#ThrowbackThursday: “Lose My Breath” By Destiny’s Child
By Craig Clizbe
Music fans have made the queen Bey, Beyonce the topic of discussion almost this entire week. Social media continues to still be all a buzz about her Cochella 2018 performance from this past weekend. Since then Coachella had been dubbed “Beychella”, as her fans have made several parts of the performance go viral. Without a doubt, one of the most talked about aspects of the performance was the surprise reunion with Bey’s former group, Destiny’s Child. Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams joined Beyonce on stage for a short collection of DC classics. That trip down memory lane inspired me to take a second look at Destiny’s Child’s discography and find the perfect single of theirs to focus on for this week’s #TBT article. When doing that I was reminded of the fact that despite Beyonce gaining an undeniable amount of international fame, the ladies of Destiny’s Child continued to consistently share a lot of moments together in life.
Destiny’s Child
Live At Coachella 2018
Despite splitting up officially as a group in 2006, Destiny’s Child always let the world know that they were very much still connected to one another in their personal lives as they supported each other as they each perused solo projects. Some of the best examples of this included when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams appeared in Beyonces’ music video for her 2007 single “Get Me Bodied”. Destiny’s Child also briefly reunited for Los Angeles stop of The Beyoncé Experience 2007 tour, where they sang a piece of their 2001 single “Survivor.” This later appeared on the tour DVD, The Beyoncé Experience Live.
Later in January of 2013 the three Destiny’s Child members reunited on record for the newly recorded song “Nuclear”, produced by Pharrell Williams. It became the first original music from Destiny’s Child in eight years at the time. It was included on Destiny’s Child’s Love Songs compilation, released by Columbia Records in January of 2013.
The release of Love Songs was also quickly followed up by Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams famously appearing as special guests for Beyonce’s Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, where they performed “Bootylicious”, “Independent Women” and Beyonce’s own song, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).”
During their time together Destiny’s Child released a total of 5 albums (including one holiday album, 8 Days Of Christmas.), but this week’s Throwback is going to come from the group’s last official full album of original material, Destiny Fulfilled.
That album was the first example of Destiny’s Child as a unit showing the world that their bond as a group was bigger than the solo success of any individual member. It came at a time when fans began to doubt the group’s future after both Beyonce’ Knowles and Kelly Rowland began to experience different levels of solo Pop crossover success.
Sony Urban Music/Columbia Records released Destiny Fulfilled on November 16, 2004. It served as a comeback release for the group after Beyonce broke through as a solo singer/songwriter with her debut solo album, Dangerously In Love from June of 2003. By that time Kelly Rowland also enjoyed chart-topping success as a solo artist. Her duet with Nelly, “Dilemma” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 straight weeks in the summer of 2002. With that said, many fans began to speculate about what the next Destiny’s Child song would sound like if there would ever be one at all. That speculation was answered with the September 21, 2004 release of Destiny Fulfilled’s first single, “Lose My Breath.” Unlike previous Destiny’s Child releases, all three members were creatively involved with the song, as they co-wrote and co-produced alongside Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, and Bey’s husband, Jay-Z.
“Lose My Breath” reunited DC and Jerkins after he famously produced their 2000 hit, “Say My Name.” But this time he contributed to song’s production without the girls originally knowing he was involved. Beyoncé and Michelle heard song’s drum instrumentation of the track and took it to Kelly without knowing who was behind it. Later after having Jerkins and co-producer, Sean Garrett on board, they got a little bit of help from Jay-Z. Bey’s man helped them come up with the song’s thumping chorus when he gave them the lyric, Can you keep up” without even hearing the track.
In an interview with Complex Sean Garrett talked about his time working with Destiny’s when working on Destiny Fulfilled.
“There was so much magic going on in the studio. We probably recorded all the songs in about a month and every day it was a new song coming out. ‘Lose My Breath’ was towards the latter part of the album and that was an amazing song that we felt could not only be big on the radio but big with bands and marching bands. I was on a natural high after that.”
“Lose My Breath” proved to be a successful single to kick off the Destiny’s Child reunion, and the release from their final full album as a group. It peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November of 2004. That momentum helped Destiny Fulfilled eventually reach number 2 on the Billboard 200 in December 2004. This eventually led to Destiny’s Child’s Destiny Fulfilled… and Lovin’ it tour, that ran from April to September of 2005. This would be their last official tour as a group. However, as the recent events ay Coachella have shown it is very unlikely that we have seen the last of Destiny’s Child. So let’s take a moment and enjoy this week’s #TBT from the girls of DC, 2004’s “Lose My Breath.”
Destiny’s Child
“Lose My Breath”
From Destiny Fulfilled
Sony Urban Music/Music World/Columbia Records
Destiny’s Child
“Nuclear” (Explicit)
From Love Songs
Columbia Records
“Get Me Bodied”
From B’Day
Sony Urban Music/Music World/Columbia Records
Nelly Featuring Kelly Rowland
“Dilemma ”
From Nellyville
Fo’ Reel/Universal Records
