Kelly Rowland experienced a meteoric rise to fame in the late 1990s with
Destiny's Child, one of the most successful vocal groups of all time. Since the early 2000s, the singer, songwriter, and actor has been a strong force in pop-R&B as a solo artist, remaining either slightly ahead of the curve or naturally adapting to trends with remarkable stylistic flexibility.
Rowland began her solo career during a break from
Destiny's Child with
Simply Deep (2002). The gold-certified album was boosted by "Dilemma," a number one hit in the U.S. and abroad that won a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. Following the 2006 disbandment of
Destiny's Child,
Rowland has broadened her work in films and on television while continuing to flourish as a recording artist.
Ms. Kelly (2007),
Here I Am (2011), and
Talk a Good Game (2013), her second through fourth studio albums, all hit the Top Ten. Her studio work has picked up again with an assortment of singles, EPs entitled The Kelly Rowland Edition (2019) and
K (2021), and the soundtrack of Bad Hair, in which she co-starred.
Originally from Atlanta, Kelendria Trene Rowland began singing as a youngster, after she heard
Whitney Houston.
Rowland then sang in the church choir, but her interest in performing truly blossomed after she and her family moved to Houston. In Texas, she became fast friends with
Beyoncé Knowles and even moved into the Knowles household. She joined Girls Tyme, a group
Knowles co-founded, in 1992. Girls Tyme developed into
Destiny's Child, who in 1997 debuted with the single "No No No," their first of ten Top Ten pop hits. A self-titled first album followed in early 1998 and went platinum before the end of that year. Second and third albums
The Writing's on the Wall and
Survivor only increased the group's popularity into the early 2000s.
Following
Survivor, the members of
Destiny's Child took a break to pursue solo projects through
Columbia, also home to the group's output.
Michelle Williams, who had joined
DC in 2000, fired first with
Heart to Yours.
Rowland followed later in 2002 with
Simply Deep. That album's first single, "Dilemma," a collaboration with
Nelly that originally appeared on
Nellyville, had a two-month stay at number one, while "Stole," one of the LP's unexpected diversions into adult alternative rock, reached the Top 40. After "Dilemma" won the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy Award for that year,
Destiny's Child reconvened for
Destiny Fulfilled, their fourth proper album, and went on a world tour that would be the group's farewell.
Rowland had been working on her second solo release, which went through a number of changes in direction until it finally surfaced in July 2007 as
Ms. Kelly. More R&B-oriented than her debut,
Ms. Kelly peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 and yielded a Top 40 hit with "Like This" (featuring
Eve), a go-go-inflected single produced by
Polow da Don.
Rowland subsequently split from manager
Matthew Knowles, as well as her label. She scored a number one hit in the U.K. as vocalist and co-writer of EDM producer
David Guetta's "When Love Takes Over," which was also nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Dance Recording.
Rowland signed a new solo deal with Universal Motown, completed her third album,
Here I Am, and after several delays released it in July 2011. The slow and steamy single "Motivation," produced by
Jim Jonsin and
Rico Love and featuring
Lil Wayne, rode the top of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for several weeks, crossed into the Top 20 of the Hot 100, and later earned
Rowland another Grammy nomination for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. A stylistically broad set,
Here I Am also contained collaborations with
Guetta, Rodney Jerkins,
Stargate, and
Ne-Yo.
Talk a Good Game, the singer's fourth solo album, followed on the Republic label in June 2013 with appearances from
Beyoncé and
Michelle Williams, as well as
the-Dream,
Wiz Khalifa, and
Pusha T. This set entered the Billboard 200 at number four and placed two singles on the charts.
During the next several years,
Rowland released the occasional single and did some one-off collaborations. Already familiar to viewers of the U.K. and U.S. versions of the competitive singing series The X Factor, among other reality series for which she served as judge or coach, she joined the panel of the Australian X Factor in 2017. She portrayed
Gladys Knight in the 2019 movie American Soul, and appeared in the 2020 films Bad Hair and
Beyoncé's Black Is King. In addition to her role in Bad Hair,
Rowland worked extensively on the soundtrack with director Justin Simien and composer
Kris Bowers. Amid all this activity,
Rowland self-released singles, as well as The Kelly Rowland Edition and
K, a pair of EPs that landed respectively in 2019 and 2021. ~ Andy Kellman