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Nelly

Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and embarked on his musical career in 1993 as a member of the Midwest hip hop group St. Lunatics. He signed with Universal Records in 1999 as a solo act to release his debut studio album, Country Grammar (2000) in June of the following year. Its namesake lead single and follow-up, "Ride wit Me" (featuring City Spud) both entered the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, while the album peaked atop the Billboard 200 and received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). His second album, Nellyville (2002) spawned two consecutive Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, "Hot in Herre" and "Dilemma" (featuring Kelly Rowland), along with the top-five single, "Air Force Ones" (featuring Murphy Lee and St. Lunatics).

The same-day dual release of his next albums Sweat and Suit (2004)—bundled into compilation album Sweatsuit (2005)—promptly continued his success; Sweat debuted at number two while Suit debuted at number one, selling an estimated 700,000 combined units in their first week. His fifth studio album, Brass Knuckles (2008) was supported by the singles "Party People" (featuring Fergie), "Stepped on My J'z" (featuring Jermaine Dupri and Ciara) and "Body on Me" (featuring Akon and Ashanti). His sixth album, 5.0 (2010), delved further into pop; its lead single, "Just a Dream" received triple platinum certification by the RIAA and was followed by "Move That Body" (featuring T-Pain and Akon) and "Gone" (featuring Kelly Rowland). His seventh and eighth albums, M.O. (2013) and Heartland (2021) were met with moderate to lukewarm commercial response and mixed reviews—the latter was released by Columbia Records and marked a full departure from his previous styles in favor of country rap.

Nelly has won multiple accolades throughout his career, including three Grammy Awards and nine Billboard Music Awards. He has been referred to by Peter Shapiro as "one of the biggest stars of the new millennium", and in 2014, Nelly was ranked as the fourth-best-selling hip hop artist in American music history according to the RIAA, with 21 million albums sold in the United States. In December 2009, Billboard ranked Nelly at number three on the Top Artists of the Decade list for the 2000s. Outside of recording, he starred in the 2005 sports film, The Longest Yard alongside Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He launched the clothing line Vokal in 1997 and the line of womenswear, Apple Bottoms in 2003. His record label imprint, Derrty Entertainment was launched as a joint venture with Motown also in the latter year, although it has been largely inactive.

1974–2000: Early life and start of career
Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. was born on November 2, 1974, in Austin, Texas, the only son of Cornell Haynes and Rhonda Mack. His father served in the Air Force for much of his childhood and when he was seven, his parents divorced. As a teenager, Haynes moved with his mother from St. Louis, Missouri, to University City, a St. Louis County suburb. While in high school, Nelly formed the St. Lunatics with his friends Ali, Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, Slo Down, and his half brother City Spud. The group enjoyed moderate local popularity with their single "Gimme What Ya Got" in 1996. Despite being popular in Missouri and the surrounding areas, the group struggled to achieve success outside of St. Louis. The rest of the group agreed to let Nelly go solo after a major record deal failed to appear. Later in 1999, Nelly was signed to Universal Music Group by A&R Kevin Law. Law told HitQuarters that Nelly was largely disliked by the label when he first signed, with the feedback he received from his colleagues on the rapper's music being "extraordinarily negative". Nelly was unusual for being a rapper from the Midwest at a time when hip-hop was dominated by the East Coast, West Coast and the South. The label used this to their advantage by branding him as a star of the Midwest, hoping to inspire pride in the people of St Louis and the surrounding regions. Despite the negative feedback he received from the label, his debut single, "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", was a success, peaking at number 7 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and UK singles chart. Recognizing Nelly's potential, the label began to change their mind and allowed work to begin on his debut album. The label decided to do a solo record with him first and then reunite him with the St. Lunatics the following year.

2000–2003: Breakthrough with Country Grammar and Nellyville
The label released his debut album, Country Grammar, in 2000. The success of its title track as a single (number 7 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 Hot Rap Tracks) led to the album debuting at number three in the Billboard 200 in the U.S. Other singles from the album included "E.I."; "Ride wit Me", featuring City Spud; and "Batter Up", featuring the St. Lunatics. The album was certified 9× platinum by the RIAA on April 27, 2004. Nelly performed as a special guest in the Super Bowl XXXV halftime show.

In 2002, Nelly's second album, Nellyville, was released, debuting at No. 1 on Billboard's Top 200 Music Albums; its lead single "Hot in Herre" was a number-one hit. Other singles included "Dilemma", which featured Kelly Rowland and sold over 7.6 million records worldwide, "Work It" featuring Justin Timberlake, "Air Force Ones" featuring Murphy Lee and the St. Lunatics, "Pimp Juice", and "#1". This album was highly successful and was certified 6x multi-platinum on June 27, 2003. "Hot in Herre" won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rap Solo Performance in 2003. In 2003, Nelly released Da Derrty Versions: The Reinvention, which featured the hit single "Iz U" from the soundtrack to Walt Disney's The Haunted Mansion. The music video of a Tip Drill Remix became a source of controversy due to perceptions of misogynistic depictions of women. The controversy forced him to cancel an appearance at a bone marrow drive at Spelman College, a historically black college in Atlanta. Similar claims of misogyny also surrounded his single "Pimp Juice". RIAA has certified the album as Platinum. For the Bad Boys II soundtrack album, Nelly contributed the single "Shake Ya Tailfeather" featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee. Another number-one hit, "Shake Ya Tailfeather", won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

2004–2008: Continued success; Sweat, Suit, and Brass Knuckles
Nelly performed in the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, his second time performing in a Super Bowl halftime show.

On September 14, 2004, he released two albums, Sweat and Suit. Suit, an R&B-oriented album, debuted at number one on the Billboard albums chart, and Sweat, a rap-oriented album, debuted at number two. From Suit, the slow ballad "Over and Over", an unlikely duet with country music star Tim McGraw, became a crossover hit. On the 2004 NBC television concert special Tim McGraw: Here and Now, McGraw and Nelly performed the song. A feud with another St. Louis-based rapper, Chingy, came up near the end of the year. Tsunami Aid: A Concert for Hope, a 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake benefit concert special produced by NBC, featured Nelly. In the winter of 2005 came Sweatsuit, a compilation of tracks from Sweat and Suit with three new tracks. "Grillz", produced by Jermaine Dupri, was a number-one hit. To date both albums have sold over 5 million units in the United States.

Brass Knuckles was released on September 16, 2008, after several delays. Initial release dates for the album were October 16 and November 13. Its original lead single was "Wadsyaname", a ballad-oriented track produced by Ron "NEFF-U" Feemstar and sampling the piano riff from "All My Life" by K-Ci & JoJo. Nelly later confirmed that "Wadsyaname" was never going to be on Brass Knuckles. He recorded "Party People", featuring Fergie and produced by Polow da Don, which turned out to be his first official single off the album. "Stepped on My J'z" was the next single, produced by Jermaine Dupri; it features Dupri and Ciara. Next was "Body on Me", produced by Akon which features Akon and Ashanti. Nelly appeared on Rick Ross's third single, "Here I Am" featuring label mate Avery Storm.

2009–2010: Collaborations and 5.0
In the summer of 2009, Nelly made a public announcement in Las Vegas about the yet-to-be-titled album. In October 2009, in an interview with SOHH.com he said that the album was going to be released sometime in 2010. In an interview with Semtex TV, he told reporters that he planned to release the album under the name Nelly. In April 2010, Nelly's cousin Michael Johnson was murdered in Missouri, Nelly said that he delayed releasing the album because of the tragedy. Guests featured on the album were T-Pain, Chris Brown, Akon, Plies, T.I., Kelly Rowland, Birdman, DJ Khaled, Avery Storm, and Diddy-Dirty Money. In May 2010, Nelly confirmed that the title of the album was 5.0. The album was released on November 16, 2010. The album's lead single "Just a Dream" was released on August 17, 2010, through iTunes along with the promotional single "Tippin' in da Club". The two songs were released to mainstream and Rhythm/Crossover radio on August 10, 2010. "Just a Dream" made its first chart appearance debuting on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 12 and peaking at number 3 in its fourth week. The song also debuted at number 3 on the Billboard Digital Songs chart, selling 888,000 downloads in its first week. "Just a Dream" is Nelly's highest-charting song since his 2005 single "Grillz" and debuted at number 7 on the Billboard Rap Songs. The song entered the Canadian Hot 100 in August 2010, at number 32 It debuted in Australia (ARIA Charts) on the Singles Chart at number 3, in New Zealand Singles Charts at number 29, and in Switzerland (Media Control AG) at number 52. The second single "Move That Body", which features T-Pain and Akon, was released on October 12, 2010. The song made its first chart appearance debuting on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 54 and has reached a current peak at number 29 in Australia. Nelly is featured on the second single by singer Mohombi entitled "Miss Me", produced by RedOne. On November 13, 2010, Nelly appeared on the Pacquiao vs. Margarito pay-per-view, at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. "Gone" is the sequel to his 2002 worldwide number-one single "Dilemma", also with Rowland, and is the third single from the album.

