Beyonce Knowles promises a spectacular show next Monday at the Shanghai Grand Stage. She will wear 10 silvery costumes and sing 32 songs, including hits "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Shanghai's Beyonce fans are expected to get "Crazy in Love" while shaking their bits to the hits when the R&B mega-star makes her debut in China at the Shanghai Grand Stage next Monday.
"China is one of the few countries that I haven't had the opportunity to travel to and experience," says the American celeb. "I'm so honored that China is welcoming me as well as my band, dancers and staff. I'm very excited to meet the fans and embrace the culture."
Beyonce is bringing to Shanghai a group of 80 personnel, including her mother Tina Knowles as the stylist, for the two-hour concert. As part of the Beyonce Experience 2007 World Tour, the Shanghai concert will feature "an impressive stage and a great wardrobe," according to the singer.
Local organizer Emma Entertainment promises to showcase "terrific singing, solid musicianship, spectacular staging and the most imaginative choreography ever to have graced the Shanghai Grand Stage." There will be about 10 costumes, mostly in silver.
The Beyonce Experience tour kicked off in Tokyo in April. The concerts in Japan were followed by a top-selling 41-city North American tour and a string of European dates.
"The show must be really fun and full of energy," Beyonce, 26, adds. "I hope to see people of all ages there."
The concert will also feature a sizzling 10-piece all-female band. "I'm used to all females," she explains. "I grew up in a house with so many women. I love being around women - talented and supportive women."
The program list for the Shanghai concert will be almost the same as that for other stops. Beyonce will sing 32 songs, including abbreviated versions of 10 of the former Destiny's Child hits.
The R&B superstar rose to fame as the creative force and lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child, the world's best-selling female group of all time. After a series of commercially successful releases with the group, she released her first solo album "Dangerously in Love" in 2003, which won an astounding five Grammy Awards, confirming her status as one of pop/R&B's premier songwriters, producers and singers.V
With hits like "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy," the Houston native has shattered sales records, headlined sold-out tours worldwide, and presented the full range of her artistic vision. However, she isn't satisfied.
"Everything that I do creatively has to make me work harder and hopefully steer me in a direction I've never been before," she explains. "If it's easy, then the excitement is gone because I don't like to be bored and comfortable when it comes to my music. I like to challenge myself and all those around me to get the very best creatively."
The answer is "B'Day," Beyonce's latest critically acclaimed album, executive-produced by the artist herself and her father, Mathew Knowles. Released worldwide on her 25th birthday a year ago, the album is a milestone in the young woman's performing career. Soulfully deep, emotionally expansive, musically far reaching and filled with banging beats, muscular rhythms and just flat-out sexy, "B'Day" debuted at No. 1 on four of Billboard's music charts in the United States and also hit No. 1 across the Asia-Pacific region.
To date, she has sold more than 140 million albums as an artist, and has won 10 Grammy Awards, seven MTV Awards and one Brit Award.
The multi-talented creative artist has also achieved success in the film industry, starring in Hollywood movies such as the 2006 comedy "The Pink Panther" and the musical film "Dreamgirls," which earned her two Golden Globe nominations.
Beyonce stresses that "I was born to love R&B," however. When asked if she has any advice for young Chinese R&B singers who long for a success, her answer is as simple as "work hard and be very strong and committed to your music."
Beyonce will stay in town for three days and plans to take some time to visit the city: "I hear it (Shanghai) is known as a shopping paradise and for its wide variety of food."
Date: November 5, 7:30pm
Address: 1111 Caoxi Rd N.
Tickets: 300-2,000 yuan
Tel: 962-288, 404-707-9999
(Shanghai Daily November 2, 2007)
