She is also a strange and brilliant musician. Young black female singers rarely get past the red rope and into the Genius Lounge—the moody, the male, and the dead crowd that room. But with or without co-writers, Knowles does remarkable things with tone and harmony. The one time I met her, backstage at a Destiny’s Child concert in Peoria in 2000, she talked about listening to Miles Davis and Fela Kuti—affinities I didn’t know how to process until I heard “Apple Pie à la Mode,” from the following year’s Destiny’s Child album, “Survivor.” It’s a slinky song, something of a throwaway, except that Prince or D’Angelo could easily have done the throwing away. Who else in the stratosphere of R. & B. pop plays around with the conversational voice like Beyoncé? Who feels comfortable with adding so much unexpected, generous harmony to a trifle about a delicious crush? Anyone else with “Apple Pie à la Mode” in the bag would flip over backward, buy a retro-glam outfit, and construct an entire side project around it. Knowles simply kept moving. (newyorker/magazine/2009/02/09/the-queen-2)
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 09:27:13 +0000
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