Halo”.

After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released the album 4 (2011); it was influenced by 1970s funk, 1980s pop, and 1990s soul. She achieved back-to-back widespread critical acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016); the latter was the world’s best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she made her directorial and screenwriting debut with the musical film and visual album Black Is King, which received widespread critical acclaim after premiering on Disney+.

Beyoncé is one of the world’s best-selling recording artists, having sold 118 million records worldwide. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America’s Top Certified Artist of the Decade, as well as Billboard magazine’s Top Radio Songs Artist and the Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé is the most nominated woman in the Grammy Award’s history and has the second most wins for a woman with a total of 24. She is also the most awarded artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, with 24 wins, including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. In 2014, she became the highest-earning Black musician in history and was listed among Time’s 100 most influential people in the world for a second year in a row. Forbes ranked her as the most powerful female in entertainment on their 2015 and 2017 lists. She occupied the sixth place for Time’s Person of the Year in 2016, and in 2020, was named one of the 100 women who defined the last century by the same publication. Beyoncé was also included on Encyclopædia Britannica’s 100 Women list in 2019, for her contributions to the entertainment industry.

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Life and career

1981–1996: Early life

Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas, to Celestine “Tina” Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager. Her younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny’s Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums. Mathew is African American, and Tina is of Louisiana Creole descent (French, Native American, and African), and distant Jewish, Spanish, Chinese and Indonesian ancestry. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard,[20] as well as a descendant of Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie de Saint-Castin. In 2018, Beyoncé researched her ancestry and found out that she is descended from a slaveowner.

Beyoncé attended St. Mary’s Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing talent was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé’s interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school’s choir.  She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts[31] and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John’s United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.

When Beyoncé was eight, she and childhood friend Kelly Rowland met LaTavia Roberson while at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl’s Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl’s Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995 Beyoncé’s father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé’s family’s income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé’s parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins’s Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.

1997–2002: Destiny’s Child

The group changed their name to Destiny’s Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny’s Child released their major label debut song “Killing Time” on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, “No, No, No”. They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for “No, No, No”. The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing’s on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group’s most widely known songs such as “Bills, Bills, Bills”, the group’s first number-one single, “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” and “Say My Name”, which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. “Say My Name” won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing’s on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song “After All Is Said and Done” for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.

LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew’s managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny’s Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.

The remaining band members recorded “Independent Women Part I”, which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny’s Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, “Bootylicious” and the title track, “Survivor”, the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.

In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the US box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released “Work It Out” as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding’s character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released “Fighting Temptation” as the lead single from the film’s soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé’s contributions to the soundtrack, “Summertime”, fared better on the US charts.

2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled

Beyoncé’s first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z’s song “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.[58] On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, “Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford’s 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan.”[59] The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200,[61] and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album’s lead single, “Crazy in Love”, featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé’s first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single “Baby Boy” also reached number one,  and singles, “Me, Myself and I” and “Naughty Girl”, both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “Dangerously in Love 2”, Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “Crazy in Love”, and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for “The Closer I Get to You” with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.

In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny’s Child.[68] Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles “Lose My Breath” and “Soldier”, which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[ Destiny’s Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled… and Lovin’ It sponsored by McDonald’s Corporation, and performed hits such as “No, No, No”, “Survivor”, “Say My Name”, “Independent Women” and “Lose My Breath”. In addition to renditions of the group’s recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer’s solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny’s Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1’s on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.

2006–2007: B’Day and Dreamgirls

Beyoncé’s second solo album B’Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé’s second consecutive number-one album in the United States.[80] The album’s lead single “Déjà Vu”, featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single “Irreplaceable” was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B’Day also produced three other singles; “Ring the Alarm”, “Get Me Bodied”, and “Green Light” (released in the United Kingdom only).

At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B’Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for “Ring the Alarm” and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration”for “Déjà Vu”; the Freemasons club mix of “Déjà Vu” without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B’Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B’Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for “Irreplaceable” and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for “Beautiful Liar” (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).

Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide.[88] Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released “Listen” as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues  and grossed over $24 million.[note 1] Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John’s and America’s Second Harvest. At the same time, B’Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira “Beautiful Liar”.

2008–2010: I Am… Sasha Fierce

I Am… Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé’s alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single “Crazy in Love”. It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”  and the top-five songs “If I Were a Boy” and “Halo”. Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, “Halo”‘s success in the US helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful “Sweet Dreams”, and singles “Diva”, “Ego”, “Broken-Hearted Girl” and “Video Phone”. The music video for “Single Ladies” has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the “first major dance craze” of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”, led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift’s award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am… World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.

Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James’ “At Last” at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama’s first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband’s stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics,  the movie did well at the US box office, grossing $68 million—$60 million more than Cadillac Records —on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.

At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am… Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for “Halo”, and Song of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, among others.  She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga’s single “Telephone” and appeared in its music video. The song topped the US Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. “Telephone” received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother’s advice, “to live life, to be inspired by things again”. During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners.[ Beyoncé’s musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.

2011–2013: 4 and documentary film

On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles “Run the World (Girls)” and “Best Thing I Never Had”. The fourth single “Love on Top” spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; “Party”, “Countdown”, “I Care” and “End of Time”. “Eat, Play, Love”, a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York’s Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.

In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City’s Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort’s opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.

In January 2013, Destiny’s Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, “Nuclear”. Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama’s second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Love on Top”. Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013.  The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.

2013–2015: Beyoncé

Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé’s cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24,  and recorded an original song for the film, “Rise Up”, co-written with Sia.

On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart’s history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as “bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood”. The single “Drunk in Love”, featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In April 2014, after much speculation,[162] Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple’s first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for “Pretty Hurts”, as well as best collaboration for “Drunk in Love”. In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row—earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. As of November 2014, Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, as of March 2015.

At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for “Drunk in Love”, and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.

2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love

On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released “Formation” and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed “Formation” live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.

On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016’s third highest-selling album in the US with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.

Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album’s visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for “Formation”.  The eight wins made Beyoncé the most awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine’s 2016 Person of the Year.

In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017 that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor’s concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé’s departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%.

At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and “Formation” respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for “Formation”.[196] Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.

In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song “Mi Gente”. Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands.

On November 10, Eminem released “Walk on Water” featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song “Perfect”. “Perfect Duet” was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé’s sixth song of her solo career to do so.

On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 4:44 collaboration, “Family Feud” was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released “Top Off” as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles’ husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.

On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny’s Child also reunited during the show.

On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album’s lead single, “Apeshit”, on Beyoncé’s official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa’s diversity.

2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King

Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé’s historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film’s soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, “Spirit”, was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a “sonic cinema.” She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because “authenticity and heart were important to [her],” since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled “Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift” was aired on ABC.

During an interview for The Wall Street Journal, published in February 2020, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, revealed that the singer had borrowed some of her art pieces for a new project already in development. On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Savage”, marking her first material of music for the year, the song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé’s eleventh song to do so across all acts.  On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single “Black Parade”. On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal.  Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as “a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience”.

Artistry

Voice and musical style

Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as “one of the most compelling instruments in popular music”. Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny’s Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is “velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting”. Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé’s unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was “capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars.”

Beyoncé’s music is generally R&B,[ and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé’s exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B’Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B’Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.

Songwriting credits

Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny’s Child and nearly all the original songs she has recorded solo, but no sole writing credit. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like “Independent Women” and “Survivor”, but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as “Cater 2 U”. Beyoncé also received co-producing credits for Dangerously in Love, although she did not formulate beats herself and instead came up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers.

In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs (“Irreplaceable”, “Grillz” and “Check on It”) in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song “I Was Here” for 4. ) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.

Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have “written” several number-one songs for Destiny’s Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny’s Child hit “Bootylicious”, which provoked the song’s producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, “[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, ‘People don’t want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that’s not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything.’” However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé “had the ‘Bootylicious’ concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record.”

In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on “Listen” (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder’s original demo for “Halo” leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé’s recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible “demand” for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that “She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on ‘Halo,’ that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it’s become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that.”  In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: “Well haha um that’s not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn’t for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way.” Perry’s remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.

Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, “It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years”, and that, “because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to ‘just say no’ to Beyoncé.” While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beast’s Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, “the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West’]s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna’s] Anti, or [Drake’s] Views—all of which are still reflective of an artist’s voice and vision … speaks to the truth of the way the industry’s top artists create their music today: by committee.” James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are “celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given”.

Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is “100 percent involved” in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that “She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She’s a beast,” when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on “Irreplaceable,” said that they both wrote “two damn totally different songs […] So, yeah, I gave her writer’s credit. Because that counts. That’s writing…. She put her spin on it.”

Influences

Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence.  Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, “if it wasn’t for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed.” She admires Diana Ross as an “all-around entertainer”. Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said “Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy”. and Whitney Houston, who she said “inspired me to get up there and do what she did.” She credits Mariah Carey’s singing and her song “Vision of Love” as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Rachelle Ferrell.

The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé’s second solo album B’Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing “Déjà Vu” at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker’s trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé’s third solo album, I Am… Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose “boldness” inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles.  Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.

Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying “she proves you can do it all,” and has described Oprah Winfrey as “the definition of inspiration and a strong woman.” She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter “what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music … he is lyrical and raw”. In February 2013, Beyoncé said that Madonna inspired her to take control of her own career. She commented, “I think about Madonna and how she took all of the great things she achieved and started the label and developed other artists. But there are not enough of those women.” Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.

Music videos and stage

In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B’Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for “Irreplaceable” and “Green Light”. The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am… World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).

Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she’s seen onstage,  while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she “takes her role as entertainer so seriously she’s almost too good.” The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé’s stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country’s strict laws banning revealing costumes.

Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, “You look at Beyoncé’s brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms … I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want.”

Alter ego

Described as being “sexy, seductive and provocative” when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego “Sasha Fierce” to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being “too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy”, stating, “I’m not like her in real life at all.” Sasha was conceived during the making of “Crazy in Love”, and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am… Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.

Public image

Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has “become a crossover sex symbol”. Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress “is absolutely for the stage.” Due to her curves and the term’s catchiness, in the 2000s (decade), the media often used the term “Bootylicious” (a portmanteau of the words booty and delicious) to describe Beyoncé,  the term popularized by Destiny’s Child’s single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford’s Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People[ and the “Hottest Female Singer of All Time” by Complex in 2012.  In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its “100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century” list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.