2011–2014: M.O. and The Next: Fame Is at Your Doorstep
In June 2011, Pitbull released a song off the deluxe version of the album Planet Pit featuring Nelly titled "My Kinda Girl". In December 2011, he released his first ever official solo mixtape, entitled O.E.MO, which stands for "On Everything MO". The mixtape features guest appearances from T.I., 2 Chainz, Bei Maejor, St. Lunatics and more.

In August 2012, Nelly became a coach on The CW's The Next: Fame Is at Your Doorstep along with Gloria Estefan, John Rich and Joe Jonas. Nelly released his second mixtape, entitled Scorpio Season, on November 2, 2012. In February 2013, he released "Hey Porsche", the lead single from his seventh studio album M.O. The song peaked at number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit the top ten in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In April 2013, a remix of "Cruise", the breakthrough single of country music duo Florida Georgia Line featuring Nelly, was released. His next single "Get Like Me" featuring Nicki Minaj and Pharrell Williams was released on iTunes on July 2, 2013.

The album M.O. was released on September 30, 2013, by Republic Records.

2014–present: Television series and Heartland
From 2014 to 2015, Nelly starred in the reality TV show Nellyville, which ran for two seasons. The series aired on BET; it is about Nelly's career in music and acting; his four children are featured (two biological, the other two from his late sister). On August 6, 2015, he premiered the single "The Fix", which was released on his own label, "RECORDS". In an interview with Big Boy, Nelly said that there may or may not be a new album related to The Fix.

As of 2018, Nelly is signed to Columbia Records.

In 2020, he released the song "Lil Bit", a collaboration with Florida Georgia Line from his "country-influenced" album titled Heartland. He also joined country singers Kane Brown and Brett Kissel for remixes of their songs, "Cool Again" and "She Drives Me Crazy". On 9 February 2024, Nelly was featured on the Jermaine Dupri single "This Lil' Game We Play", also featuring Ashanti and Juicy J.

Film and television career
Nelly's film debut began in 2001 in the independent film Snipes playing a famous rapper named Prolifik. He starred in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. The movie's soundtrack includes his songs "Errtime" and "Fly Away". In June 2008, in an interview with Kiwibox, Nelly revealed that he is reluctant to continue his acting career, noting that he does not want to "take away from the culture of acting." In 2008 and 2009, he appeared in episodes of the CBS crime drama CSI: NY. In 2011, he made a cameo appearance on 90210. From 2014 to 2015, he appeared in his own reality TV show, Nellyville, based on the title of his second studio album. The show ran for two seasons. From 2013 to 2016, Nelly was in the main cast of the mockumentary series Real Husbands of Hollywood.

On September 2, 2020, Nelly was announced as one of the celebrities competing on the 29th season of Dancing with the Stars. He and his partner Daniella Karagach finished in third place.

Artistry
Nelly's rapping style has been described by Peter Shapiro as using "unforgettable hooks based on schoolyard songs, double-dutch chants, and nonsense rhymes" and has a "Missouri twang". AllMusic suggests Nelly's style is based largely on where he comes from: "Nelly's locale certainly informs his rapping style, which is as much country as urban, and his dialect as well, which is as much Southern drawl as Midwestern twang". Nelly explains his method of writing in the book How to Rap, describing how he freestyles most of the lyrics before going back over them to "make it a little tighter", he generally writes in the studio rather than at home, he normally comes up with a chorus for a song before writing the verses, and he likes to write to the music he will be rapping over. AllMusic also notes his "tongue-twisting" hooks, which are also often sung rather than rapped.

Personal life
Nelly dated singer Ashanti from 2003 to 2013 after meeting at the 2003 Grammy Awards. The two began dating again in 2023. In December 2023, it was reported the couple were expecting their first child together and had married on the 27th. In April 2024, Ashanti confirmed her pregnancy and the couple's engagement in Essence magazine.

Nelly has two children from previous relationships: a son named Cornell Hayes III and a daughter named Chanelle. Nelly also has two adopted children from his stepsister Jaqueline Donahue, who died of leukemia on March 25, 2005. Nelly has been a longtime fan of the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball. Likewise a fan of the former St. Louis Rams during their tenure in St. Louis from 1995 to 2015, he expressed ongoing support for the team following their relocation to Los Angeles in 2016, even attending their appearance at Super Bowl LVI in 2022.

Other ventures

Nike and Nelly agreed on a one-year deal in 2003 to release a limited-edition sneaker called the "Air Derrty", which was a retro remake of Charles Barkley's signature sneaker. Nelly later signed a shoe deal with Reebok. He has been in ads for Got Milk? and the Ford Motor Company. His energy drink Pimp Juice sold one million cans during the first two months after its introduction in August 2003, and was criticized for its name by black consumer activists. He owns Apple Bottoms, a female clothing line, and Vokal, which caters to men. He was one of the owners of the Charlotte Bobcats, along with Robert L. Johnson and Michael Jordan until Jordan became the majority owner in March 2010.

Nelly has played the Main Event at the 2007 World Series of Poker. He has also played The PokerStars European Poker Tour and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. In August 2010, he began a stint as the afternoon host on WHHL HOT 104.1 in St. Louis. He was taking the place of regular PM drive personality, Stacy Static, who left on pregnancy leave.

In September 2010, Nelly released a fitness DVD entitled Celebrity Sweat, walking viewers through various exercises and weight training techniques. In 2011, he and Vatterott College worked together to found the Ex'treme Institute By Nelly, which is a music production school in the heart of St. Louis.

In 2015, Nelly teamed up with Mike and Ike candy after a halt in collaborating a year earlier. He and the owners of Mike and Ike released a movie trailer the same day titled "The Return of Mike and Ike" describing the split and reunion. In 2021, he collaborated with Burger King on the "Cornell Haynes, Jr. Meal", part of a line of celebrity-themed meals that the establishment created to promote its "Keep It Real Meals" in recognition of their removal of 120 artificial ingredients from its menu items. The meal consisted of a Whopper, small fries, and a small Sprite.

In April 2023, Nelly launched a moonshine brand called "MoShine".

Feud with Chingy
Fellow St. Louis rapper Chingy was hired as an opening act, while touring in support of Nellyville in 2002. Chingy had initially expressed discontent with the lack of promotion on the tour. Meanwhile, reports persisted that Nelly was increasingly irritated with Chingy's growth in fame particularly when he signed with Ludacris' DTP label shortly following the tour. Nelly claimed he felt disrespected by Chingy's actions, claiming in a 2005 interview; "For him to say that 'Nelly and all them didn't take no part in him getting a deal', is like saying 'RUN DMC and them didn't take any part on me getting a deal', everybody that comes out tries to help the next motherfucker". Nelly dropped a verse on the song 'Anotha one' on his 2004 album Sweat with a line in the song saying, I like it how you do it right thurr [there]/You just to remember why you do that right thurr, I made it tight to be country/ They thought country was bummy/ Till country start making money which was perceived by Chingy as a diss track, though an interview with Nelly in December 2004 in which he believed the lyrics were taken out of context, later claiming: "I wasn't going at him. If you listen to the song, it says, 'I like the way you do that right thurr.' I could have said, 'Fuck the way you do that right thurr!' It ain't even like that," . Angered by the song, Chingy leaked a song in response taking aim at Nelly entitled 'We Got' on January 7, 2005. Later on in December 2005 at the Radio Music Awards in Las Vegas, Chingy alleges he approached Nelly to end the feud but claims he refused to discuss in private but was ignored repeatedly. However months later Chingy approached Nelly's cousin who allowed both rappers to put an end to the feud in 2006. During an interview in November 2022; Chingy alleged Nelly's sister Jackie had also approached him at an airport, diligent for both to resolve the feud prior to her death due to cancer complications in March 2005, claiming "At that point, she said she had a wish, and that wish was for me and him to come together... When I heard that, I had to end this; for her. This can't go on. She had a wish for this to happen, she really wanted me and her brother to be cool."

Philanthropy
Nelly runs the non-profit organization 4Sho4Kids Foundation. He and Jackie Donahue, his sister began the Jes Us 4 Jackie campaign in March 2003 by Nelly after Donahue was diagnosed with leukemia. The campaign attempts to educate African Americans and other minorities about the need for bone marrow transplants; it also tries to register more donors. Donahue died of leukemia on March 24, 2005, almost two years after the campaign began.

