This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
You know you’ve made it when you can go by just your first name.
Luckily for Destiny’s Child uber-diva Beyoncé Knowles, she wasn’t born wit the first name Eunice. But even if she didn’t have such a fame-friendly moniker — not to mention her burgeoning film career and romance with rap mogul Jay-Z — her appealing debut solo disc Dangerously In Love would be enough to position her as the next megastar of stage, screen and supermarket tabloid.
From the instantly addictive horn lines that kick off Crazy In Love, it’s obvious this hour-long set was precision-engineered to storm the charts with a vengeance. All the necessary ingredients are here: The crunktastic grooves and infectious melodies; the name-that-tune samples and rewrites; the breathy boudoir ballads and seductive slow-grinders; the slate of VIP guests like Luther Vandross, Missy Elliott and (natch) Jay-Z; the musical-cred excursions into dancehall and raga; and, of course, the mandatory snapshots of Beyoncé sans undies.
Which is not to say Dangerously In Love is all that and a bag of chips all the time. Despite her impressive vocal chops, Knowles sometimes seems to have trouble standing out amid all the starpower and fireworks. And like too many hip-hop records, this 14-track affair is either too long or too frontloaded — the hits seem to run out about mid-set and the longer the disc goes on, the less satisfying it becomes. Still, with Dangerously In Love, Beyoncé oughta have no trouble convincing millions of music fans to say her name.