According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing.[304] Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny’s Style[305] an account of how fashion affected the trio’s success. The B’Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.

The Beyhive is the name given to Beyoncé’s fan base. Fans were previously titled “The Beyontourage”, (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage). The name Bey Hive derives from the word beehive, purposely misspelled to resemble her first name, and was penned by fans after petitions on the online social networking service Twitter and online news reports during competitions.

In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L’Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé’s look was “far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce” and that it was “a return to her African roots”.

Beyoncé’s lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community.  Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L’Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that “it is categorically untrue”, and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed “retouching” of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only “natural pictures be used”.

Beyoncé has been very vocal for the Black Lives Matter movement. Her song “Formation”, which she sang at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, gained criticism from some politicians and police. Some police tried to get The Formation World Tour boycotted by other members. Beyoncé has said that she is against police brutality but is not anti-police.

Personal life

Marriage and children

Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on “’03 Bonnie & Clyde”, which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002).  Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z’s girlfriend in the music video for the song, fuelling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. As of April 2014, the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.

Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as “the saddest thing” she had ever endured She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris.  In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed “Love on Top” and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year’s MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for “most tweets per second recorded for a single event” on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and “Beyonce pregnant” was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single “Sorry”, in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z’s alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as “Becky.” Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were “aimed specifically and recognizably” at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines “Suck on my balls, I’ve had enough” were an “unmistakable hint” that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.

On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million “likes” within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.

Activism

Beyoncé performed “America the Beautiful” at President Obama’s 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as “At Last” during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem at his second inauguration in January 2013.

The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.  She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton’s frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore “I’m with her” tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, “I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless.” She endorsed the bid of Beto O’Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.

In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be “a modern-day feminist”.  She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling “We should all be feminists”, a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song “Flawless”, released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading “Feminist.” Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé’s use of her word feminist as ‘feminist lite’. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a “terrorist” towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls.  Adichie responded with “…her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men. Adichie expands upon what ‘feminist lite’ means to her, referring that “more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to “treat women well” and “we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this.” Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to “give clarity to the true meaning” behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, “…it’s very simple. It’s someone who believes in equal rights for men and women.” She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.

She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls.[356] Following Beyoncé’s public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.

In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for “Demand A Plan”, a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 US mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California’s Proposition 8.  She spoke against North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016 She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for “Freedom” In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song “Formation” which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, “I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me”.

In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump’s presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump’s decision.

In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, “Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice,” and that “Colin took action with no fear of consequence … To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We’re still waiting for the world to catch up.” Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand “for people that are oppressed.”

Wealth

Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé’s earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world’s best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009 and ninth on the “Most Powerful Women in the World” list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the “Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30” list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the “World’s Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples”, for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year’s Guinness World Records as the “highest-earning power couple” for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé’s endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world’s first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.

MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history;  this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date.[380] In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. Herself and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. As of 2018, Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple with Jay-Z, they have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.

Legacy

Beyoncé’s success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname “Queen Bey”. In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as “the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century … the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop.” Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer’s success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: “In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé.” When The Observer named her Artist of the Decade in 2009, Llewyn-Smith wrote:

Why Beyoncé? … Because she made not one but two of the decade’s greatest singles, with ‘Crazy in Love’ and ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)’, not to mention her hits with Destiny’s Child; and this was the decade when singles – particularly R&B singles – regained their status as pop’s favourite medium. … [She] and not any superannuated rock star was arguably the greatest live performer of the past 10 years.”

Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade’s (2010s) defining pop star, stating that “no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey”, explaining that her “songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we’ve viewed music since 2010.” British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the “10 Artists Who Defined The Decade”, explaining: “So much more than a popstar, Beyonce has become an outspoken advocate for civil rights, feminism and self-expression, proving that it’s possible to be politically engaged and still hold down an extremely successful career in mainstream entertainment.”

In 2013, Beyoncé made the Time 100 list, with Baz Luhrmann writing:

“No one has that voice, no one moves the way she moves, no one can hold an audience the way she does … When Beyoncé does an album, when Beyoncé sings a song, when Beyoncé does anything, it’s an event, and it’s broadly influential. Right now, she is the heir-apparent diva of the USA – the reigning national voice.”

In 2014, Beyoncé was listed again on the Time 100 and also featured on the cover of the issue. In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list and Brittany Spanos wrote: “For 20 years, she’s been a stately pop and R&B presence: Destiny’s Child countered the glaringly white bubblegum of the time with unmatchable vocals and choreography, and their success made her solo career fail-proof. It’s one reason Beyoncé may be the most universally beloved artist of the Gen Y. A figure of talent, beauty and grace, Queen Bey has developed into the most exciting artist of the millennium as well as a political figure, setting the tone for how other major stars speak about feminism and the Black Lives Matter movement with the release of her landmark Lemonade album in 2016.”

She is often credited for the cultural shift towards female pop singers rapping and for creating the staccato style of ‘rap-singing’ she used in songs like “Bug a Boo” and “Say My Name”. Uproxx stated that Beyoncé is the primary pioneer of the singsong style that dominates Hip-Hop currently, while Sheldon Pearce of Pitchfork noticed her contribution in changing the sound of pop music radio with her hip-hop a*sisted style, writing:

Her hip-hop fluency gave her an advantage in the pop-star arms race, helping her to become the presiding voice in an increasingly rap-dominated musical landscape. Her evolution, from rap-adjacent R&B star (appearing as early as 1998 in a Geto Boys video) to reluctant hip-hop shareholder to full-blown rapper, played a role in slowly shifting the sound of pop radio.”

Beyoncé’s releases of Beyoncé in 2013 and Lemonade in 2016, which are both concept albums and visual albums, have been credited with revolutionizing the music industry, reinventing the album and transforming how people consume music. In 2020, Billboard named her with Destiny’s Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson

Beyoncé’s work has influenced numerous artists including Adele, Alexis Jordan, Ariana Grande,  Azealia Banks. Paul McCartney, Bebe Rexha, Bridgit Mendler, Camila Cabello, Lizzo, Cheryl,  Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Ed Sheeran, Fifth Harmony, Florence Welch, Grimes, Hwasa, Iggy Azalea, Jessica Sanchez, Jessie J, JoJo, Kelly Rowland, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Little Mix, Meghan Trainor, Nicole Scherzinger, Normani, Millie Bobby Brown, Rihanna, Rita Ora,  Ryan Destiny SZA, Sam Smith, Tinashe, and Zendaya.

American indie rock band White Rabbits also cited her an inspiration for their third album Milk Famous (2012), and Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor cited her as the inspiration for the title of her tenth album I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss. Friend Gwyneth Paltrow studied Beyoncé at her live concerts while learning to become a musical performer for the 2010 film Country Strong.

Beyoncé is known for coining popular phrases such as ‘put a ring on it,’ a euphemism for marriage proposal, ‘I woke up like this, which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and ‘boy, bye,’ which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee’s campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase “visual album” following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.

The lead single of her debut album, “Crazy in Love” was named VH1’s “Greatest Song of the 2000s”, NME’s “Best Track of the 00s” and “Pop Song of the Century”,  considered by Rolling Stone to be one of the 500 greatest songs of all time, earned two Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling singles of all time at around 8 million copies. The music video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, which achieved fame for its intricate choreography  and its deployment of jazz hands, was credited by the Toronto Star as having started the “first major dance craze of both the new millennium and the Internet”,[106] triggering a number of parodies of the dance choreography  and a legion of amateur imitators on YouTube. In 2013, Drake released a single titled “Girls Love Beyoncé”, which featured an interpolation from Destiny Child’s “Say My Name” and discussed his relationship with women. In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly’s unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In July 2014, a Beyoncé exhibit was introduced into the “Legends of Rock” section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The black leotard from the “Single Ladies” video and her outfit from the Super Bowl half time performance are among several pieces housed at the museum. Architects credit Beyoncé’s look in her “Ghost” music video as the inspiration of the design of the Premier Tower under construction in Australia.

The City of Minneapolis, Minnesota declared May 23 Beyoncé Day in the city in 2016.  In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.

Beyoncé inspired the character of Catherine of Aragon in the British musical Six, a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII presented as a pop concert, with the character’s outfit bearing resemblance to Beyoncé’s from her performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards Additionally, Beyoncé is featured alongside other R&B and pop divas as a primary character on the popular web parody Got 2B Real.

For their first match of March 2019, the players of the United States women’s national soccer team each wore a jersey with the name of a woman they were honoring on the back; Mallory Pugh chose the name of Beyoncé.

Achievements

Beyoncé has received numerous awards. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny’s Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, “Halo”, and “Irreplaceable” are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, The Observer named her the Artist of the Decade and Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012 VH1 ranked her third on their list of the “100 Greatest Women in Music”, behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year. In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo’s Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay Z, they received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award.

Beyoncé has won 24 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny’s Child and The Carters, making her the second most honored female artist by the Grammys, behind Alison Krauss She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” won Song of the Year in 2010 while “Say My Name”, “Crazy in Love” and “Drunk in Love” have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B’Day and I Am … Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.

Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny’s Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and “Formation” won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations. and most awarded person in Soul Train Music Awards with over fifteen awards as a solo artist.

Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for “Listen” and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for “Listen” and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award stating “Lemonade draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create a rich tapestry of poetic innovation. Defying genre and convention, Lemonade immerses viewers in the sublime worlds of black women, family, and community where we experience poignant and compelling stories about the lives of women of color and the bonds of friendship seldom seen or heard in American popular culture.”

She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women’s lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020.

Business and ventures

In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer’s various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment’s first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé’s albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.

Endorsements

Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé’s campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.

Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of “Wishing on a Star”) and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani’s Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song “Fever”, was shown after the water shed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé’s third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world’s best-selling celebrity fragrance line,  with sales of over $400 million.

The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L’Oréal since the age of 18.

In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.

Fashion lines

Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women’s fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé’s grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé’s taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family’s company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny’s Child’s shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the US and Canada.

In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a “high-style” mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy’s and Dillard’s, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.

In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand’s name is a nod to Beyoncé’s daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. In December, 9, 2019, they announced a launch date which will be on January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle Magazine: January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.

Philanthropy

In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.

After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House’s clients gain career skills during their recovery.