In 2006, Nelly started hosting a “White and Black Ball” in his hometown of St. Louis as a fundraiser to collect funds for scholarships. He has sent two students to college every year for over a decade, and set up a scholarship fund named after Michael Brown was shot and killed.

In 2010, Nelly endorsed Do Something's Tackle Hunger campaign. In a public service announcement he filmed for the cause, he challenged teens to fight hunger by collecting one million pounds of food for the holiday season.

Misdemeanor drug-offense conviction (2015)
In April 2015, the Tennessee Highway Patrol conducted a traffic stop of Nelly's Prevost tour bus because of non-conforming U.S. Department of Transportation and International Fuel Tax Association stickers. He, a bus driver, and four other people were on board. After a state trooper said that he smelled marijuana, the troopers searched the bus and said that they found drug paraphernalia and marijuana, as well as a substance that they initially believed to be methamphetamine and several handguns. He was initially booked into the Putnam County Jail and was released on bail.

Nelly was initially charged with felony drug possession, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. However, after further testing proved that the seized substance was not methamphetamine, the felony charge was dropped. In December 2015, the case was resolved when he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and was sentenced to one year of probation. Nelly entered a diversion program, in which the misdemeanor convictions were cleared from his record after 11 months.

Tax lien (2016)
In 2016, it was reported that there was a $2.4 million tax lien against Nelly due to unpaid taxes owed to the IRS.

Rape arrest (2017)
On October 7, 2017, Nelly was arrested in Auburn, Washington, a southern Seattle suburb, on suspicion of second-degree rape after a woman alleged that he invited her onto his tour bus earlier that morning and raped her. Nelly was booked into a Des Moines, Washington, jail and released from custody without charge. He denied wrongdoing; his attorney said that the accusation was "clearly false". On December 14, it was revealed Nelly would not be charged in the case because the alleged victim declined to cooperate. He also filed a countersuit claiming defamation. Both lawsuits were dropped after the parties reached a settlement in 2018.

By the end of January 2018, Nelly was again accused of sexual assault after a gig at the Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff-on-Sea, England, at the end of 2017. There was also an additional allegation of assault reported at the time. It was reported in 2019 that he had reached a settlement with the woman who was at Cliffs Pavilion.

Discography
Studio albums
 * Country Grammar (2000)
 * Nellyville (2002)
 * Sweat (2004)
 * Suit (2004)
 * Brass Knuckles (2008)
 * 5.0 (2010)
 * M.O. (2013)
 * Heartland (2021)

title: Nelly


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Happiness

Happiness is a positive and pleasant emotion, ranging from contentment to intense joy. Moments of happiness may be triggered by positive life experiences or thoughts, but sometimes it may arise from no obvious cause. The level of happiness for longer periods of time is more strongly correlated with levels of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. In common usage, the word happy can be an appraisal of those measures themselves or as a shorthand for a "source" of happiness (for example, "find happiness in life" as in finding the meaning in life). As with any emotion, the precise definition of happiness has been a perennial debate in philosophy.

Definitions
"Happiness" is subject to debate on usage and meaning,   and on possible differences in understanding by culture.

The word is mostly used in relation to two factors:
 * the current experience of the feeling of an emotion (affect) such as pleasure or joy, or of a more general sense of 'emotional condition as a whole'. For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as "what I experience here and now". This usage is prevalent in dictionary definitions of happiness.
 * appraisal of life satisfaction, such as of quality of life. For instance Ruut Veenhoven has defined happiness as "overall appreciation of one's life as-a-whole." "'Happiness' is often used, in ordinary life, to refer to a short-lived state of a person, frequently a feeling of contentment: 'You look happy today'; 'I'm very happy for you'. Philosophically, its scope is more often wider, encompassing a whole life. And in philosophy it is possible to speak of the happiness of a person's life, or of their happy life, even if that person was in fact usually pretty miserable. The point is that some good things in their life made it a happy one, even though they lacked contentment. But this usage is uncommon, and may cause confusion.' Kahneman has said that this is more important to people than current experience.

Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb) includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods, and feelings) and of life satisfaction. For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as "the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile." Eudaimonia, is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing, and blessedness. Xavier Landes has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia.

These differing uses can give different results. Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys, South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing.

The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context, qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept.

A further issue is when measurement is made; appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date.

Some users accept these issues, but continue to use the word because of its convening power. quoted in

Happiness vs joy
German philosophy professor Michela Summa says that the distinction between joy and happiness is that "joy accompanies the process through and through, whereas happiness seems to be more strictly tied to the moment of achievement of the process... joy is not only a direct emotional response to an event that is embedded in our life-concerns but is also tightly bound to the present moment, whereas happiness presupposes an evaluative stance concerning one period of one's life or one's own life as a whole."

Measurement
People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing.

Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule. Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate. Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.

Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations.

Several scales have been developed to measure happiness:
 * The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness from 1999. The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals, as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals.
 * The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from 1988 is a 20-item questionnaire, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at "this moment, today, the past few days, the past week, the past few weeks, the past year, and in general". A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994.
 * The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener. A seven-point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one's life.
 * The Cantril ladder method has been used in the World Happiness Report. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.
 * Positive Experience; the survey by Gallup asks if, the day before, people experienced enjoyment, laughing or smiling a lot, feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, learning or doing something interesting. 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American, led by Paraguay and Panama. Country scores range from 85 to 43.
 * The Oxford Happiness Inventory is a comprehensive assessment tool consisting of 29 items, in which the person has to chose one of four options. It is user-friendly and easy to administer. This questionnaire shows the amount of well-being of a person. Providing quality insights of the happiness of one person.

Since 2012, a World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole?", and in emotional reports, as in "How happy are you now?," and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.

The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012, following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.

Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, such as the point that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course. Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness.

Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time.

Genetics and heritability
, no evidence of happiness causing improved physical health has been found; the topic is being researched at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain's gray matter in the right precuneus area and one's subjective happiness score.

Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level could be genetically determined, 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.

When discussing genetics and their effects on individuals it is important to first understand that genetics do not predict behavior. It is possible for genes to increase the likelihood of individuals being happier compared to others, but they do not 100 percent predict behavior.

At this point in scientific research, it has been hard to find a lot of evidence to support this idea that happiness is affected in some way by genetics. In a 2016 study, Michael Minkov and Michael Harris Bond found that a gene by the name of SLC6A4 was not a good predictor of happiness level in humans.

On the other hand, there have been many studies that have found genetics to be a key part in predicting and understanding happiness in humans. In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness, they discussed the common findings. The author found an important factor that has affected scientist findings this being how happiness is measured. For example, in certain studies when subjective wellbeing is measured as a trait heredity is found to be higher, about 70 to 90 percent. In another study, 11,500 unrelated genotypes were studied, and the conclusion was the heritability was only 12 to 18 percent. Overall, this article found the common percent of heredity was about 20 to 50 percent.

Causes and achievement methods
Theories on how to achieve happiness include "encountering unexpected positive events", "seeing a significant other", and "basking in the acceptance and praise of others". Some others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures.

Research on positive psychology, well-being, eudaimonia and happiness, and the theories of Diener, Ryff, Keyes, and Seligmann covers a broad range of levels and topics, including "the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life." The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J. Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships. Research showed that adequate sleep contributes to well-being. Good mental health and good relationships contribute more to happiness than income does. In 2018, Laurie R. Santos course titled "Psychology and the Good Life" became the most popular course in the history of Yale University and was made available for free online to non-Yale students.

Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way. Kahneman has said that ""When you look at what people want for themselves, how they pursue their goals, they seem more driven by the search for satisfaction than the search for happiness."

Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, noticed that those who lost hope soon died, while those who held to meaning and purpose tended to live on. Frankl observed that joy and misery had more to do with a person's perspective and choice than with their surroundings. Three key sources of meaning that he highlights in his writings include the following:

 * 1) Creation of an important work, or doing a deed.
 * 2) Love, as manifest in thoroughly encountering another person or experience.
 * 3) Finding meaning in unavoidable suffering, such as seeing it as a sacrifice or learning opportunity.

Psychologist Robert Emmons has identified the centrality of goals in pursuing happiness. He found that when humans pursue meaningful projects and activities without primarily focusing on happiness, happiness often results as a by-product. Indicators of meaningfulness predict positive effects on life, while lack of meaning predicts negative states such as psychological distress. Emmons summarizes the four categories of meaning which have appeared throughout various studies. He proposes to call them WIST, or work, intimacy, spirituality, and transcendence.

