People
NEW YORK — Despite all the hard work she put in on the songs and videos from her new album, Beyoncé had her doubts minutes before its surprise release.
“I was terrified. I was so scared. I already envisioned like the worst things that could happen,” Beyoncé said Saturday at a screening for her new music videos. “I was really nervous because this was a huge risk.”
The singer’s fifth album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts this week after it was released without the public knowing. “Beyoncé” sold 617,000 units in the U.S. in a week; it has sold more than 1 million albums worldwide.
The album includes 14 songs and 17 videos, which fans were able to see during the screening at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Beyoncé answered fans’ questions via Instagram, including one about her opening up personally on the new album.
“I’m very private and I’m very respectful, and I think it just took me no longer being someone’s child — once I became a mother, I felt like I could tear those fourth walls and I just felt like it was time,” she said. “I completely feel liberated.”
The album features collaborations with her husband Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Drake and her daughter, Blue Ivy. “Beyoncé” is the follow-up to 2011’s “4,” the first album the singer released on her production company, Parkwood Entertainment, after parting ways professionally with her father-manager, Mathew Knowles.
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NEW ORLEANS — The music of rock ’n’ roll Hall of Fame performer Fats Domino will “float” through the streets of New Orleans this Carnival season.
Domino has been named honorary grand marshal of the Krewe of Orpheus, the star-studded Carnival club that traditionally parades the night before Mardi Gras.
Although he won’t be riding in the March 3 parade, his eldest son, Antoine Domino III, is expected to ride on a float equipped with a piano and speakers to perform his father’s greatest hits, such as “Blue Monday,” “The Fat Man,” “Blueberry Hill” and “Walking to New Orleans.”
Other family members are expected to ride and throw coaster-size, gold-record doubloons and other Fats Domino-themed trinkets from the float.
New Orleans artist Michael Hunt has designed a poster to commemorate the occasion. The posters will be autographed by Domino and available for purchase.
Mardi Gras is March 4.
Domino, 85, moving a little slow and his speech low, smiled for friends, family and a handful of news media who gathered Friday in his suburban New Orleans living room as he was honored by the Krewe of Orpheus with a medallion proclaiming him honorary grand marshal.
“I’m happy to do it,” he said, but added that he hasn’t changed his mind about riding on a float.
“No way,” he said.
Referring to the fact that his son would fill in for him, he said, with a smile, “He should be all right.”
By The Associated Press
