Beyoncé on Blackness, Fame and Music

In a new interview
with Harper’s Bazaar, American singer Beyoncé talked about her hegira from a
shy girl to a world music superstar. Beyoncé, who will turn 40 on September 4
disclosed that she was an introvert as a child but her diffidence taught her
empathy.

“The first
decade of my life was dedicated to dreaming. Because I was an introvert, I
didn’t speak very much as a child. I spent a lot of time in my head building my
imagination. I am now grateful for those shy years of silence. Being shy taught
me empathy and gave me the ability to connect and relate to people. I’m no
longer shy, but I’m not sure I would dream as big as I dream today if it were
not for those awkward years in my head.”

Beyoncé dreamt big
and her dreams came true. She spoke at length about the discipline she
inculcated to achieve her dreams. From fighting harder than others to depriving
herself of the pleasures others revel in as a teenager.

“My energy went
into Destiny’s Child and the dream of us getting a record deal and becoming
musicians. If something wasn’t helping me reach my goal, I decided to invest no
time in it. I didn’t feel like I had time to “kiki” or hang out. I sacrificed a
lot of things and ran from any possible distraction.”

Part of that
resoluteness stemmed from her being Black.

“I felt as a
young Black woman that I couldn’t mess up. I felt the pressure from the outside
and their eyes watching for me to trip or fail. I couldn’t let my family down
after all the sacrifices they made for me and the girls. That meant I was the
most careful, professional teenager and I grew up fast. I wanted to break all
of the stereotypes of the Black superstar, whether falling victim to drugs or
alcohol or the absurd misconception that Black women were angry. I knew I was
given this amazing opportunity and felt like I had one shot. I refused to mess
it up, but I had to give up a lot.”

While her 20s were
filled with dreams of her having an empire, her 30s were focused on building a
family.

“My 30s were
about digging deeper. In 2013, I started BeyGOOD to share the mentality that we
could all do something to help others, something my parents instilled in me
from a young age—to inspire others to be kind, to be charitable, and to be
good.”

But before the fame,
Beyoncé said that she made a path to pursue her career if her self-worth was
dependent on more than celebrity success.

“I’ve surrounded
myself with honest people who I admire, who have their own lives and dreams and
are not dependent on me. People I can grow and learn from and vice versa. In
this business, so much of your life does not belong to you unless you fight for
it. I’ve fought to protect my sanity and my privacy because the quality of my
life depended on it. A lot of who I am is reserved for the people I love and
trust. Those who don’t know me and have never met me might interpret that as
being closed off. Trust, the reason those folks don’t see certain things about
me is because my Virgo ass does not want them to see it…It’s not because it
doesn’t exist!”

As she approaches her
fourth decade, the music star is cooking up some music having spent a year and
a half in the studio. She is also considering building a hemp farm, alongside a
honey farm.

But above all, she
wishes her 40s to be fun and full of freedom.

“I want to show
that you can have fun and have purpose, be respectful and speak your mind. You
can be both elegant and a provocateur. You can be curvy and still be a fashion
icon. I wish this freedom for every person. I have paid my dues and followed
every rule for decades, so now I can break the rules that need to be broken. My
wish for the future is to continue to do everything everyone thinks I can’t
do.”