Throughout life, one's views of happiness and what brings happiness can evolve. In early and emerging adulthood many people focus on seeking happiness through friends, objects, and money. Middle aged-adults generally transition from searching for object-based happiness to looking for happiness in money and relationships. In older adulthood, people tend to focus more on personal peace and lasting relationships (ex. children, spouse, grandchildren). Antti Kauppinen, a Swedish philosopher and phenomenological researcher, posited that the perception of time affects the change in focus throughout life. In early adulthood, most view life optimistically, looking to the future and seeing an entire life ahead of them. Those that fall into the middle life, see that life has passed behind them as well as seeing more life ahead. Those in older adulthood often see their lives as behind them. This shift in perspective causes a shift in the pursuit of happiness from more tactile, object based happiness, to social and relational based happiness.

Self-fulfilment theories

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, self-actualization is reached. Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. The concept of flow is the idea that after our basic needs are met we can achieve greater happiness by altering our consciousness by becoming so engaged in a task that we lose our sense of time. Our intense focus causes us to forget any other issues, which in return promotes positive emotions.

Erich Fromm said "Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he „burns without being consumed.""

Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Competence refers to an individual's ability to be effective in their interactions with the environment, autonomy refers to a person's flexibility in choice and decision making, and relatedness is the need to establish warm, close personal relationships.

Ronald Inglehart has traced cross-national differences in the level of happiness based on data from the World Values Survey. He finds that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness. When basic needs are satisfied, the degree of happiness depends on economic and cultural factors that enable free choice in how people live their lives. Happiness also depends on religion in countries where free choice is constrained.

Sigmund Freud said that all humans strive after happiness, but that the possibilities of achieving it are restricted because we "are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from the state of things."

The idea of motivational hedonism is the theory that pleasure is the aim for human life.

Positive psychology
Since 2000 the field of positive psychology, which focuses on the study of happiness and human flourishing rather than maladjusted behavior or illness, expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications. It has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness, such as positive social interactions with family and friends.

These factors include six key virtues:

1. Wisdom and knowledge, which includes creativity, curiosity, love of learning and open-mindedness.

2. Courage, which includes bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality.

3. Humanity, which includes love, kindness, and social intelligence.

4. Justice, which includes leadership, fairness, and loyalty.

5. Temperance, which includes self-regulation, prudence, forgiveness, humility, patience and modesty.

6. Transcendence, which includes religious/spirituality, hope, gratitude, appreciation of beauty and excellence, and humor.

In order for a virtue to be considered a key strength in the field of positive psychology it must meet the demands of 12 criteria, namely ubiquity (cross-cultural), fulfilling, morally valued, does not diminish others, be a nonfelicitous opposite (have a clear antonym that is negative), traitlike, measurable, distinct, have paragons (distinctly show up in individuals' behaviors), have prodigies (show up in youth), be selectively absent (distinctly does not show up in some individuals), and is supported by some institutions.

Numerous short-term self-help interventions have been developed and demonstrated to improve happiness.

Spillover
A person's level of subjective well-being is determined by many different factors and social influences prove to be a strong one. Results from the famous Framingham Heart Study indicate that friends three degrees of separation away (that is, friends of friends of friends) can affect a person's happiness. From abstract: "A friend who lives within a mile (about 1.6 km) and who becomes happy increases the probability that a person is happy by 25%."

Indirect approaches
Various writers, including Camus and Tolle, have written that the act of searching or seeking for happiness is incompatible with being happy.

John Stuart Mill believed that for the great majority of people happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about, imagining or questioning on one's happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would "inhale happiness with the air you breathe."

William Inge said that "on the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except the fact that they are so." Orison Swett Marden said that "some people are born happy."

Cognitive behavioral therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular therapeutic method used to change habits by changing thoughts and problematic behaviors. It focuses on emotional regulation and uses a lot of positive psychology practices. It is often used for people with depression, anxiety, or addictions and works towards how to lead a happier life. Common processes in cognitive behavioral therapy are reframing thoughts from problematic thinking patterns by replacing them with beneficial or supportive ones, roleplaying, finding beneficial coping skills, and choosing new activities that support desired behaviors and avoid negative behaviors.

Synthetic happiness
Coined by Harvard professor of psychology and author of "Stumbling on Happiness", Daniel Gilbert, synthetic happiness is the happiness we make for ourselves. In his TedTalk titled, the surprising science of happiness, Gilbert explains that everyone possesses a "psychological immune system" that helps to regulate our emotional reactions. Through research that he studied and held, he and his team found that personal happiness is largely based on personal perception. Synthetic happiness as an idea has become more popular as people attempt to define happiness as a journey instead of a destination.

Effects
Happiness research understands "happiness" as "life satisfaction" or "well-being". Since it has proved difficult to find a definition of happiness, individual people are instead asked how happy they feel. Numerous surveys are then summarized and analyzed using static methods. Although some researchers believe that the scales are fundamentally unsuitable for estimating happiness, other researchers argue that the happiness indices formed on the basis of the survey have a high statistical correspondence with characteristics that are generally understood to indicate a happy person. For example, individuals who report high happiness on scales smile more often, exhibit more social behavior, are more helpful, and are less likely to commit suicide. For this reason, happiness indices determined on the basis of the survey are considered reliable by happiness researchers.

Before recommending strategies, it is crucial to rely on rigorous, large-scale experiments that confirm their effectiveness. Over the past decade, there has been a significant shift in what constitutes 'high-quality evidence' in psychology (there were adopted e. g. practices like pre-registration, committing to specific methodological and analytical decisions in advance, and increased sample sizes to avoid underpowered studies). A meta analysis of 2023 has used this modern evidence-based approach, evaluating evidence for common happiness-boosting strategies. The study aimed to shed light on the effectiveness of these strategies and their impact on subjective well-being. As a first step, the authors analyzed numerous media articles on happiness to identify the five most commonly recommended strategies, these were: expressing gratitude, enhancing sociability, exercising, practicing mindfulness/meditation, and increasing exposure to nature. Next, the published scientific literature was searched but limited to the above-described high-quality criteria that tested the effects of these strategies on subjective well-being in everyday individuals (non-clinical samples). Only 10% of the initially retrieved studies met those rigorous criteria. The findings revealed that unlike so far suggested by scientific studies, there is currently still a lack of robust scientific evidence to support some of the most frequently suggested happiness strategies. Among the five most common happiness strategies, there was "reasonably solid evidence" of positive effects from a) Gratitude messages or lists, b) conversations with strangers or Gratitude and sociability - that is, establishing and maintaining social relationships. In contrast, no convincing evidence could be found that c) sports, d) mindfulness training, or e) walks in the countryside make people happier.

Positive
There is a wealth of cross-sectional studies on happiness and physical health that shows consistent positive relationships. Follow-up studies appear to show that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations.

Other positive effects of happiness and being in a good mood, that have been studied and confirmed, are that happier people tend to be more helpful, attentive, and generous to others, as well as to themselves. Happy people also have been shown to act more cooperatively and less aggressively, and be more likely to help others in need. They were also found to be more sociable and communicative.

More positive effects that happiness seems to evoke are creative problem solving, persisting through challenges, more intrinsic motivation for work related or responsible tasks, and being more effective at using efficient decision-making strategies.

While some believe that success breeds happiness, Lyubomirsky, King and Diener found that happiness precedes success in income, relationships, marriages, work performance, and health.

Low mood is correlated with many negative life outcomes such as suicide, poor health, substance abuse, and low life expectancy. By extension, happiness protects from those negative outcomes.

Negative
June Gruber argued that happiness may trigger a person to be more sensitive, more gullible, less successful, and more likely to undertake high risk behaviours. She also conducted studies suggesting that seeking happiness can have negative effects, such as failure to meet over-high expectations. Iris Mauss has shown that the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they will set up too high of standards and feel disappointed. One study shows that women who value happiness more tend to react less positively to happy emotions. A 2012 study found that psychological well-being was higher for people who experienced both positive and negative emotions.

Government

Jeremy Bentham believed that public policy should attempt to maximize happiness, and he even attempted to estimate a "hedonic calculus". Thomas Jefferson put the "pursuit of happiness" on the same level as life and liberty in the United States Declaration of Independence. Presently, many countries and organizations regularly measure population happiness through large-scale surveys, e.g., Bhutan.

Richer nations tend to have higher measures of happiness than poorer nations. The relationship between wealth and happiness is not linear and the same GDP increase in poor countries will have more effect on happiness than in wealthy countries.

Some political scientists argue that life satisfaction is positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net, pro-worker labor market regulations, and strong labor unions. Others argue that happiness is strongly correlated with economic freedom, preferably within the context of a western mixed economy, with free press and a democracy.

Cultural values
Personal happiness can be affected by cultural factors. Hedonism appears to be more strongly related to happiness in more individualistic cultures. Forcing people to marry and stay married can have adverse consequences. Research has shown that unhappily married couples suffer 3–25 times the risk of developing clinical depression.