In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean’s Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA “Fashion For Haiti” T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with US First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter’s campaign against child obesity by reworking her single “Get Me Bodied”.  Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA”, as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund.

Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song “I Was Here” and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci “Chime for Change” campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013 in London  and included other acts like Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine, and Rita Ora.  In advance of the concert, she appeared in a campaign video released on May 15, 2013, where she, along with Cameron Diaz, John Legend and Kylie Minogue, described inspiration from their mothers, while a number of other artists celebrated personal inspiration from other women, leading to a call for submission of photos of women of viewers’ inspiration from which a selection was shown at the concert. Beyoncé said about her mother Tina Knowles that her gift was “finding the best qualities in every human being.” With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in “Miss a Meal”, a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé’s Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: “I don’t know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community.” In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.

During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William’s “Mi Gente”, with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the US and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.

In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage”, with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston’s COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother’s #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé’s single “Black Parade” were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to a*sist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia.

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American musician, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.

Born during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the U.S. Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote “Family Bible” and recorded the song “Lumberjack” in 1956. He also worked as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Vancouver and nearby Portland, Oregon. In 1958, he moved to Houston, Texas, after signing a contract with D Records. He sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including “Funny How Time Slips Away”, “Hello Walls”, “Pretty Paper”, and “Crazy”. In 1960 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and later signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price’s band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album, …And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas. The ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.

In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During the mid-1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like “On the Road Again”, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”, and “Pancho and Lefty”, he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson.

In 1990, Nelson’s a*sets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, which claimed that he owed $32 million. The difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?; the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelson’s a*sets cleared his debt. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, and folk.

Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television. Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which is in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary chairman of the advisory board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas.

Early life

Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas, on April 29, 1933,[1] the son of Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson. His birth was incorrectly recorded by Dr. F. D. Sims as April 30.  He was named Willie by his cousin Mildred, who also chose Hugh as his middle name, in honor of her recently deceased younger brother.[1] Nelson traces his genealogy to the American Revolutionary War, in which his ancestor John Nelson served as a major. His parents moved to Texas from Arkansas in 1929 to look for work. His grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic. His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Nelson and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents, who taught singing back in Arkansas and started their grandchildren in music. Nelson’s grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, and taught him a few chords, and Nelson sang gospel songs in the local church alongside Bobbie. He wrote his first song at age seven, and when he was nine, he played guitar for local band Bohemian Polka. During the summer, the family picked cotton alongside other Abbott residents. Nelson disliked picking cotton, so he earned money by singing in dance halls, taverns, and honky tonks from age 13, which he continued through high school. His musical influences were Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Django Reinhardt, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong.

Nelson attended Abbott High School, where he was a halfback on the football team, guard on the basketball team, and shortstop in baseball. He also raised pigs with the Future Farmers of America. While still at school, he sang and played guitar in The Texans, a band formed by his sister’s husband, Bud Fletcher. The band played in honky tonks, and also had a Sunday morning spot at KHBR in Hillsboro, Texas. Meanwhile, Nelson had a short stint as a relief phone operator in Abbott, followed by a job as a tree trimmer for the local electric company, as well as a pawn shop employee. After leaving school in 1950, he joined the U.S. Air Force for eight to nine months. Upon his return in 1952, he married Martha Matthews, and from 1954 to 1956 studied agriculture at Baylor University, where he joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, until dropping out to pursue a career in music. He worked as a nightclub bouncer, autohouse partsman, saddle maker, and tree trimmer again. He later joined Johnny Bush’s band.

Nelson moved with his family to Pleasanton, Texas, where he auditioned for a job as a DJ at KBOP. The owner of the station, Dr. Ben Parker, gave Nelson the job despite his lack of experience working on radio. With the equipment of the station, Nelson made his first two recordings in 1955: “The Storm Has Just Begun” and “When I’ve Sung My Last Hillbilly Song”. He recorded the tracks on used tapes, and sent the demos to the local label SARG Records, which rejected them.  He then had stints working for KDNT in Denton, KCUL, and KCNC in Fort Worth, where he hosted The Western Express, taught Sunday school, and played in nightclubs. He then decided to move to San Diego but, when he was unable to find a job there, he hitchhiked to Portland, Oregon, where his mother lived.[15] When nobody picked him up, he ended up sleeping in a ditch[19] before hopping a freight train bound for Eugene. A truck driver drove him to a bus station and loaned him $10 for a ticket to reach Portland.

Music career

Beginnings (1956–1971)

Nelson was hired by KVAN in Vancouver, Washington and appeared frequently on a television show. He made his first record in 1956, “No Place for Me”, that included Leon Payne’s “Lumberjack” on the B-side. The recording failed. Nelson continued working as a radio announcer and singing in Vancouver clubs. He made several appearances in a Colorado nightclub, later moving to Springfield, Missouri. After failing to land a spot on the Ozark Jubilee, he started to work as a dishwasher. Unhappy with his job, he moved back to Texas. After a short time in Waco, he settled in Fort Worth, and quit the music business for a year. He sold bibles and vacuum cleaners door-to-door,[ and eventually became a sales manager for the Encyclopedia Americana.

After his son Billy was born in 1958, the family moved to Houston, Texas. On the way, Nelson stopped by the Esquire Ballroom to sell his original songs to house band singer Larry Butler. Butler refused to purchase the song “Mr. Record Man” for $10, instead giving Nelson a $50 loan to rent an apartment and a six-night job singing in the club. Nelson rented the apartment near Houston in Pasadena, Texas, where he also worked at the radio station as the sign-on disc jockey. During this time, he recorded two singles for Pappy Daily on D Records “Man With the Blues”/”The Storm Has Just Begun” and “What a Way to Live”/”Misery Mansion”. Nelson then was hired by guitar instructor Paul Buskirk to work as an instructor in his school. He sold “Family Bible” to Buskirk for $50 and “Night Life” for $150. “Family Bible” turned into a hit for Claude Gray in 1960.

Nelson moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1960, but was unable to find a label to sign him. During this period he often spent time at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, a bar near the Grand Ole Opry frequented by the show’s stars and other singers and songwriters. There Nelson met Hank Cochran, a songwriter who worked for the publishing company Pamper Music, owned by Ray Price and Hal Smith. Cochran heard Nelson during a jam session with Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day. Cochran had just earned a raise of $50 a week, but convinced Smith to pay Nelson the money instead to sign him to Pamper Music. On hearing Nelson sing “Hello Walls” at Tootsie’s, Faron Young decided to record it.  After Ray Price recorded Nelson’s “Night Life”, and his previous bassist Johnny Paycheck quit, Nelson joined Price’s touring band as a bass player. While playing with Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, his songs became hits for other artists, including “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Billy Walker), “Pretty Paper” (Roy Orbison), and, most famously, “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. Nelson and Cochran also met Cline’s husband, Charlie Dick at Tootsie’s. Dick liked a song of Nelson’s he heard on the bar’s jukebox. Nelson played him a demo tape of “Crazy.” Later that night Dick played the tape for Cline, who decided to record it. “Crazy” became the biggest jukebox hit of all time.

Nelson signed with Liberty Records and was recording by August 1961 at Quonset Hut Studio. His first two successful singles as an artist were released by the next year, including “Willingly” (a duet with his soon-to-be second wife, Shirley Collie, which became his first charting single and first Top Ten at No. 10) and “Touch Me” (his second Top Ten, stalling at No. 7).  Nelson’s tenure at Liberty yielded his first album entitled …And Then I Wrote, released in September 1962. In 1963 Collie and Nelson were married in Las Vegas. He then worked on the west coast offices of Pamper Records, in Pico Rivera, California. Since the job did not allow him the time to play music of his own, he left it and bought a ranch in Ridgetop, Tennessee, outside of Nashville. Fred Foster of Monument Records signed Nelson in early 1964, but only one single was released: “I Never Cared For You”.

By the fall of 1964, Nelson had moved to RCA Victor at the behest of Chet Atkins, signing a contract for $10,000 per year.[38] Country Willie – His Own Songs became Nelson’s first RCA Victor album, recorded in April 1965. That same year he joined the Grand Ole Opry,  and he met and became friends with Waylon Jennings after watching one of his shows in Phoenix, Arizona.  In 1967, he formed his backing band “The Record Men”, featuring Johnny Bush, Jimmy Day, Paul English and David Zettner. During his first few years on RCA Victor, Nelson had no significant hits, but from November 1966 through March 1969, his singles reached the Top 25 in a consistent manner. “One in a Row” (#19, 1966), “The Party’s Over” (#24 during a 16-week chart run in 1967), and his cover of Morecambe & Wise’s “Bring Me Sunshine” (#13, March 1969) were Nelson’s best-selling records during his time with RCA.[23]

By 1970, most of Nelson’s songwriting royalties were invested in tours that did not produce significant profits. In addition to the problems in his career, Nelson divorced Shirley Collie in 1970. In December, his ranch in Ridgetop, Tennessee, burned down. He interpreted the incident as a signal for a change. He moved to a ranch near Bandera, Texas, and married Connie Koepke. In early 1971 his single “I’m a Memory” reached the top 30. After he recorded his final RCA single, “Mountain Dew” (backed with “Phases, Stages, Circles, Cycles and Scenes”), in late April 1972, RCA requested that Nelson renew his contract ahead of schedule, with the implication that RCA would not release his latest recordings if he did not. Due to the failure of his albums, and particularly frustrated by the reception of Yesterday’s Wine, although his contract was not over, Nelson decided to retire from music.

Outlaw country and success (1972–1989)

Nelson moved to Austin, Texas, where the burgeoning hippie music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters) rejuvenated the singer. His popularity in Austin soared as he played his own brand of country music marked by country, folk and jazz influences. In March, he performed on the final day of the Dripping Springs Reunion, a three-day country music festival aimed by its producers to be an annual event. Despite the failure to reach the expected attendance, the concept of the festival inspired Nelson to create the Fourth of July Picnic, his own annual event, starting the following year.

Nelson decided to return to the recording business, he signed Neil Reshen as his manager to negotiate with RCA, who got the label to agree to end his contract upon repayment of $14,000. Reshen eventually signed Nelson to Atlantic Records for $25,000 per year, where he became the label’s first country artist. He formed his backing band, The Family, and by February 1973, he was recording his acclaimed Shotgun Willie at Atlantic Studios in New York City.

