Beyonce's little secret a smart career move

NEW YORK - "Begin Movie."

"Begin Album."

"Next Movie."

"First Single."

"Take Vacation."

"Start World Tour."

"Shoot Video."

Beyonce stared at these words, neatly printed on metal strips. It was mid-2004, and she sat in a room with her strategic team. Slowly she placed each project on a board. This would be her schedule for the next two years.

Beyonce may be the most driven and organized 24-year-old in the music business. But she has learnt to do things her way. Early this year, after wrapping a six-month shoot for the film "Dreamgirls," a big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical loosely based on the Supremes, Beyonce's calendar gave her two options: "Take Vacation" or "Begin Album." She opted for the latter, but she did not tell anyone - not her manager/father, Mathew Knowles, or her record label, Sony Urban/Columbia Records. And she kept quiet until the project was finished.

"I called my dad, I called my label, and I said the record was done," Beyonce says.

She says the film shoot itself was a vacation. "Just being in one place for six months was a break for me. It's different from being on tour and travelling non-stop. So when the film was over, I was ready to work on my music."

The album, "B'Day," will be released September 4 (her 25th birthday) internationally and in the United States September 5.

"We asked Beyonce to do her timeline for the next two years," Knowles says. "I think she realized that she really had to do this record now if she wanted to be able to shoot another movie next year. Beyonce has really stepped up to be the conductor of all aspects of her career."

Smart move

Having been a performer since she was 7 years old, Beyonce has learnt a few things about the music business. She booked her own time at Sony Studios in New York, paid for it herself and finished the album in three weeks - a very smart move, considering that most artists have the label pay for studio time and then have to recoup it from album sales. "I'm conscious of budgets," she says. "This might be the cheapest record I've ever done. We were focussed."

Beyonce arranged, wrote and produced all the songs with her dream team - Sean Garrett, Rich Harrison, Rodney Jerkins, the Neptunes and Swizz Beatz.

She may have chosen the five hottest producers in the biz, each with a discography of hits that reads like the track listing to a "NOW" compilation. But it did not stop her from shrewdly playing each producer off the other.

"I called up Sean, Rich and Rodney. I got them each a room at Sony Studios, and we went to work." Beyonce laughs at the memory. She says she would leave Harrison's room and go check on Garrett and say, "Wow, Rich has some great beats."

"It was healthy competition," she says.

Her last solo album, 2003's "Dangerously in Love," was about the joys of love. With "B'Day," Beyonce wanted to go back to the pain of love, more like her former group Destiny's Child's multiplatinum album "The Writing's on the Wall" (1999).

Beyonce, who is in a long-term relationship with music mogul Jay-Z, says her love life is rather "boring," but she likes it that way - "I'm happy in my life."

So for this album, she channelled her acting chops by putting herself in a moment of pain, of passion, that feeling of being jilted by a lover, to write an album that "speaks for every woman."

"This is about female empowerment," she says. "This album is different, it's conceptual, and I do things with my voice that I haven't done before."

Thematically, "B'Day" is about the roadblocks and consequences of relationships. "Like you teach him everything, you take him to all your favourite clubs and then he gets another girl and takes her there." Beyonce says that's enough to make any woman mad.

"Deja Vu," featuring Jay-Z and produced by Jerkins, went to radio June 14, only four weeks after she informed her label the album was done.

When asked about the new album, Jay-Z beams. "This is all her. I bet it will sell a million" in the first week.

Complex beats

Sitting in the New York recording studio, Beyonce plays what will probably be the next two singles: "Ring the Alarm," produced by Swizz Beatz, and "Freekum Dress," produced by Harrison. She bounces up and down in her seat and sings along.

"Ring the Alarm" shows a harder side of Beyonce - she goes from screaming mad through a megaphone to belting Aretha Franklin-like verses. "I love working with Swizz. He's challenging. His beats are so complex it's hard to find a melody. But this just clicked."

One of her favourites is "Freekum Dress." Beyonce laughs and explains: "You know, when your man starts taking you for granted and you put on that one dress that makes him go, 'Wow,' and not want you to leave the house."

Her work is just beginning. Beyonce will promote the album internationally during July, then prep for a worldwide digital and mobile album launch campaign for late summer. (Two mobile games, one centred on Beyonce and one on Destiny's Child, will also be released.)

Also in September, Beyonce will showcase her House of Dereon line during Fashion Week in New York. To bring everything full circle, "B'Day" will also be sold at Macy's and Marshall Fields stores in the House of Dereon section.

In October, she will gear up for "Dreamgirls," and plans to have simultaneous singles on radio - one from "B'Day" and one from the movie's soundtrack. She will start doing press and media to promote "Dreamgirls" in November, to coincide with the release of the soundtrack. The film premieres December 5 and will be released nationwide December 22. Also expect a winter TV special. Then it's time to "Start World Tour," which Knowles says will kick off in spring 2007. "Hopefully she'll do a movie between now and her world tour," he adds.

Knowles says that at some point Beyonce needs to return to those neatly printed metal strips, to log in "Vacation."

"She's ignited, and she has a passion," he says. "Passion is a key word for Beyonce. But it's also important that she take some needed time off."

- REUTERS/BILLBOARD