One theory is that higher SWB in richer countries is related to their more individualistic cultures. Individualistic cultures may satisfy intrinsic motivations to a higher degree than collectivistic cultures, and fulfilling intrinsic motivations, as opposed to extrinsic motivations, may relate to greater levels of happiness, leading to more happiness in individualistic cultures.

Cultural views on happiness have changed over time. For instance Western concern about childhood being a time of happiness has occurred only since the 19th century. Not all cultures seek to maximize happiness,  and some cultures are averse to happiness. It has been found in Western cultures that individual happiness is the most important. Some other cultures have opposite views and tend to be aversive to the idea of individual happiness. For example, people living in Eastern Asian cultures focus more on the need for happiness within relationships with others and even find personal happiness to be harmful to fulfilling happy social relationships.

Religion
People in countries with high cultural religiosity tend to relate their life satisfaction less to their emotional experiences than people in more secular countries.

Buddhism
Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings. For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.

Hinduism
In Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate goal of life is happiness, in the sense that duality between Atman and Brahman is transcended and one realizes oneself to be the Self in all.

Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.

Confucianism
The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who had sought to give advice to ruthless political leaders during China's Warring States period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self), and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood. He argued that if one did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", then that force would shrivel up (Mencius, 6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.

Judaism
Happiness or simcha (שמחה) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God. The biblical verse "worship The Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs," stresses joy in the service of God. A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th-century Chassidic Rabbi, is "Mitzvah Gedolah Le'hiyot Besimcha Tamid," it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset.

Christianity
The primary meaning of "happiness" in various European languages involves good fortune, blessing, or a similar happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy refers primarily to ethics.

In Christianity, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia ("blessed happiness"), described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a beatific vision of God's essence in the next life.

According to Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, man's last end is happiness: "all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness." Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue.

According to Aquinas, happiness consists in an "operation of the speculative intellect": "Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation, viz. in the contemplation of Divine things." And, "the last end cannot consist in the active life, which pertains to the practical intellect." So: "Therefore the last and perfect happiness, which we await in the life to come, consists entirely in contemplation. But imperfect happiness, such as can be had here, consists first and principally in contemplation, but secondarily, in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions."

Human complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the infinitely Beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.

Islam
Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the Sufi thinker, wrote that "The Alchemy of Happiness", is a manual of religious instruction that is used throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today.

Relation to morality
Philosophy of happiness is often discussed in conjunction with ethics. Traditional European societies, inherited from the Greeks and from Christianity, often linked happiness with morality. In this context, morality was the performance in a specific role in a certain kind of social life.

Happiness remains a difficult term for moral philosophy. Throughout the history of moral philosophy, there has been an oscillation between attempts to define morality in terms of consequences leading to happiness or defining it as nothing to do with happiness at all.

In psychology, connections between happiness and morality have been studied in a variety of ways. Empirical research suggests that laypeople's judgments of a person's happiness in part depend on perceptions of that person's morality, suggesting that judgments of others' happiness involve moral evaluation. A large body of research also suggests that engaging in prosocial behavior can increase happiness.

Ethics
Ethicists have made arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior. This principle states that actions are proportionately right or wrong by how much happiness or unhappiness they bring. Mill defines happiness as that which brings about an intended pleasure and avoids an unnecessary pain, and he defines unhappiness as the reverse, namely an action that brings about pain and not pleasure. He is quick to specify that pleasure and pain are to be understood in an Epicurean light, referring chiefly to the higher human pleasures of increased intellect, feelings, and moral sentiments not what one might call beastly pleasures of mere animal appetites. Critics of this view include Thomas Carlyle, Ferdinand Tönnies and others within the German philosophical tradition. They posit that a greater happiness is to be found in choosing to suffer for others, rather than allowing others to suffer for them, declaring this to be a form of satisfying, and heroic, nobility.

Many studies have observed the effects of volunteerism (as a form of altruism) on happiness and health and have consistently found that those who exhibit volunteerism also have better current and future health and well-being. In a study of older adults, those who volunteered had higher life satisfaction and will to live, and less depression, anxiety, and somatization. Volunteerism and helping behavior have not only been shown to improve mental health but physical health and longevity as well, attributable to the activity and social integration it encourages. One study examined the physical health of mothers who volunteered over 30 years and found that 52% of those who did not belong to a volunteer organization experienced a major illness while only 36% of those who did volunteer experienced one. A study on adults aged 55 and older found that during the four-year study period, people who volunteered for two or more organizations had a 63% lower likelihood of dying. After controlling for prior health status, it was determined that volunteerism accounted for a 44% reduction in mortality.

Aristotle
Aristotle described eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) as the goal of human thought and action. Eudaimonia is often translated to mean happiness, but some scholars contend that "human flourishing" may be a more accurate translation. Aristotle's use of the term in Nicomachiean Ethics extends beyond the general sense of happiness.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake, unlike riches, honour, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honour, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy. For Aristotle the term eudaimonia, which is translated as 'happiness' or 'flourishing' is an activity rather than an emotion or a state. Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well-being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune). Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way.

Specifically, Aristotle argued that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrived at this claim with the "Function Argument". Basically, if it is right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For Aristotle human function is to reason, since it is that alone which humans uniquely do. And performing one's function well, or excellently, is good. According to Aristotle, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle argued a second-best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity was the life of moral virtue.

The key question Aristotle seeks to answer is "What is the ultimate purpose of human existence?" A lot of people are seeking pleasure, health, and a good reputation. It is true that those have a value, but none of them can occupy the place of the greatest good for which humanity aims. It may seem like all goods are a means to obtain happiness, but Aristotle said that happiness is always an end in itself.

Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the English Utilitarians' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating that "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does". Nietzsche meant that making happiness one's ultimate goal and the aim of one's existence, in his words "makes one contemptible." Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than "mere happiness." He introduced the quasi-dystopic figure of the "last man" as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers.

These small, "last men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche's reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Happiness


text:
Destiny's Child

Destiny's Child was an American musical girl group whose final lineup comprised Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. The group began their musical career as Girl's Tyme, formed in 1990 in Houston, Texas. After years of limited success, the original quartet comprising Knowles, Rowland, LaTavia Roberson, and LeToya Luckett were signed in 1997 to Columbia Records as Destiny's Child. The group was launched into mainstream recognition following the release of the song "No, No, No" and their best-selling second album, The Writing's on the Wall (1999), which contained the number-one singles "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Say My Name", alongside successful singles "Bug a Boo" and "Jumpin', Jumpin'". Despite critical and commercial success, the group was plagued by internal conflict and legal turmoil, as Roberson and Luckett attempted to split from the group's manager Mathew Knowles, citing favoritism of Knowles and Rowland.

In early 2000, both Roberson and Luckett were replaced with Williams and Farrah Franklin; however, Franklin quit after a few months, leaving the group as a trio. Their third album, Survivor (2001), whose themes the public interpreted as a channel to the group's experience, produced the worldwide hits "Independent Women", "Survivor" and "Bootylicious". In 2001, they announced a hiatus to pursue solo careers. The trio reunited two years later for the release of their fifth and final studio album, Destiny Fulfilled (2004), which spawned the international hits "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier". Since the group's official disbandment in 2006, Knowles, Rowland, and Williams have reunited several times, including at the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show and 2018 Coachella festival.

Destiny's Child has sold more than 60 million records. Billboard ranks the group as one of the greatest musical trios of all time, the ninth most successful artist/band of the 2000s, placed the group 68th in its All-Time Hot 100 Artists list in 2008 and in December 2016, the magazine ranked them as the 90th most successful dance club artist of all time. The group was nominated for 14 Grammy Awards, winning twice for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and once for Best R&B Song.

1990–1997: Early beginnings and Girl's Tyme
In 1990, Beyoncé Knowles met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for a girl group. Based in Houston, Texas, they were joined to a group that performed rapping and dancing. Kelly Rowland, who relocated to Knowles' house because of family issues, joined them in 1992. Originally named Girl's Tyme, they were eventually cut down to six members including Támar Davis and sisters Nikki and Nina Taylor. With Knowles and Rowland, Girl's Tyme attracted nationwide attention: west-coast R&B producer Arne Frager flew to Houston to see them. He brought them to his studio, The Plant Recording Studios, in Northern California, with focus on Knowles' vocals because Frager thought she had personality and the ability to sing. With efforts to sign Girl's Tyme to a major record deal, Frager's strategy was to debut the group in Star Search, the biggest talent show on national TV at the time. However, they lost the competition because, according to Knowles, their choice of song was wrong; they were actually rapping instead of singing.