Shotgun Willie, released in May 1973, earned excellent reviews but did not sell well. The album led Nelson to a new style, later stating that Shotgun Willie had “cleared his throat”. His next release, Phases and Stages, released in 1974, was a concept album about a couple’s divorce, inspired by his own experience. Side one of the record is from the viewpoint of the woman, and side two is from the viewpoint of the man. The album included the hit single “Bloody Mary Morning.” The same year, he produced and starred in the pilot episode of PBS’ Austin City Limits.

Nelson then moved to Columbia Records, where he signed a contract that gave him complete creative control, made possible by the critical and commercial success of his previous albums. The result was the critically acclaimed and massively popular 1975 concept album Red Headed Stranger. Although Columbia was reluctant to release an album with primarily a guitar and piano for accompaniment, Nelson and Waylon Jennings insisted. The album included a cover of Fred Rose’s 1945 song “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”, that had been released as a single previous to the album, and became Nelson’s first number one hit as a singer. Throughout his 1975 tour, Nelson raised funds for PBS-affiliated stations across the south promoting Austin City Limits. The pilot was aired first on those stations, later being released nationwide. The positive reception of the show prompted PBS to order ten episodes for 1976, formally launching the show.

As Jennings was also achieving success in country music in the early 1970s, the pair were combined into a genre called outlaw country, since it did not conform to Nashville standards. The album Wanted! The Outlaws in 1976 with Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser cemented the pair’s outlaw image and became country music’s first platinum album. Later that year Nelson released The Sound in Your Mind (certified gold in 1978 and platinum in 2001) and his first gospel album Troublemaker (certified gold in 1986).

In the summer of 1977, Nelson discovered that Reshen had been filing tax extensions and not paying the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) since he took over as his manager. In June, a package containing cocaine was sent from Reshen’s office in New York to Jennings in Nashville.  The package was followed by the DEA, and Jennings was arrested. The charges were later dropped, since Reshen’s a*sistant, Mark Rothbaum stepped in and took the charges. Rothbaum was sentenced to serve time in jail. Impressed by his attitude, Nelson fired Reshen and hired Rothbaum as his manager. In 1978, Nelson released two more platinum albums. One, Waylon & Willie, was a collaboration with Jennings that included “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”, a hit single written and performed by Ed Bruce. Though observers predicted that Stardust would ruin his career, it went platinum the same year. Nelson continued to top the charts with hit songs during the late 1970s, including “Good Hearted Woman”, “Remember Me”, “If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time”, and “Uncloudy Day”.

During the 1980s, Nelson recorded a series of hit singles including “Midnight Rider”, a 1980 cover of the Allman Brothers song which Nelson recorded for The Electric Horseman,[68] the soundtrack “On the Road Again” from the movie Honeysuckle Rose, and a duet with Julio Iglesias titled “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”.[69]

In 1982, Pancho & Lefty, a duet album with Merle Haggard produced by Chips Moman was released.[70] During the recording sessions of Pancho and Lefty, session guitarist Johnny Christopher and co-writer of “Always on My Mind”, tried to pitch the song to an uninterested Haggard. Nelson, who was unaware of Elvis Presley’s version of the song asked him to record it. Produced by Moman, the single of the song was released, as well as the album of the same name. The single topped Billboard’s Hot Country Singles, while it reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100. The release won three awards during the 25th Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Country Song and Best Male Country Vocal Performance. The single was certified platinum; while the album was certified quadruple-platinum, and later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.

Meanwhile, two collaborations with Waylon Jennings were released;WWII in 1982, and Take it to the Limit, another collaboration with Waylon Jennings was released in 1983. In the mid-1980s, Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash formed The Highwaymen, who achieved platinum record sales and toured the world. Meanwhile, he became more involved with charity work, such as singing on We are the World in 1984. In 1985, Nelson had another success with Half Nelson, a compilation album of duets with a range of artists such as Ray Charles and Neil Young. In 1980, Nelson performed on the south lawn of the White House. The concert of September 13 featured First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Nelson in a duet of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”. Nelson frequently visited the White House, where according to the biography by Joe Nick Patoski, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, he smoked marijuana on the White House roof.

Later career (1990–present)

In 1996, Nelson re-recorded the tracks “Hello Walls” with the band The Reverend Horton Heat, and “Bloody Mary Morning” with the Supersuckers for Twisted Willie, a tribute album featuring rock versions of Nelson’s songs performed by artists such as Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Cantrell, Mark Lanegan, L7, The Presidents of the United States of America, and Jello Biafra, among others. Proceeds from the sale of the record benefit Nelson’s Farm Aid.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson toured continuously, recording several albums including 1998’s critically acclaimed Teatro,  and performed and recorded with other acts including Phish, Johnny Cash, and Toby Keith. His duet with Keith, “Beer for My Horses”, was released as a single and topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for six consecutive weeks in 2003, while the accompanying video won an award for “Best Video” at the 2004 Academy of Country Music Awards. A USA Network television special celebrated Nelson’s 70th birthday, and Nelson released The Essential Willie Nelson as part of the celebration. Nelson also appeared on Ringo Starr’s 2003 album, Ringo Rama, as a guest vocal on “Write One for Me”.

Nelson was featured on the album True Love by Toots and the Maytals, which won the Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Reggae Album, and showcased many notable musicians including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Trey Anastasio, Gwen Stefani, and Keith Richards. In the following year of 2005, Nelson released a reggae album entitled Countryman which featured Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals on the song “I’m a Worried Man”.

Nelson headlined the 2005 Tsunami Relief Austin to Asia concert to benefit the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which raised an estimated $75 thousand for UNICEF. Also in 2005, a live performance of the Johnny Cash song “Busted” with Ray Charles was released on Charles’ duets album Genius & Friends. Nelson’s 2007 performance with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis at the Lincoln Center, was released as the live album Two Men with the Blues in 2008; reaching number one in Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums and number twenty on the Billboard 200. The same year, Nelson recorded his first album with Buddy Cannon as the producer, Moment of Forever. Cannon acquainted Nelson earlier, during the production of his collaboration with Kenny Chesney on the duet “That Lucky Old Sun”, for Chesney’s album of the same name. In 2009 Nelson and Marsalis joined with Norah Jones in a tribute concert to Ray Charles, which resulted in the Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles album, released in 2011.

In 2010, Nelson released Country Music, a compilation of standards produced by T-Bone Burnett. The album peaked number four in Billboard’s Top Country Albums, and twenty on the Billboard 200. It was nominated for Best Americana Album at the 2011 Grammy Awards. In 2011 Nelson participated in the concert Kokua For Japan, a fund raising event for the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan which raised $1.6 million.

In February 2012, Legacy Recordings signed a deal with Nelson that included the release of new material, as well as past releases that would be selected and complemented with outtakes and other material selected by him. With the new deal, Buddy Cannon returned to produce the recordings of Nelson. After selecting the material and the sound of the tunes with the singer, Cannon’s work method consisted in the recording of the tracks with studio musicians, with the takes later completed on a separate session by Nelson with his guitar. Cannon’s a*sociation to Nelson also extended to songwriting, with singer and producer composing the lyrics by exchanging text messages.

Nelson’s first release for the Legacy Recordings was Heroes, that included guest appearances by his sons Lukas and Micah of the band Insects vs Robots, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Snoop Dogg, Kris Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson, Billy Joe Shaver and Sheryl Crow. The album reached number four on Billboard’s Top Country Albums.  His 2013 release To All the Girls…, a collection of duets with all female partners, featured among others Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Mavis Staples, Norah Jones, Emmylou Harris, Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert. The album entered Billboard’s Top Country Albums at number two, marking his highest position on the chart since the release of his 1989 A Horse Called Music, and extending his record to a total of forty-six top ten albums on the country charts. Nelson scored as well his second top ten album on the Billboard 200, with the release entering at number nine.

His following release was Band of Brothers, in 2014, the first Nelson album to feature the most newly self-penned songs since 1996’s Spirit. Upon its release, it topped Billboard’s Top Country albums chart, the first time since 1986’s The Promiseland, the last Nelson album to top it. The release reached number five on the Billboard 200, Nelson’s highest position on the chart since 1982’s Always on My Mind. In December 2014, a duet with Rhonda Vincent, “Only Me”, topped Bluegrass Unlimited’s National Airplay chart. In June 2015, his collaboration with Haggard Django and Jimmie topped Billboard’s Top Country albums chart and reached number seven on the Billboard 200.

In 2017, Nelson released God’s Problem Child. The release, consisting mostly of Nelson originals co-written with Cannon, entered the Top country albums at number one, while it reached number ten on the Billboard 200.

In 2018, Nelson sang a song written by Daniel Lanois called “Cruel World” for the soundtrack of Rockstar Games’s action-adventure video game Red Dead Redemption 2. Lanois wrote the song especially for Nelson. When a hurricane prevented Nelson from recording the song, the production team sent the track to Josh Homme in the hopes that he could record it in time for the game’s release. Nelson was ultimately able to record the song in time in Los Angeles; the team considered combining the two versions into a duet, but ultimately included both versions in the game. Also in 2018, Nelson was one of several artists on Restoration, a cover album containing various country renditions of songs originally by Elton John, on which he performed “Border Song”.

Following the U.S. coronavirus pandemic lockdowns that began in March 2020, Nelson livestreamed a series of benefit concerts. The first two raised $700,000 for people who had suffered financial loss due to effects on the U.S. economy.  The third, which was held on April 20, 2020, was a variety show titled Come and Toke It.  Some of the content was cannabis-themed, and some of the proceeds will be used to support The Last Prisoner Project, a restorative justice program relating to persons convicted of cannabis related crimes.

In 2020, Nelson was approached by Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to collaborate. They chose to do a cover of David Bowie and Queen’s Under Pressure.

IRS troubles

In 1990, the IRS seized most of Nelson’s a*sets, claiming that he owed $32 million. In addition to the unpaid taxes, Nelson’s situation was worsened by the weak investments he had made during the early 1980s.  In 1978, after he fired Reshen, Nelson was introduced by Dallas lawyer Terry Bray to the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. To repay the debt Reshen had created with the IRS, Nelson was recommended to invest in tax shelters that ultimately flopped.  While the IRS disallowed his deductions for 1980, 1981 and 1982 (at a time that Nelson’s income multiplied), due to penalties and interests, the debt increased by the end of the decade.

