Beyoncé: Houston’s Queen
September 4
Today is the birthday of Beyoncé. She is 45 today.
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas on September 4, 1981. She grew up in the Third Ward and enrolled at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the same school that produced Donald Harrison, Robert Glasper, and Jazmine Sullivan. She was in a group called Girl’s Tyme at nine years old. Mathew Knowles, her father, managed the group with relentless focus. They became Destiny’s Child. The story that came after is the biggest in American popular music of the last twenty-five years.
The Most Decorated Artist in Grammy History
Destiny’s Child sold sixty million records worldwide. Beyoncé’s solo debut Dangerously in Love in 2003 earned five Grammy Awards. Lemonade in 2016 was a visual album about Black Southern womanhood — specifically, about the Gulf Coast, about Houston, about the inheritance of women who had endured. Renaissance in 2022 was a love letter to Black dance music. Cowboy Carter in 2024 brought country music back to its Black Texas roots. She holds more Grammy wins than any artist in the award’s history. Houston made her, and she keeps making something out of Houston. Find her place items on Texas Music Map.