Because of the group's defeat, Knowles' father, Mathew, voluntarily dedicated his time to manage them. He decided to cut the original lineup to four, with the removal of Davis and the Taylor sisters and the inclusion of LeToya Luckett in 1993. Aside from spending time at their church in Houston, Girl's Tyme practiced in their backyards and at the Headliners Salon, owned by Knowles' mother, Tina. The group would test routines in the salon, when it was on Montrose Boulevard in Houston, and sometimes would collect tips from the customers. Their try-out would be critiqued by the people inside. During their school days, Girl's Tyme performed at local gigs. When summer came, Mathew Knowles established a "boot camp" to train them in dance and vocal lessons. After rigorous training, they began performing as opening acts for established R&B groups of that time such as SWV, Dru Hill and Immature. Tina Knowles designed the group's stage attire.

Over the course of the early years in their career, Girl's Tyme changed their name to Somethin' Fresh, Cliché, The Dolls, and to Destiny. The group signed with Elektra Records with the name Destiny, but were dropped several months later before they could release an album. The pursuit of a record deal affected the Knowles family: in 1995, Mathew Knowles resigned from his job as a medical-equipment salesman, a move that reduced Knowles' family's income by half, and her parents briefly separated due to the pressure. In 1996, they changed their name to Destiny's Child. Group members have claimed that the name was taken from a passage in the Bible: "We got the word destiny out of the Bible, but we couldn't trademark the name, so we added child, which is like a rebirth of destiny," said Knowles. The word Destiny was stated to have been chosen from the Book of Isaiah, by Tina Knowles.

Mathew Knowles helped in negotiating a record deal with Columbia Records at the behest of Columbia scout Teresa LaBarbera Whites, which signed the group that same year. Prior to signing with Columbia, the group had recorded several tracks in Oakland, California produced by D'wayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné!. Upon the label's recognition that Destiny's Child had a "unique quality", the track "Killing Time" was included in the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black.

1997–2000: Breakthrough and lineup changes

Destiny's Child first charted in November 1997 with "No, No, No", the lead single from their self-titled debut album, which was released in the United States on February 17, 1998, featuring productions by Tim & Bob, Rob Fusari, Jermaine Dupri, Wyclef Jean, Dwayne Wiggins and Corey Rooney. Destiny's Child peaked at number sixty-seven on the Billboard 200 and number fourteen on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It managed to sell over one million copies in the United States, earning a platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The remix version to "No, No, No", reached number one on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Its follow-up single, "With Me Part 1" failed to reproduce the success of "No, No, No". Meanwhile, the group featured on a song from the soundtrack album of the romantic drama Why Do Fools Fall in Love and "Get on the Bus" had a limited release in Europe and other markets. In 1998, Destiny's Child garnered three Soul Train Lady of Soul awards including Best New Artist for "No, No, No". Later that year, the group was featured in an episode of the TV sitcom Smart Guy. Knowles considered their debut successful but not huge, claiming as a neo soul record it was too mature for the group at the time.

After the success of their debut album, Destiny's Child re-entered the studio quickly, bringing in a new lineup of producers, including Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs and Rodney Jerkins. Coming up with The Writing's on the Wall, they released it on July 27, 1999, and it eventually became their breakthrough album. The Writing's on the Wall peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 and number two on R&B chart in early 2000. "Bills, Bills, Bills" was released in 1999 as the album's lead single and reached the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their first US number-one single. The Writing's on the Wall has been credited as Destiny's Child's breakthrough album, spurring their career and introducing them to a wider audience. On December 14, 1999, Luckett and Roberson attempted to split with their manager, claiming that he kept a disproportionate share of the group's profits and unfairly favored Knowles and Rowland. While they never intended to leave the group, when the video for "Say My Name", the third single from The Writing's on the Wall, surfaced in February 2000, Roberson and Luckett found out that two new members were joining Knowles and Rowland. Prior to the video premiere, Knowles announced on TRL that original members Luckett and Roberson had left the group. They were replaced by Michelle Williams, a former backup singer to Monica, and Farrah Franklin, an aspiring singer-actress. Shortly after her stint with Monica, Williams was introduced to Destiny's Child by a choreographer friend, and was flown to Houston where she stayed with the Knowles family.

On March 21, 2000, Roberson and Luckett filed a lawsuit against Mathew Knowles and their former bandmates for breach of partnership and fiduciary duties. Following the suit, both sides were disparaging towards each other in the media. Five months after joining, Franklin left the group. The remaining members claimed that this was due to missed promotional appearances and concerts. According to Williams, Franklin could not handle stress. Franklin, however, disclosed that she left because of the negativity surrounding the strife and her inability to assert any control in the decision-making. Her departure was seen as less controversial. Williams, on the other hand, disclosed that her inclusion in the group resulted in her "battling insecurity": "I was comparing myself to the other members, and the pressure was on me."

Towards the end of 2000, Roberson and Luckett dropped the portion of their lawsuit aimed at Rowland and Knowles in exchange for a settlement, though they continued the action against their manager. As part of the agreement, both sides were prohibited from speaking about each other publicly. Roberson and Luckett formed another girl group named Anjel but also left it due to issues with the record company. Although band members were affected by the turmoil, the publicity made Destiny's Child's success even bigger and they became a pop culture phenomenon. "Say My Name" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks, while the fourth single, "Jumpin', Jumpin'", also became a top-ten hit. The Writing's on the Wall eventually sold over eight million copies in the United States, gaining eight-time platinum certification by the RIAA. The album sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and was one of the top-selling albums of 2000. During this time, Destiny's Child began performing as an opening act at the concerts of pop singers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

With Williams in the new lineup, Destiny's Child released a theme song for the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. Released as a single in October 2000, "Independent Women Part 1" spent eleven consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 from November 2000 to January 2001, the longest-running number-one single of Destiny's Child's career and of that year in the United States. The successful release of the single boosted the sales of the soundtrack album to Charlie's Angels to 1.5 million by 2001. In 2000, Destiny's Child won Soul Train's Sammy Davis Jr. Entertainer of the Year award.

2000–2003: Survivor, subsequent releases, hiatus and side projects
At the 2001 Billboard Music Awards, Destiny's Child won several accolades, including Artist of the Year and Duo/Group of the Year, and again won Artist of the Year among five awards they snagged in 2001. In September 2000, the group took home two at the sixth annual Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, including R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Group for The Writing's on the Wall. Destiny's Child recorded their third album, Survivor, from mid-2000 until early 2001. In the production process, Knowles assumed more control in co-producing and co-writing almost the entire album. Survivor hit record stores in the spring of 2001 and entered the Billboard 200 at number one, selling over 663,000 copies in its first week sales. The first three singles, "Independent Women Part I", "Survivor" and "Bootylicious" reached the top three in the United States and were also successful in other countries; the first two were consecutive number-one singles in the United Kingdom. The album was certified four-time platinum in the United States and double platinum in Australia. It sold 6 million copies as of July 27, 2001.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Destiny's Child canceled a European tour and performed in a concert benefit for the survivors. In October 2001, the group released a holiday album, 8 Days of Christmas, which contained updated versions of several Christmas songs. The album managed to reach number thirty-four on the Billboard 200. In February 2001, Destiny's Child won two Grammy awards for "Say My Name": Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and Best R&B Song. They also earned an American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Band/Duo. Also in 2001, Destiny's Child sang backup vocals for Solange Knowles, who was the lead, on the theme song to the animated Disney Channel series The Proud Family. In March 2002, a remix compilation titled This Is the Remix was released to win fans over before a new studio album would be released. The remix album reached number 29 in the United States. The lead single "Survivor" was by some interpreted as a response to the strife between the band members, although Knowles claimed it was not directed at anybody. Seeing it as a breach of the agreement that barred each party from public disparagement, Roberson and Luckett once again filed a lawsuit against Destiny's Child and Sony Music, shortly following the release of This Is the Remix. In June 2002, remaining cases were settled in court.

In late 2000, Destiny's Child announced their plan to embark on individual side projects, including releases of solo albums, an idea by their manager. In 2002, Williams released her solo album, Heart to Yours, a contemporary gospel collection. The album reached number one on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart. In the same date Heart to Yours hit stores, Destiny's Child released their official autobiography, Soul Survivors. Rowland collaborated with hip hop artist Nelly on "Dilemma", which became a worldwide hit and earned Rowland a Grammy; she became the first member of Destiny's Child to have achieved a US number-one single. In the same year, Knowles co-starred with Mike Myers in the box-office hit Austin Powers in Goldmember. She recorded her first solo single, "Work It Out", for the film's soundtrack. To capitalize on the success of "Dilemma", Rowland's solo debut album Simply Deep was brought forward from its early 2003 release to September 2002. Rowland's career took off internationally when Simply Deep hit number one on the UK Albums Chart. In the same year, she made her feature film debut in the horror film Freddy vs. Jason. Meanwhile, Knowles made her second film, The Fighting Temptations, and appeared as featured vocalist on her then-boyfriend Jay-Z's single "'03 Bonnie & Clyde", which paved the way for the release of her debut solo album.