His lawyer, Jay Goldberg, negotiated the sum to be lowered to $16 million. Later, Nelson’s attorney renegotiated a settlement with the IRS in which he paid $6 million, although Nelson did not comply with the agreement. Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories? as a double album, with all profits destined for the IRS. Many of his a*sets were auctioned and purchased by friends, who donated or rented his possessions to him for a nominal fee. He sued Price Waterhouse, contending that they put his money in illegal tax shelters. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount and Nelson cleared his debts by 1993.

Other ventures

Nelson’s acting debut was in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by appearances in Honeysuckle Rose, Thief, and Barbarosa. He played the role of Red Loon in Coming Out of the Ice in 1982 and starred in Songwriter two years later. He portrayed the lead role in the 1986 film version of his album Red Headed Stranger. Other movies that Nelson acted in include Wag the Dog, Gone Fishin’ (as Billy ‘Catch’ Pooler), the 1986 television movie Stagecoach (with Johnny Cash), Half Baked, Beerfest, The Dukes of Hazzard, Surfer, Dude and Swing Vote. He has also made guest appearances on Miami Vice (1986’s “El Viejo” episode); Delta; Nash Bridges; The Simpsons; Monk; Adventures in Wonderland; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; King of the Hill; The Colbert Report; Swing Vote; and Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

In 1988 his first book, Willie: An Autobiography, was published. The Facts of Life: And Other Dirty Jokes, a personal recollection of tour and musical stories from his career, combined with song lyrics, followed in 2002. In 2005 he co-authored Farm Aid: A Song for America, a commemorative book about the twentieth anniversary of the foundation of Farm Aid. His third book, co-authored with long-time friend Turk Pipkin, The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart, was published in 2006. In 2007 a book advocating the use of bio-diesel and the reduction of gas emissions, On The Clean Road Again: Biodiesel and The Future of the Family Farm, was published. His next book, A Tale Out of Luck, published in 2008 and co-authored by Mike Blakely, was Nelson’s first fictional book. In 2012, it was announced the release of a new autobiography by Nelson, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road. Released on November 13, it was named after the song from his album Heroes. The book contained further biographical details, as well as family pictures and stories about Nelson’s political views, as well as his advocation for marijuana. The artwork of the book was designed by Nelson’s son, Micah, and the foreword written by Kinky Friedman. In 2015, the publication of a second Nelson autobiography entitled It’s a Long Story: My Life co-authored with David Ritz, the book was published on May 5, 2015. Pretty Paper, another collaboration with Ritz was published the following year.

In 2002, Nelson became the official spokesman of the Texas Roadhouse, a chain of steakhouses. Nelson heavily promoted the chain and appeared on a special on Food Network. The chain installed Willie’s Corner, a section dedicated to him and decked out with Willie memorabilia, at several locations.

In 2008, Nelson reopened Willie’s Place, a truck stop in Carl’s Corner, Texas. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court allowed Nelson to invest in it. The establishment had about 80 employees and was used as a concert hall with a bar and a 1,000 square feet (93 m2) dance floor. It closed in 2011 after defaulting on a loan, leading to foreclosure and bankruptcy. In 2010, Nelson founded with the collaboration of producers and filmmakers Luck Films, a company dedicated to produce feature films, documentaries and concerts. The next year, he created the Willie’s Roadhouse show which aired on channel 56 of SiriusXM radio. The channel was a result of the merger of his two other channels The Roadhouse and Willie’s Place.

In November 2014, it was announced that Nelson would be the host of the television series Inside Arlyn, shot at Arlyn Studio in Austin, Texas. The thirteen-episode first season would feature artists being interviewed by Nelson and Dan Rather, followed by a performance. The series concept received attention from cable channels that requested to see the pilot episode. Following the legalization of marijuana in different states, Nelson announced in 2015 through spokesman Michael Bowman the establishment of his own marijuana brand, Willie’s Reserve. Plans to open chain stores in the states where marijuana was legalized were announced, to be expanded state-to-state if marijuana legalization is further expanded. Bowman called the brand “a culmination of (Nelson’s) vision, and his whole life”.

In 2017, Nelson appeared as himself in Woody Harrelson’s live film, Lost in London. In June 2017, he appeared alongside Merle Haggard in the documentary The American Epic Sessions directed by Bernard MacMahon. They performed a song Haggard had composed for the film, “The Only Man Wilder Than Me”, and Bob Wills’s classic “Old Fashioned Love”,  which they recorded live direct to disc on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. It was the last filmed performance of the pair. Rolling Stone commented that “in the final performance of Sessions, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard perform the duet ‘The Only Man Wilder Than Me.’ Haggard has a look of complete joy on his face throughout the session in the old-timey recording set-up once used by his musical heroes.”

Music style

Nelson uses a variety of music styles to create his own distinctive blend of country music, a hybrid of jazz, pop, blues, rock and folk. His “unique sound”, which uses a “relaxed, behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar” and his “nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing”, has been responsible for his wide appeal, and has made him a “vital icon in country music”, influencing the “new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the 1980s and 1990s”.

Guitars

In 1969, the Baldwin company gave Nelson an amplifier and guitar with their “Prismatone” pickup. During a show in Helotes, Texas, Nelson left the guitar on the floor of the stage, and it was later stepped on by a drunk man. He sent it to be repaired in Nashville by Shot Jackson, who told Nelson that the damage was too great. Jackson offered him a Martin N-20 Classical guitar, and, at Nelson’s request, moved the pickup to the Martin. Nelson purchased the guitar unseen for $750 and named it after Roy Rogers’ horse “Trigger”. The next year Nelson rescued the guitar from his burning ranch.

Constant strumming with a guitar pick over the decades has worn a large sweeping hole into the guitar’s body near the sound hole—the N-20 has no pick-guard since classical guitars are meant to be played fingerstyle instead of with picks. Its soundboard has been signed by over a hundred of Nelson’s friends and a*sociates, ranging from fellow musicians to lawyers and football coaches. The first signature on the guitar was Leon Russell’s, who asked Nelson initially to sign his guitar. When Nelson was about to sign it with a marker, Russell requested him to scratch it instead, explaining that the guitar would be more valuable in the future. Interested in the concept, Nelson requested Russell to also sign his guitar. In 1991, during his process with the IRS, Nelson was worried that Trigger could be auctioned off, stating: “When Trigger goes, I’ll quit”. He asked his daughter, Lana, to take the guitar from the studio before any IRS agent arrived there, and then deliver it to him in Maui. Nelson then concealed the guitar in his manager’s house until his debt was paid off in 1993.

Activism

Nelson is active in a number of issues. Along with Neil Young and John Mellencamp, he set up Farm Aid in 1985 to a*sist and increase awareness of the importance of family farms, after Bob Dylan’s comments during the Live Aid concert that he hoped some of the money would help American farmers in danger of losing their farms through mortgage debt. The first concert included Dylan, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, and Neil Young among many others, and raised over $9 million for America’s family farmers. Besides organizing and performing in the annual concerts, Nelson is the president of the board of Farm Aid.

Nelson is a co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board. He has worked with NORML for years, promoting marijuana legalization. In 2005 Nelson and his family hosted the first annual “Willie Nelson & NORML Benefit Golf Tournament”, leading to a cover appearance and inside interview in the January 2008 issue of High Times magazine. After his arrest for possession of marijuana in 2010, Nelson created the TeaPot party under the motto “Tax it, regulate it and legalize it!”

In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, he participated in the benefit telethon America: A Tribute to Heroes, leading the rest of the celebrities singing the song “America the Beautiful”. In 2010, during an interview with Larry King, Nelson expressed his doubts with regards to the attacks and the official story. Nelson explained that he could not believe that the buildings could collapse due to the planes, attributing instead the result to an implosion.

Nelson supported Dennis Kucinich’s campaign in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. He raised money, appeared at events, and composed the song “Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?”, criticizing the war in Iraq. He recorded a radio advertisement asking for support to put musician/author Kinky Friedman on the ballot as an independent candidate for the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election.  Friedman promised Nelson a job in Austin as the head of a new Texas Energy Commission due to his support of bio-fuels. In January 2008, Nelson filed a suit against the Texas Democratic Party, alleging that the party violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution by refusing to allow co-plaintiff Kucinich to appear on the primary ballot because he had scratched out part of the loyalty oath on his application.

In 2004, Nelson and his wife Annie became partners with Bob and Kelly King in the building of two Pacific Bio-diesel plants, one in Salem, Oregon, and the other at Carl’s Corner, Texas (the Texas plant was founded by Carl Cornelius, a longtime Nelson friend and the eponym for Carl’s Corner). In 2005, Nelson and several other business partners formed Willie Nelson Biodiesel (“Bio-Willie”), a company that is marketing bio-diesel bio-fuel to truck stops. The fuel is made from vegetable oil (mainly soybean oil), and can be burned without modification in diesel engines.

Nelson is an advocate for better treatment for horses and has been campaigning for the passage of the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) alongside the Animal Welfare Institute. He is on its board of directors and has adopted a number of horses from Habitat for Horses. In 2008, Nelson signed on to warn consumers about the cruel and illegal living conditions for calves raised to produce milk for dairy products. He wrote letters to Land O’Lakes and Challenge Dairy, two of the major corporations that use milk from calves raised at California’s Mendes Calf Ranch, which employs an intensive confinement practice that was the subject of a lawsuit and campaign brought by the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Nelson is seen in the film The Garden supporting the impoverished community South Central Farm in Southern Los Angeles.

A supporter of the LGBT movement, Nelson published in 2006 through iTunes a version of Ned Sublette’s “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other”, that met instant success. During an interview with Texas Monthly in 2013, regarding the Defense of Marriage Act and Same-sex marriage in the United States, Nelson responded to a comparison the interviewer made with the Civil Rights Movement, stating: “We’ll look back and say it was crazy that we ever even argued about this”. He also presented two logos with the pink equal sign, symbol of the LGBT movement. The first one, featured the sign represented with two long braids; while the second one, featured the sign represented with two marijuana cigarettes. The use of the logos became popular quickly in social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

In June 2018, Nelson deplored the Trump administration family separation policy. During his Fourth of July Picnic, he performed a song with Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for the Senate election in Texas. Nelson endorsed O’Rourke, and received negative reactions from the conservative part of his followers. On September 29, 2018, Nelson offered a free concert in Austin supporting the candidate’s run. The last number he performed was “Vote ‘Em Out”, a new track that was subsequently released as a single.

