Solange Knowles - Blues Singers, Family and Personal Life

Solange Knowles was born on 24th June 1986 in Texas, USA into afamily of music moguls. Her father Mathew Knowles owned the label,‘Music World Entertainment’, a fairly small but successful music label. Solange and Beyonce spent their childhood listening to different sounds of music, which encouraged them to follow a career in music.

Solange was slightly different from her sister. While Beyonce was a loud and outspoken girl, Solange was just the opposite, a shy and introvert girl.

Solange learned dancing and theatre along with music and worked on her skills to become a performer someday. As for singing, she had already started crooning in the family events at the age of 5. She sang for the first time in front of an amusement park crowd and by the age of 9, she was writing her own songs.

By the time she was 13, she asked her fatherif she was ready to start her career, but he asked her to wait, saying that she was too young. Her older sister Beyonce was already a popular singer by then, and her father advised Solange to start working with her. While accompanying ‘Destiny’s Child’, Beyonce’s music group, in few of their tours, Solange performed as a background dancer.

At the age of 16, she performed for the first time with her sister when one of the child members of ‘Destiny’s Child’ was not available. Upon seeing her performance, her father signed her for his music label and subsequently, ‘Columbia Records’ also came into the scene and signed a contract with Solange and hence, her musical dreams were given wings.

Solange Knowles didn’t take long to come out of her famous sister’s shadow as she made a name for herself rather quickly. She started in 2002 bycollaborating withLil Romeo for his album ‘Game Time’ and then with Kelly Rowland for her album ‘Simply Deep’. These collaborations served her wellasshe got further acquainted with song writing and music production, and immediately after those collaborations, she started working on her very own debut music album.

In late 2002, she came out with her first debut single titled ‘Feelin' You’, which resonated well with the hip hop audiences and eventually, it got her noticed. The track sat on top of many music charts. Billboard’s Hip Hop and R & B chart had the track in their top 5 lists. This was an electrifying start for a surprisingly young musician and the song eventually went big in the club DJ scene as well.

In the year 2003, she released her debut album ‘Solo Star’ and it straightaway made it into the top 50 list of Billboard 200. Although the album had some big names attached to it, such as Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and her sister Beyonce, it didn’t achieve the kind of success that was expected from it.

The critical reception wasn’t very encouraging either, with critics calling it ‘an average state of the art hip hop album’.

For the next few years, she furthered her career with her acting stints and played some major and minor roles in films, such as ‘Johnson Family Vacation’ and ‘Bring it On: All or Nothing’. She also appeared in a guest role in the sitcom, ‘One on One’. And while she was gathering ideas for her next album, she kept working with her sister and wrote two songs, namely ‘Upgrade U’ and ‘Get Me Bodied’.

She also collaborated with the members of‘Destiny’s Child’ and wrote songs for Rowland and Michelle Williams, eventually appearing in their music video for the song ‘Soldier’.

In 2007, she started working on her second studio album, under the label ‘Geffen Records’and in mid-2008, the album ‘Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams’ came out. It was apparent that she had taken the criticismsof her first album seriously as she hadfine-tuned her music.

The critical response was overwhelming this time around, with some critics calling it ‘unique and brilliant’ and that it was a pleasant departure from her debut effort. ‘I Decided’, asingle from the album rocked the Billboard charts, and Rolling Stones magazine called it her breakthrough single. Later that year, Solange embarked on a tour in Britain for the promotion of the album and the concerts were massivehits, registering record attendance at some venues.

However, she wasn’t very much pleased with the way the industry worked, and she didn’t even care enough to hide her qualms as one of the singles from the album was titled ‘Fuck the Industry’. She blamed the debacle of her first album on a few, who had allegedlyexerted pressure on herto create a certain sound and that her second album was more of an independent venture.

She made a courageous move of breaking her ties with the music labels and decided to go independent, which was considered a suicidal move by the industry experts. Her crazy transition was apparent in the single ‘Losing You’ from her EP ‘True’. The song was a funky mix of sounds, almost considered experimental, and it became a hitamong the listeners.

Her EP released in late 2012 further cemented the fact that she was moving away from commercial hip hop music. She collaborated with Saint Heron for establishing her own music label, ‘Saint Records’. Through her label, she also promoted some like-minded and highly creative artists, such as Kelela, Sampha and Starchild. They all went on to work together on Solange’s next album, ‘A Seat at the Table’.

The album further saw the immense talent that Solange possessed as the sounds produced were never heard before. It made it to Billboard 200 by taking the top spot and became her highest selling album to date.

Apart from her music and acting endeavours, she has modelled for Armani and Michael Kors. Solange and her sister Beyonce have also modelled for their family line of clothing, House of Dereon, named after their deceased grandmother.

Solange Knowles married Daniel Smith at the age of 17, and gave birth to her son, Daniel Julez J. Smith, Jr., later that year. The couple moved to Moscow (Idaho), where Daniel attended college. In 2007, she revealed that the couple had separated and also said that she regretted marrying and becoming a mother that early.

In November 2014, she got married to famous music video director, Alan Ferguson.

In 2014, she became part of a controversy which also involved Jay Z. In a leaked footage, she was seen physically assaulting her brother-in-law inside an elevator. The whole event was later discarded as a mere publicity stunt.