Knowles' debut album, Dangerously in Love, was postponed many times until being released in June 2003. The album used her first name as a mononymous stage name. Knowles' release was the most commercially successful among the three solo releases. Dangerously in Love debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 317,000 copies. It yielded the number-one hits "Crazy in Love", and "Baby Boy"; and the top-five singles "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl". The album was certified 4× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It remains as Knowles' best-selling album to date, with sales of 5 million copies in the United States, as of June 2016. Worldwide, the album has sold more than eleven million copies. Knowles' solo debut was well received by critics, earning five Grammy awards in one night for Dangerously in Love, tying the likes of Norah Jones, Lauryn Hill, and Alicia Keys for most Grammys received in one night by a female artist. In November 2003, Williams appeared as Aida on Broadway. In January 2004, she released her second gospel album, Do You Know.

D'wayne Wiggins, who had produced their first recordings as Destiny's Child, filed suit in 2002 against his former counsel (Bloom, Hergott, Diemer & Cook LLP) seeking $15 million in damages for lessening his contractual agreement with the group without his consent, effectively nullifying his original contract that offered Sony Music/Columbia Destiny's Child's exclusive recording services for an initial seven years, in exchange for "certain royalties", instead of royalties only from the first three albums. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount. In June 2003, Mathew Knowles announced that Destiny's Child would expand back to a quartet, revealing Knowles' younger sister, Solange, as the latest addition to the group. Destiny's Child had previously recorded songs with Solange and shared the stage when she temporarily replaced Rowland after she broke her toes while performing. Their manager, however, said the idea was used to test reactions from the public. In August 2003, Knowles herself confirmed that her sister would not be joining in the group, and instead promoted Solange's debut album, Solo Star, released in January 2003.

2003–2006: Destiny Fulfilled and #1's
Three years after the hiatus, members of Destiny's Child reunited to record their fourth and final studio album, Destiny Fulfilled. The album introduces the trio to a harder, "urban" sound, and songs featured are conceptually interrelated. Destiny Fulfilled saw equality in the trio: each member contributed to writing on the majority songs, as well as becoming executive producers aside from their manager. Released on November 15, 2004, Destiny Fulfilled failed to top Survivor; the album reached number two the following week, selling 497,000 copies in its first week, compared to 663,000 for the previous album. Certified three-time platinum in the United States, it was still one of the best-selling albums of 2005, selling over eight million copies worldwide; it pushed the group back into the position of the best-selling female group and American group of the year. Four singles were released from the album: the lead "Lose My Breath", "Soldier", "Cater 2 U" and "Girl"; the first two reached number three in the United States. "Soldier" "Cater 2 U" were certified platinum by the RIAA in 2006.

To promote the album, Destiny's Child embarked on their worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It Tour. On June 11, 2005, while at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Spain, the group announced to the audience of 16,000 people that they planned to officially break up once the tour concluded. Knowles stated that the album's title Destiny Fulfilled was not a coincidence and reflected the fact that the breakup was already being planned when the album was being recorded. While making the album, they planned to part ways after their fourteen-year career as a group to facilitate their continued pursuit in individual aspirations. Knowles stated that their destinies were already fulfilled. The group sent a letter to MTV about the decision, saying:

We have been working together as Destiny's Child since we were 9 and touring together since we were 14. After a lot of discussions and some deep soul searching, we realized that our current tour has given us the opportunity to leave Destiny's Child on a high note, united in our friendship and filled with overwhelming gratitude for our music, our fans, and each other. After all these wonderful years working together, we realized that now is the time to pursue our personal goals and solo efforts in earnest...No matter what happens, we will always love each other as friends and sisters and will always support each other as artists. We want to thank all of our fans for their incredible love and support and hope to see you all again as we continue fulfilling our destinies. —Destiny's Child, MTV

Destiny's Child released their greatest hits album, #1's, on October 25, 2005. The compilation includes their number-one hits including "Independent Woman Part 1", "Say My Name" and "Bootylicious". Three new tracks were recorded for the compilation including "Stand Up for Love", which was recorded for the theme song to the World Children's Day, and "Check on It", a song Knowles recorded for The Pink Panther's soundtrack. Record producer David Foster, his daughter Amy Foster-Gillies and Knowles wrote "Stand Up for Love" as the anthem to the World Children's Day, an annual worldwide event to raise awareness and funds for children causes. Over the past three years, more than $50 million have been raised to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities and other children's organizations. Destiny's Child lent their voices and support as global ambassadors for the 2005 program. #1's was also released as a DualDisc, featuring the same track listing, seven videos of selected songs and a trailer of the concert DVD Live in Atlanta. The DVD was filmed during the Atlanta visit of the Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It tour, and was released on March 28, 2006. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA, denoting shipments of over one million units. Notwithstanding the album title, only five of the album's 16 tracks had reached #1 on either the Billboard Hot 100 or the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart; writer Keith Caulfield of Billboard magazine suggested that the title was "a marketing angle". Despite this, journalist Chris Harris of MTV said that the album "lives up to its name".

Disbandment and aftermath
Destiny's Child reunited for a farewell performance at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game on February 19, 2006, in Houston, Texas; however, Knowles commented, "It's the last album, but it's not the last show." Their final televised performance was at the Fashion Rocks benefit concert in New York a few days later. On March 28, 2006, Destiny's Child was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the 2,035th recipient of the coveted recognition. At the 2006 BET Awards, Destiny's Child won Best Group, a category they also earned in 2005 and 2001.

After their formal disbandment, all members resumed their solo careers, each experiencing different levels of success. Since then, Knowles, Rowland, and Williams have continued to collaborate on each other's solo projects through song features, music video appearances, and live performances. Both Rowland and Williams, along with Knowles' sister Solange, appeared in Knowles' music video for her single "Get Me Bodied" (2007). On June 26, 2007, the group made a mini-reunion at the 2007 BET Awards, where Knowles performed "Get Me Bodied" with Williams and Solange as her back-up dancers. After her performance, Knowles introduced Rowland who performed her single "Like This" (2007) with Eve. On the September 2, 2007 Los Angeles stop of The Beyoncé Experience tour, Knowles sang a snippet of "Survivor" with Rowland and Williams, and the latter two rendered a "Happy Birthday" song to Knowles. The performance was featured in Knowles' tour DVD, The Beyoncé Experience Live. In 2008, Knowles recorded a cover of Billy Joel's "Honesty" for Destiny's Child's compilation album Mathew Knowles & Music World Present Vol.1: Love Destiny, which was released only in Japan to celebrate the group's tenth anniversary.

Rowland made a cameo appearance in Knowles' music video for her single "Party" (2011), and the group's third compilation album, Playlist: The Very Best of Destiny's Child, was released in 2012 to mark the fifteenth anniversary since their formation. The fourth compilation album, Love Songs, was released on January 29, 2013, and included the newly recorded song "Nuclear", produced by Pharrell Williams. "Nuclear" marked the first original music from Destiny's Child in eight years. The following month, Rowland and Williams appeared as special guests for Knowles' Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, where they performed "Bootylicious", "Independent Women" and Knowles' own song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". A video album titled Destiny's Child Video Anthology was released in May 2013 and featured sixteen of the group's music videos. Knowles and Williams were then featured on Rowland's song "You Changed" from her fourth solo album Talk a Good Game (2013). Later that year, Rowland and Williams made cameo appearances in the music videos for Knowles' songs "Superpower" and "Grown Woman", which were both included on her self-titled fifth solo visual album. Williams released the single "Say Yes" in June 2014, featuring Knowles and Rowland. They performed "Say Yes" together during the 2015 Stellar Awards, and the live version of the song was mastered for iTunes in April 2015. On November 7, 2016, the group reunited in a video to try the Mannequin Challenge, which was posted on Rowland's official Instagram account. The group reunited for Beyoncé's headline performance at Coachella in April 2018; the show was filmed and released as the Homecoming documentary and homonymous live album.