Personal life

Nelson has been married four times and has seven children. His first marriage was to Martha Matthews from 1952 to 1962. The couple had three children: Lana, Susie, and Willie “Billy” Hugh, Jr. The latter killed himself in 1991. The marriage was marked by violence, with Matthews a*saulting Nelson several times, including one incident when she sewed him up in bedsheets and beat him with a broomstick. Nelson’s next marriage was to Shirley Collie in 1963. The couple divorced in 1971, after Collie found a bill from the maternity ward of a Houston hospital charged to Nelson and Connie Koepke for the birth of Paula Carlene Nelson. Nelson married Koepke the same year, and they had another daughter, Amy Lee Nelson. Following a divorce in 1988, he married his current wife, Annie D’Angelo, in 1991. They have two sons, Lukas Autry and Jacob Micah.

Nelson owns “Luck, Texas”, a ranch in Spicewood, and also lives in Maui, Hawaii with several celebrity neighbors. While swimming in Hawaii in 1981, Nelson’s lung collapsed. He was taken to the Maui Memorial Hospital and his scheduled concerts were canceled. Nelson temporarily stopped smoking cigarettes each time his lungs became congested, and resumed when the congestion ended. He was then smoking between two and three packs per day. After suffering from pneumonia several times, he decided to quit either marijuana or tobacco. He chose to quit tobacco.[181] In 2008, he started to smoke marijuana with a carbon-free system to avoid the effects of smoke. In 2004 Nelson underwent surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, as he had damaged his wrists by continuously playing the guitar. On the recommendation of his doctor, he canceled his scheduled concerts and only wrote songs during his recovery. In 2012 he canceled a fund-raising appearance in the Denver area. He suffered from breathing problems due to high altitude and emphysema and was taken to a local hospital. His publicist Elaine Schock confirmed soon after that Nelson’s health was good and that he was heading to his next scheduled concert in Dallas, Texas. After repeated instances of pneumonia and emphysema through the years, Nelson underwent stem-cell therapy in 2015 to improve the state of his lungs.

During his childhood, Nelson grew interested in martial arts. He ordered self-defense manuals on jujitsu and judo that he saw advertised in Batman and Superman comic books. Nelson started to formally practice kung fu after he moved to Nashville, in the 1960s. During the 1980s, Nelson began training in taekwondo and now holds a second-degree black belt in that discipline. During the 1990s, Nelson started to practice the Korean martial art GongKwon Yusul. In 2014, after twenty years in the discipline, his Grand Master Sam Um presented him with a fifth-degree black belt in a ceremony held in Austin, Texas. A 2014 Tae Kwon Do Times magazine interview revealed that Nelson had developed an unorthodox manner of training during the lengthy periods of time he was on tour. Nelson would conduct his martial arts training on his tour bus “The Honeysuckle Rose” and send videos to his supervising Master for review and critique.

Legal issues

Nelson has been arrested several times for marijuana possession. The first occasion was in 1974 in Dallas, Texas. In 1977 after a tour with Hank Cochran, Nelson traveled to The Bahamas. Nelson and Cochran arrived late to the airport and boarded the flight without luggage. The bags were later sent to them. As Nelson and Cochran claimed their luggage in the Bahamas, a customs officer questioned Nelson after marijuana was found in a pair of his jeans. Nelson was arrested and jailed. As Cochran made arrangements to pay the bail, he took Nelson a six-pack of beer to his cell. Nelson was released a few hours later. Inebriated, he fell after he jumped celebrating and was taken to the emergency room. He then appeared before the judge, who dropped the charges but ordered Nelson to never return to the country.

In 1994, highway patrolmen found marijuana in his car near Waco, Texas. His requirement to appear in court prevented him attending the Grammy awards that year.  While traveling to Ann W. Richards’ funeral in 2006, Nelson, along with his manager and his sister, Bobbie, were arrested in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana and charged with possession of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms.  Nelson received six months probation.

On November 26, 2010, Nelson was arrested in Sierra Blanca, Texas, for possession of six ounces of marijuana found in his tour bus while traveling from Los Angeles back to Texas. He was released after paying bail of $2,500. Prosecutor Kit Bramblett supported not sentencing Nelson to jail due to the small amount of marijuana involved, but suggested instead a $100 fine and told Nelson that he would have him sing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” for the court. Judge Becky Dean-Walker said that Nelson would have to pay the fine but not to perform the song, explaining that the prosecutor was joking. Nelson’s lawyer Joe Turner reached an agreement with the prosecutor. Nelson was set to pay a $500 fine to avoid a two-year jail sentence with a 30-day review period, which in case of another incident would end the agreement. The judge later rejected the agreement, claiming that Nelson was receiving preferential treatment for his celebrity status; the offense normally carried a one-year jail sentence. Bramblett declared that the case would remain open until it was either dismissed or the judge changed her opinion.

Legacy

Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, and he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998.[ In 2011, Nelson was inducted to the National Agricultural Hall of Fame, for his labor in Farm Aid and other fund raisers to benefit farmers. In 2015 Nelson won the Gershwin Prize, the lifetime award of the Library of Congress. In 2018 The Texas Institute of Letters inducted him among its members for his songwriting. He was included by Rolling Stone on its 100 Greatest Singers and 100 Greatest Guitarists lists.

In 2003, Texas Governor Perry signed bill No. 2582, introduced by State Representative Elizabeth Ames Jones and Senator Jeff Wentworth, which funded the Texas Music Project, the state’s official music charity. Nelson was named honorary chairman of the advisory board of the project. In 2005, Democratic Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos introduced a bill to name 49 miles (79 km) of the Travis County section of State Highway 130 after Nelson, and at one point 23 of the 31 state senators were co-sponsors of the bill. The legislation was dropped after two Republican senators, Florence Shapiro and Wentworth, objected, citing Nelson’s lack of connection to the highway, his fund raisers for Democrats, his drinking, and his marijuana advocacy.

An important collection of Willie Nelson materials (1975–1994) became part of the Wittliff collections of Southwestern Writers, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. The collection contains lyrics, screenplays, letters, concert programs, tour itineraries, posters, articles, clippings, personal effects, promotional items, souvenirs, and documents. It documents Nelson’s IRS troubles and how Farm Aid contributions were used. Most of the material was collected by Nelson’s friend Bill Wittliff, who wrote or co-wrote Honeysuckle Rose, Barbarosa and Red Headed Stranger. In 2014, Nelson donated his personal collection to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. The items include photographs, correspondence, song manuscripts, posters, certificate records, awards, signed books, screenplays, personal items and gifts and tributes from Nelson’s fans.

In April 2010, Nelson received the “Feed the Peace” award from The Nobelity Project for his extensive work with Farm Aid and overall contributions to world peace. On June 23, 2010, he was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Nelson is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum. In 2010, Austin, Texas renamed Second Street to Willie Nelson Boulevard. The city also unveiled a life-size statue to honor him, placed at the entrance of Austin City Limits’ new studio. The non-profit organization Capital Area Statues commissioned sculptor Clete Shields to execute the project. The statue was unveiled on April 20, 2012. The date selected by the city of Austin unintentionally coincided with the number 4/20, a*sociated with cannabis culture. In spite of the coincidence and Nelson’s advocacy for the legalization of marijuana, the ceremony was scheduled also for 4:20 pm. During the ceremony, Nelson performed the song “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die”. The same year, Nelson was honored during the 46th Annual Country Music Association Awards as the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was also named after him.[ In 2013, he received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music. The following year, he was part of the inaugural class inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. Also included among the first inductees was his friend Darrell Royal, whose jamming parties that Nelson participated in were the source of inspiration for the show.

For many years, Nelson’s image was marked by his red hair, often divided into two long braids partially concealed under a bandanna. In the April 2007 issue of Stuff Magazine Nelson was interviewed about his long locks. “I started braiding my hair when it started getting too long, and that was, I don’t know, probably in the 70’s.” On May 26, 2010, the Associated Press reported that Nelson had cut his hair, and Nashville music journalist Jimmy Carter published a photograph of the pigtail-free Nelson on his website. Nelson wanted a more maintainable hairstyle, as well helping him stay cool more easily at his Maui home. In October 2014, the braids of Nelson were sold for $37,000 at an auction of the Waylon Jennings estate. In 1983, Nelson cut his braids and gave them to Jennings as a gift during a party celebrating Jennings’ sobriety.

Nelson’s touring and recording group, the Family, is full of longstanding members. The original lineup included his sister Bobbie Nelson, drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael, bassist Bee Spears, Billy English (Paul’s younger brother), and Jody Payne. The current lineup includes all the members but Jody Payne, who retired, and Bee Spears, who died in 2011. Willie & Family tours North America in the bio-diesel bus Honeysuckle Rose, which is fueled by Bio-Willie. Nelson’s tour buses were customized by Florida Coach since 1979. The company built the Honeysuckle Rose I in 1983, which was replaced after a collision in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1990. The interior was salvaged and reused for the second version of the bus the same year. Nelson changed his tour bus in 1996, 2005 and 2013, currently touring on the Honeysuckle Rose V.

Adam Noah Levine (/ləˈviːn/; born March 18, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and the lead singer of the pop rock band Maroon 5. Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara’s Flowers, of which he was the lead vocalist and guitarist. Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara’s Flowers, of which he was the lead vocalist and guitarist. The band split up in 1997 after the commercial failure of their only album, The Fourth World. In 2001, the group was reformed as Maroon 5 – with James Valentine replacing Levine as guitarist- and released their first album, Songs About Jane, which went multi-platinum in the US. Since then, they have released five more albums: It Won’t Be Soon Before Long (2007), Hands All Over (2010), Overexposed (2012), V (pronounced: “five”) (2014), and Red Pill Blues (2017). As part of Maroon 5, Levine has received three Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, and a World Music Award.

From 2011 to 2019, Levine served as a coach on NBC’s reality talent show The Voice. The winners of seasons (1, 5, and 9) belonged to his team. In 2012, Levine made his acting debut as recurring character Leo Morrison in the second season of the television series American Horror Story. Levine also appeared in the films Begin Again (2013), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Fun Mom Dinner and The Clapper (both 2017). Levine launched his eponymous fragrance line in 2013. The same year, he collaborated with Kmart and ShopYourWay.com to develop his menswear collection. He also owns a record label, 222 Records, and a production company, 222 Productions, which produced television shows Sugar and Songland. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter reported that “sources familiar with his many business dealings” estimated Levine would earn more than $35 million that year.

