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Shallow Nation

December 8th, 2008 at 6:30 am

Beyonce Elle Magazine January 2009 Cover, Photos

Beyonce Elle Magazine cover January 2009

Beyonce is on the cover of Elle Magazine January 2009, featured in a photo shoot and profiled in a cover story. See the photos, recent video and article excerpts here. The music superstar’s third studio album, I Am…Sasha Fierce, was released in November 2008 and the 1950s era music biopic Cadillac Records, in which she both stars as legendary singer Etta James and served as the executive producer, was released on December 5, 2008 in theaters.

Beyonce Elle Magazine photo shoot January 2009

Elle Magazine article, in which both Beyonce and her mother, Tina Knowles were interviewed, covers a range of topics, including her marriage to Jay-Z, her alter ego Sasha Fierce, and the emotional intensity of playing Etta James. Here is an excerpt.

As Tina Knowles, Beyoncé’s mother and best friend, puts it, “Etta’s a little rough around the edges. And when Beyoncé came off the set, she’d be rough too, and a little snappy. Even her walk. She had said, ‘Mama, show me that Galveston walk.’ She modeled it after our housekeeper, Janelle, who’s what we call a real beer-joint woman. Smoking, swaggering.”

Jay-Z watched B. sauntering around the room that night and he exclaimed, “Oh, here we go! We’ve got Etta in our midst.” He looked at B. and said, “You better go get a hotel.”

Here, at long last, was a role B. had been waiting her whole life to play. And not just in the movies. [...]

Beyonce Elle Magazine photo shoot January 2009

Cadillac Records, the fictionalized story of Chicago’s Chess Records, introduced B. to what had been for her a lost generation of black musicians who’d ruled the airwaves back in the ’50s: Muddy Waters. Little Walter. Willie Dixon. And Etta James. These were her rough-hewn elders, blues and soul division, whose music spoke to their own generation with the same degree of authenticity that rap, which Chuck D. of Public Enemy famously called “the black CNN,” did for her peers. For B., the exposure to this history in general, and to the example of Etta James in particular, was to prove a liberation.

Beyonce Elle Magazine photo shoot January 2009

Another way to look at Etta James, whose heyday was the ’50s and ’60s, is as the Sasha Fierce of her era, but a real-life Sasha rather than merely the persona that “takes over” B. when she performs. Etta was Sasha who loved the needle. Sasha who had no place to go when her luck ran out. But a Sasha who never stopped singing.

Source: Singer Beyonce Knowles Known as Sasha Fierce – Listen To Beyonce Hot New Album

Photo credit: Alexei Hay/Elle Magazine

Beyonce Elle Magazine photo shoot January 2009

Here is video from of Beyonce meeting professional dancer and Youtube celebrity Shane Mercado at the New York City premiere of Cadillac Records on December 3, 2008. He recently parodied her “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It”) music video.

Via The Beyonce Network