Musical style and themes
Destiny's Child recorded R&B songs with styles that encompass urban, contemporary, and dance-pop. In the group's original lineup, Knowles was the lead vocalist, Rowland was the second lead vocalist, Luckett was on soprano, and Roberson was on alto. Knowles remained as the lead vocalist in the group's final lineup as a trio, however, Rowland and Williams also took turns in singing lead for the majority of their songs. Destiny's Child has cited R&B singer Janet Jackson, En Vogue and TLC as their influences. Ann Powers of The New York Times described Destiny's Child music as "fresh and emotional ... these ladies have the best mixes, the savviest samples and especially the most happening beats." In the same publication, Jon Pareles noted that the sound that defines Destiny's Child, aside from Knowles' voice, "is the way its melodies jump in and out of double-time. Above brittle, syncopated rhythm tracks, quickly articulated verses alternate with smoother choruses." The group usually harmonize their vocals in their songs, especially on the ballads. In most instances of their songs, each member sings one verse and chimes in at the chorus. In their third album Survivor (2001), each member sings lead in the majority of the songs. Knowles said, "... everybody is a part of the music ... Everybody is singing lead on every song, and it's so great—because now Destiny's Child is at the point vocally and mentally that it should be at." Knowles, however, completely led songs like "Brown Eyes" and "Dangerously in Love 2". The group explored themes of sisterhood and women's empowerment in songs such as "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but have also been criticized for the anti-feminist message of songs such as "Cater 2 U" and "Nasty Girl".

Survivor contains themes interpreted by the public as a reference to the group's internal conflict. The title track, "Survivor", which set the theme used throughout the album, features the lyrics "I'm not gonna blast you on the radio ... I'm not gonna lie on you or your family ... I'm not gonna hate you in the magazine" caused Roberson and Luckett to file a lawsuit against the group; the lyrics were perceived to be a violation over their agreement following a settlement in court. In an interview, Knowles commented: "The lyrics to the single 'Survivor' are Destiny's Child's story because we've been through a lot, ... We went through our drama with the members ... Any complications we've had in our 10-year period of time have made us closer and tighter and better." In another song called "Fancy", which contains the lyrics "You always tried to compete with me, girl ... find your own identity", was interpreted by critic David Browne, in his review of the album for Entertainment Weekly magazine, as a response to the lawsuit. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic summarized Survivor as "a determined, bullheaded record, intent on proving Destiny's Child has artistic merit largely because the group survived internal strife. ... It's a record that tries to be a bold statement of purpose, but winds up feeling forced and artificial." Despite the album's receiving critical praise, Knowles' close involvement has occasionally generated criticism. Knowles wrote and co-produced the bulk of Survivor. Browne suggested that her help made Survivor a "premature, but inevitable, growing pains album". In the majority of the songs on their final studio album Destiny Fulfilled (2004), the verses are divided into three sections, with Knowles singing first, followed by Rowland, then Williams; the three harmonize together during the choruses.

Public image

Destiny's Child were compared to The Supremes, a 1960s American female singing group, with Knowles being compared to Supremes frontwoman Diana Ross; Knowles, however, has dismissed the notion. Coincidentally, Knowles starred in the film adaptation of the 1981 Broadway musical Dreamgirls as Deena Jones, the frontwoman of the Dreams, a female singing group based on the Supremes. With Knowles' wide role assumed in the production of Survivor, Gil Kaufman of MTV noted that "it became clear that Beyoncé was emerging as DC's unequivocal musical leader and public face". Her dominance to the creative input in the album made the album "very much her work". For Lola Ogunnaike of The New York Times, "It's been a long-held belief in the music industry that Destiny's Child was little more than a launching pad for Beyoncé Knowles' inevitable solo career."

In the wake of Knowles' debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), rumors spread about a possible split of Destiny's Child after each member had experienced solo success and had ongoing projects. Comparisons were drawn to Justin Timberlake, who did not return to band NSYNC after his breakthrough debut solo album, Justified. Rowland responded to such rumors, announcing they were back in the studio together. The group claimed that the reunion was destined to happen and that their affinity to each other kept them cohesive. Margeaux Watson, arts editor at Suede magazine, suggested that Knowles "does not want to appear disloyal to her former partners," and called her decision to return to the group "a charitable one". Knowles' mother, Tina, wrote a 2002-published book, titled Destiny's Style: Bootylicious Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle Secrets From Destiny's Child, an account of how fashion influenced Destiny's Child's success.

Legacy

Destiny's Child have been referred to as R&B icons, and have sold more than 60 million records worldwide. Following the disbandment of Destiny's Child, MTV's James Montgomery noted that "they have left a fairly sizable legacy behind" as "one of the best-selling female pop vocal groups in history." Billboard observed that Destiny's Child were "defined by a combination of feisty female empowerment anthems, killer dance moves and an enviable fashion sense," while Essence noted that they "set trends with their harmonious music and cutting-edge style." In 2015, Daisy Jones of Dazed Digital published an article on how the group made a significant impact in R&B music, writing "Without a hint of rose tint, Destiny's Child legitimately transformed the sound of R&B forever... their distinct influence can be found peppered all over today's pop landscape, from Tinashe to Ariana Grande." Nicole Marrow of The Cut magazine believed that R&B music in the 1990s and early 2000s "was virtually redefined by the success of powerhouse performers like TLC and Destiny's Child, who preached a powerful litany of embracing womanhood and celebrating individuality." Hugh McIntyre of Forbes wrote that before The Pussycat Dolls and Danity Kane burst onto the music scene in the mid-2000s, Destiny's Child were "the reigning queens" of the girl group genre.

Writing for Pitchfork, Katherine St. Asaph noticed how Destiny's Child defined the revival of girl groups similar to The Supremes in the early-to-mid-'90s, saying: "There is no better microcosm of what happened to Top 40 music between 1993 and 1999 than this. Bands like the “Star Search” winner were buried in a landfill of post-grunge, while R&B groups built out from soul and quiet storm to create a sound innovative enough to earn the “futuristic” label almost everything got in that pre-Y2K time. This bore itself out in the revival in the early-to-mid-’90s of excellent girl groups vaguely in the Supremes mold—TLC, En Vogue, SWV—but it would be Destiny’s Child who would become their true successors."

Destiny's Child's final lineup as a trio has been widely noted as the group's most recognizable and successful lineup. Billboard recognized them as one of the greatest musical trios of all time; they were also ranked as the third most successful girl group of all time on the Billboard charts, behind TLC and The Supremes. The group's single "Independent Women" (2000) ranked second on Billboard's list of the "Top 40 Biggest Girl Group Songs of All Time on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart". "Independent Women" was also acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the longest-running number-one song on the Hot 100 by a girl group. The term "Bootylicious" (a combination of the words booty and delicious) became popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same and was later added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. The term was also used to describe Beyoncé during the 2000s decade due to her curvaceous figure. VH1 included "Bootylicious" on their "100 Greatest Songs of the '00s" list in 2011, and Destiny's Child on their "100 Greatest Women in Music" list the following year. Additionally, "Independent Women" was ranked as one of NME's "100 Best Songs of the 00s". Destiny's Child was honored at the 2005 World Music Awards with the World's Best Selling Female Group of All Time Award, which included a 17-minute tribute performance by Patti LaBelle, Usher, Babyface, Rihanna, Amerie and Teairra Mari. In 2006, the group was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Destiny's Child has been credited as a musical influence or inspiration by several artists including Rihanna, Meghan Trainor, Fifth Harmony, Little Mix, Girls Aloud, Haim, Jess Glynne, Katy B, and RichGirl. Ciara was inspired to pursue a career in music after seeing Destiny's Child perform on television. Ariana Grande cited Destiny's Child as one of her vocal inspirations, saying that listening to the group's music is how she discovered her range and "learned about harmonies and runs and ad-libs." Meghan Trainor stated that her single "No" (2016) was inspired by the late 1990s and early 2000s sounds of Destiny's Child, NSYNC, and Britney Spears. Fifth Harmony cited Destiny's Child as their biggest inspiration, and even paid tribute to the group by performing a medley of "Say My Name", "Independent Women", "Bootylicious" and "Survivor" on the television show Greatest Hits. Fifth Harmony also incorporated elements of the intro from "Bootylicious" for the intro to their own song "Brave, Honest, Beautiful" (2015).

Discography

 * Destiny's Child (1998)
 * The Writing's on the Wall (1999)
 * Survivor (2001)
 * 8 Days of Christmas (2001)
 * Destiny Fulfilled (2004)

Tours

 * Headlining
 * Destiny's Child World Tour (2002)
 * Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It (2005)

 * Co-headlining
 * Total Request Live Tour (with 3LW, Dream, Jessica Simpson, City High, Eve and Nelly with the St. Lunatics) (2001)

 * Opening act
 * SWV World Tour (opened for SWV) (1996)
 * Evolution Tour (opened for Boyz II Men) (1998)
 * FanMail Tour (opened for TLC) (1999)
 * Introducing IMx Tour (opened for IMx) (2000)
 * Christina Aguilera in Concert (opened for Christina Aguilera) (2000)
 * (You Drive Me) Crazy Tour (opened for Britney Spears) (2000)

Awards and nominations
Destiny's Child has won three Grammy Awards from fourteen nominations. The group has also won five American Music Awards, two BET Awards, a BRIT Award, a Guinness World Record, and two MTV Video Music Awards.

title: Destiny's Child