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Early life

Adam Noah Levine  was born in Los Angeles to Fredric Levine, the founder of retail chain M. Fredric, and Patsy (née Noah) Levine, an admissions counselor.  They divorced when he was seven and Levine underwent therapy.[10] Growing up, he spent weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father. He has a brother Michael, two half-siblings—Sam and Liza Levine—and step-sister Julia Bartolf Milne.[citation needed] Levine’s father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, while his maternal grandmother was a Protestant. Levine considers himself Jewish; however, according to The Jewish Chronicle, he is spiritual but not religious. He chose not to have a Bar Mitzvah as a child because of the custom of receiving Bar Mitzvah gifts, explaining: “I felt as though a lot of kids were trying to cash in … I just don’t think it’s the most respectful way to deal with God and beliefs and years and years and years of cultural heritage.”  Levine is a nephew of journalist and author Timothy Noah, and television producer and writer Peter Noah.

Levine describes his family as “very musical” and credits his mother with “start[ing] me out on the path.” He also attributes his mother’s idols – Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, and The Beatles – to shaping his musical style, calling them “a huge part of my upbringing”. Levine attended Brentwood School, where he met Jesse Carmichael and Mickey Madden, his future bandmates. He carried his musical interests to high school, where he states he was “a little rebellious. I didn’t want to do the things they were teaching me … [music] consumed my every thought.”

Kara’s Flowers

In February 1994, Levine, along with friends Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Madden, and Ryan Dusick formed garage band Kara’s Flowers. In 1995, the group played their first gig at the Whisky a Go Go, a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, with Levine performing vocals and guitar. The band was discovered while they were performing in Malibu by independent producer Tommy Allen, who along with his partner John DeNicola, had them record an 11-track album. Owing to a string of industry showcases in Los Angeles, they were signed on to Reprise Records through producer Rob Cavallo. In August 1997, the band released their first album, titled The Fourth World[23] and also appeared on an episode of the drama series Beverly Hills, 90210. Despite high expectations, it had little success, selling about 5,000 copies. Reprise decided to drop the band after Cavallo’s exit from the label Disappointed with the results of their album, the band broke up. Later, Levine would say of the experience: “Kara’s Flowers was just floating up the wall beneath the sticks. Make a record quickly, put it out. No touring base, no nothing. Just try to make it happen right out of the gate and it just doesn’t work”

Maroon 5 and mainstream success

After the break up of Kara’s Flowers, Levine, along with Carmichael, left Los Angeles to pursue higher studies at Five Towns College in New York. On MTV News, in 2002, he said: “That’s when I started waking up to the whole hip-hop, R&B thing. We had friends named Chaos and Shit. It was not Brentwood High”. They dropped out after a semester, and reunited with Madden and Dusick to form a band once more. They experimented with several styles, including country and folk, before deciding groove-based music would become their genre. Levine explained the need for a makeover for the band: “We were just so sick of being a typical rock ’n’ roll band … I felt like I needed to look elsewhere for vocal inspiration.” The band put together a demo that was rejected by several labels, before it caught the attention of Octone Records executives James Diener, Ben Berkman, and David Boxenbaum. Following Berkman’s advice, the band added a fifth member, James Valentine, and was renamed Maroon 5. In an interview with HitQuarters, Berkman explained that Levine “seemed to be a very shy, shoe-gazing type … a fifth member could play the guitar to free up the singer [Levine], so he could be the star I perceived him to be”.

Around this time, Levine had been working as a writer’s a*sistant on the CBS television show Judging Amy; the progam’s producer Barbara Hall was his family friend. While on the show, he would spend time writing songs about his ex-girlfriend. These songs were put into Maroon 5’s debut album Songs About Jane, which was released in June 2002. The album slowly gained airplay, and eventually became a sleeper hit, selling an estimated 10 million copies and becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2004, two years after its release.  In 2005, Maroon 5 won their first Grammy Award, for Best New Artist. The next year, they won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for the second Songs About Jane single “This Love”.

By 2006, the band began recording again, and in May 2007, Maroon 5’s second album It Won’t Be Soon Before Long was released. Levine described the album as “a vast improvement”, explaining: “I think this record is a little more self-confident and powerful lyrically”. To support the album, the band performed on a “six-date club tour” in which they visited small venues in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Miami, and New York City in early June 2007.  The album and its lead, third and penultimate singles (“Makes Me Wonder”, “Won’t Go Home Without You” and “If I Never See Your Face Again”, respectively) each received Grammy nominations, although only “Makes Me Wonder” secured a win.

After winding down from a world tour in support of It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, the band began recording in Switzerland in 2009, in collaboration with record producer and songwriter Robert John “Mutt” Lange. Levine said Lange “worked me harder than anyone ever has”. In 2010, Maroon 5 released their third studio album, Hands All Over. The album did not initially meet expectations. In an interview with Los Angeles Times, Levine explained that the album suffered from being “all these disparate ideas and songs that didn’t make any sense together”. After the moderate success of the album’s first three singles, the band released “Moves like Jagger” which Levine classified as “one of those songs that was definitely a risk; it’s a bold statement”. The single became a worldwide success; it was the ninth-best-selling digital single of 2011 with sales of 8.5 million copies and, as of 2012, the eighth-best-selling digital single of all time. Levine later credited the song with “totally reviving the band”.

Since “Moves Like Jagger” was the first time Maroon 5 had collaborated with an outside writer, the band decided to attempt it again on their next album, entitled Overexposed. Its title is supposedly an allusion to Levine’s public ubiquity. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he opined that is their most dance-driven album ever, commenting: “It’s very much an old-fashioned disco tune. I have a love/hate relationship with it – but mostly I love it”. The album and its lead single “Payphone” gave Maroon 5 their second Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance nominations. In support of Overexposed, the band conducted the Overexposed Tour from 2012 to 2013 (with the European leg extending to 2014 due to scheduling conflicts), and also headlined the 2013 Honda Civic Tour, which included The Voice contestant Tony Lucca.

In 2014, Maroon 5 continued their collaboration with Ryan Tedder, Max Martin and others to release their fifth studio album V (pronounced: “five”). Levine acknowledged that they followed the same song-writing process that they tried with Overexposed, saying: “We developed a really nice system on the last record — we found songs we were passionate about, developed them and put our stamp on them […] this time we kept it going but looked for different types of songs.” Five singles were released from it. In support of the album, the band undertook the Maroon V Tour, which kicked off with a show in Dallas in February 2015.

In 2007, Levine had stated that he believed Maroon 5 was reaching its peak and might make one more album before disbanding. He was quoted explaining: “Eventually I want to focus on being a completely different person because I don’t know if I want to do this into my 40s and 50s and beyond”. But in 2010, he dispelled any rumors of the band breaking up, saying:”I love what I do and think that, yes, it might be tiring and complicated at times [but] we don’t have any plans on disbanding any time soon”.  He has also turned down the idea of having a solo career, stating that “there will never be a solo record. I would sooner have another band”. On February 10, 2017, Levine received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the recording industry.

Other work

Musical collaborations

Levine has collaborated with several musical artists. In 2005, he was featured on the song “Live Again” by hip-hop duo Ying Yang Twins. The same year, he appeared on Kanye West’s album Late Registration, on the third single “Heard ‘Em Say”, a collaboration Levine called “very pure and very easy”. The song was created during an airplane flight that he and West shared, and its refrain was later used for the Maroon 5 song “Nothing Lasts Forever” from It Won’t Be Soon Before Long. He also appeared on Alicia Keys’ third album Alicia Keys: MTV Unplugged, as part of the cover of The Rolling Stones song “Wild Horses”. Around the same time, he featured on fellow Octone Records singer K’naan’s single “Bang Bang”. In 2009, he recorded “Gotten”, a song for Slash’s first solo album Slash (2010). In February 2010, he was among approximately 80 musicians who sang on the charity-single remake of “We Are the World”, called “We Are the World 25 for Haiti”. In 2011, he appeared on the Gym Class Heroes song, “Stereo Hearts”. Levine also worked with hip-hop artist 50 Cent on his song “My Life”, recording the vocals almost two years before it was released as a single in 2012, which included rapper Eminem. In 2013, Levine wrote a song with Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson called “My Most Terrible Secret” by the cast of Community, in the episode from the television series “Intro to Felt Surrogacy”. In 2015, Levine was featured on the song “Painkiller” by Rozzi Crane and the duo, R. City’s single “Locked Away”. In 2016, Levine collaborated with The Lonely Island for the song “I’m So Humble”, on the soundtrack album Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which they also appeared in the film of the same name. In April 2019, Levine and 29 other musical acts were featured on the charity single “Earth”, which raises climate change awareness. In late 2019, Levine collaborated with American actor and musician Joe Pesci, on his third album Pesci… Still Singing, with two songs “Baby Girl” and a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”. In 2020, Levine was featured in the song “Trust Nobody”, with rapper Lil Wayne on his 13th studio album Funeral (2020).

Levine is also featured as a singer for his band’s song “She Will Be Loved” in the music rhythm game, Band Hero. Levine has contributed with two songs for the soundtracks of the John Carney films: “Lost Stars” in Begin Again and “Go Now” in Sing Street.

Television, film and media

Levine has made four notable comic appearances on television. During 2007, he appeared in the 33rd-season premiere of Saturday Night Live in an SNL Digital Short called Iran So Far, performing with Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen and Jake Gyllenhaal. Levine played himself while singing a humorous bridge to a “love song” for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2008, he performed on Comedy Central’s “Night of Too Many Stars”. He also had a cameo on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the night of stars and endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election. In 2013, he hosted Saturday Night Live and featured alongside Kendrick Lamar on Lonely Island’s digital short “YOLO”, which parodies the acronym for “You Only Live Once.” His hosting was generally disliked by reviewers, who called it “mediocre” and “subpar.”

In 2011, Levine has served as a contestant judge/coach on the reality talent television show, The Voice. The contestants of his team named Team Adam, who won in the series are Javier Colon (season 1), Tessanne Chin (season 5) and Jordan Smith (season 9). The Voice has been credited with reviving Maroon 5’s “faltering” career after the sub-par sales of Hands All Over as well as increasing Levine’s popularity. According to polling firm E-Poll Market Research, awareness of Levine has nearly tripled since he joined the show. He has also been described as the “breakout” star of the series, with #TeamAdam and @AdamLevine scoring a respective 203,000 and 2.14 million Twitter mentions in the show’s third season, higher than all the other coaches. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter estimated that Levine was paid $10–12 million for each season of The Voice. In May 2019, Levine left the series after sixteen seasons and eight years since his debut in 2011.

In 2012, Levine appeared as a recurring character in American Horror Story: Asylum, the second season of the television series American Horror Story. He plays Leo Morrison, a newly-wed photographer visiting modern-day Briarcliff Manor, an insane asylum, on honeymoon with his wife, played by Jenna Dewan. The scenes were shot around his band’s summer touring schedule. In an interview with E!, he said of his role: “It sounded like so much fun and that’s why I wanted to do it … this sounds, like, hysterical, funny, dark and cool and right up my alley”. However, he admitted to not being a fan of the show nor horror genre in general, stating he didn’t watch the episodes because “it’s just so weird and disturbing”.

In June 2012, Levine was cast in the musical romance-drama film Begin Again (originally titled Can a Song Save Your Life?). The film was directed by John Carney and Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo acted in the lead roles. In it, he plays Dave Kohl, Knightley’s songwriting partner and former boyfriend of five years, who leaves her behind on finding success in the music industry. The film premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival to generally favorable reviews from critics.

In November 2013, Levine was named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, becoming the first singer and the second non-actor (after John F. Kennedy, Jr.) to claim the title.  He was ranked No. 41 on Glamour’s “Sexiest Men of 2012” list.[83] In 2008, he appeared on People’s “Single and Sexy Men” list. He was elected TV’s Most Crushworthy Male Reality Host/Judge in a poll held by Zap2it. In April 2012, Shalom Life ranked him Number 7 on its list of “Top 50 Hottest Jewish men in the world”. Levine stripped naked for testicular cancer awareness for a centerfold in Cosmopolitan UK’s February 2011 issue.

222 Productions

In 2013, Levine started a production company 222 Productions and the first project was Sugar (2018), a YouTube Premium web television series which was inspired by the music video for the Maroon 5 song of the same name. It follows music artists to crash events for unsuspecting fans. The company produced a reality competition series Songland, which premiered on NBC on May 28, 2019, where Levine served as executive producer. The company signed a deal with Wheelhouse Entertainment.

Business ventures and endorsements

In October 2008, Levine collaborated with First Act to create the First Act 222 Guitar, which was fashioned to his specifications. The guitar was sold via Target stores. Two years later he launched his own fashion line, entitled “222”, at the Project Trade Show in Las Vegas. The collection features jeans, basic T-shirts and leather jackets. The venture was organized in partnership with his father, Fred Levine (who operates a chain of specialty boutiques), and his cousin, Sami Cooper.

In June 2011, Levine took part in an educational campaign to raise awareness of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The project, titled “Own It”, was created by Shire and organized in collaboration with the Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA), Children and Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (CHADHD). The project targets people who were previously diagnosed with the disorder, focusing on how it may continue into adulthood. Levine, who himself was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager, said: “This campaign is important to me because it can help young adults and adults realize that there’s a chance they may still have ADHD if they had it as a kid”. In connection to this, he wrote an article in ADDitude Magazine about his personal experience with it.

Levine founded his own record label, 222 Records in February 2012. He stated that he was inspired to start the label to sign on Rozzi Crane, an USC music student he discovered through a mutual friend. She became the first singer signed on to the label, followed by Glee actor Matthew Morrison, Mexican artist Diego Boneta, and The Voice season 2 contestant and part of Team Adam, the singer Tony Lucca. It was reported that he was negotiating further with potential distributors, as well as organizing staff, to operate as a full-fledged record company with departments such as marketing, radio and publicity.

In September 2012, Levine was in the Philippines to collaborate with the clothing company Bench; they launched the menswear collection. In January 2013, Levine announced he would be enter a partnership with Sears Holdings to launch a multi-department lifestyle brand of apparel and accessories collections. The company owns Kmart and ShopYourWay, a shopping social platform; it also includes rapper Nicki Minaj in the same contract. The menswear collection was launched on October 1 that year and conducts business via 500 Kmart stores across the US, as well as online. In an official statement, Levine said: “Partnering with ShopYourWay to develop this line was an exciting opportunity for me and I am really looking forward to diving into the process of designing an apparel and accessory collection”. In an interview with People, he commented further, “it was cool that they really promoted creative control. I like to be involved with process rather than just phoning it in”. Later, Levine became a celebrity spokesperson for Proactiv. In the commercial, Levine shares details about his acne experiences in high school, and promotes Proactiv Plus.

Levine collaborated with ID Perfumes to create his debut eponymous scent. The line was launched at the Premiere Fragrance Installation in Los Angeles in February 2013. The fragrance range, consisting of scents for both for men and women, is sold through Macy’s department stores in microphone-shaped bottles. Speaking at its launch, Levine said: “The task was to make something that I would wear. So that was a process and we finally came to a great conclusion and it smells great” The fragrance garnered media attention for contradicting his tweet the previous year, in which he said that he wanted to “put an official ban on celebrity fragrances. Punishable by death from this point forward”. In January 2020, Levine announced that he is the new Ambassador of the brand Shure for the wireless earphones and headphones, the Aonic 215 and 50, is available on electronic stores on April 2, 2020.

Artistry

Levine’s interest in music started at around ten years of age, when he first started playing the guitar. He found music as an outlet for his feelings, stating: “I picked up a guitar and that was it. I fell so madly in love with it, it’s all I did”. He performed his first professional gig at The Troubadour when he was twelve, but he was so nervous that he played with his back to the audience. Throughout his childhood, he had a wide range of musical influences, including The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana, and, in high school, Bob Marley, Bill Withers, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Phish and Michael Jackson. He has also incorporated elements of The Police and Prince into his music. In an interview with Billboard, he explained the diversity of his influences: “I love every single kind of music … even the most saccharine, sugary pop song can be the greatest thing ever. But so can a 25-minute crazy avant-garde fusion gnarly Herbie Hancock jam from the ’70s”.

Levine remembers that listening to “Are You That Somebody?” by Aaliyah convinced him to pursue a more soulful sound than that of the band he was performing with at the time, Kara’s Flowers. His move to New York introduced him to a new music scene that involved hip-hop, R&B, gospel and soul music.  He took to changing his musical style, extensively emulating Stevie Wonder. Subsequently, Songs About Jane was released, deemed “bluesy funk”  and similar to the sound of English pop rock band Busted. Critics also drew comparisons between Levine and Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay.

While earlier work was deemed “vaguely funky white-soul”  and “rock”, recent ones have been judged to have a more reggae, anthemic pop sound,  evoking comparisons to Coldplay. Levine refuses to fit his music into a genre, saying: “There’s so much variety in music, it’s silly to belong to a specific club and try to sound a certain way”. He considers himself an orthodox lyricist sticking to conventional themes, acknowledging: “Romance, love, the lack thereof are still very big themes. I haven’t figured out a way to use everything yet. As a songwriter, I’m still limited to that one thing.” He also claims he does not like mincing words, stating in a Rolling Stone interview: “I was so sick of typical lyrics like ‘Ooh, baby’ and ‘I love you’ and all this vague shit. I thought the more explicit I got without being totally explicit was a nice approach”.

Levine is a tenor, with a 3-and-a-half-octave vocal range and has been noted for his falsettos. Salon wrote: “When he’s crooning come-ons, his voice lends the music a satisfying lewdness, a sense of sticky physicality that gives his snaky hooks a pheromonal urgency.” In a review of It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, Entertainment Weekly described his vocals as “smug, R&B-slick deadpan … there’s a twisted logic to his dispassionate delivery”. In another review, Allmusic wrote “he knows that he’s a pop guy, somewhat in the tradition of Hall & Oates, but he isn’t trying to be retro, he’s … making records that are melodic, stylish, and soulful”. In a review of the 2013 Honda Civic Tour, The Boston Globe also commented positively on his on-stage presence, which “exude[s] a sense of up-for-anything playfulness … combined with a rock solid work ethic and a clear love for their audiences and performing”.

Levine’s popularity outside of his musical work has seen him tagged as a “stand-alone star,” which critics say have pushed other members of Maroon 5 to the backseat, even in their music. Their guitarist Valentine noted that his vocals were a central aspect around which their music revolved Conversely, others opine that Levine’s fame has been a boost to the band, with Paper writing: “Maroon 5 has managed to ebb and flow with the times … thanks in no small part to their frontman’s uncanny ability to be extremely entertaining”. Delta Sky described him as “a natural, if slightly neurotic, leading man”. He claims that the image was consciously cultivated, explaining: “We talked about it a long time ago and decided I would step out, for us, not for me or my own ego … We wanted there to be a frontman.”

Personal life

n early 2010, while performing at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue release party in Las Vegas, Levine met Russian Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover-model Anne Vyalitsyna. They began a relationship. They ended the relationship in April 2012 in an “amicable and supportive manner”.

In May 2012, Levine began dating Behati Prinsloo, a Namibian Victoria’s Secret model. The couple married on July 19, 2014, with Jonah Hill officiating the wedding. Levine and Prinsloo have two daughters, Dusty Rose (born September 21, 2016) and Gio Grace (born February 15, 2018).

Levine, whose brother Michael is gay, is a supporter of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights. In 2011, he made a video on Maroon 5’s official YouTube account in support of the It Gets Better Project. In January 2012, he announced that Maroon 5 had changed the location of their post-Grammy Awards show because of the “unnamed Los Angeles restaurant’s backing of Proposition 8”.

In 2013, Levine was mentioned in a hostile work environment lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by an unnamed security guard who claimed that Universal Music Publishing Group’s Santa Monica location was “infiltrated with pervasive drug use where you could smell marijuana seeping from various offices and openly used in common areas, and lounges”. The guard claimed that when she complained about the cannabis smoke coming from one of the studios, she was told that “it’s Adam Levine … if he wants to come to the lobby and do a line of cocaine on the floor, it’s OK”. In an official statement to The Hollywood Reporter, UMPG (Universal Music Publishing group) described the allegations as “absurd”.

In July 2020, Levine and Prinsloo collaborated with Ferrari and Save the Children to raise funds to support U.S. education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.