Solange Knowles Doesn’t Want Commercial Success with Her Music

Solange Knowles is for many just Beyonce’s younger sister, the one who will never have the same success as her and whose fashion choices, along with so much more, will always be criticized. For her fans, though, she is the epitome of the artist not afraid to go against mainstream by simply turning her back to it completely. In fact, her music has always been about that, rejecting standards and given values, as Solange herself puts it in the latest issue of Honey Magazine.

No matter what critics say – not that this affects her in the least –, Solange never wanted or strove for commercial success, she says. She’s not even being a hypocrite when she asserts that because, by rejecting mainstream tendencies, not only did she get to do what she liked the most and create her own, unmistakable sound, but she also won a fanbase that would stick with her through thick and thin. She’d rather know her music is appreciated by a select few, intelligent and well-read people, than sell millions of records and fade like a shooting star afterwards.

“I mostly feel proud that I literally, everyday, come in contact with somebody who was affected by my music because it was so personal and honest. […] Those are the moments where I feel really proud that I followed my heart and made something that I was really proud of instead of conforming to expectations. There were definitely fights along the way about not getting the radio or video support, but I would much rather be in a marketplace full of really smart, intellectual, and cultured young people who I can grow with. I feel like I can have a longer lasting and less gimmicky and for-the-moment response. It makes me feel very secure in my career, because I know I make music that may not matter to an astounding number of people, but the people that it does matter to are more like me. They have the same interest as me.” Solange says of her music career so far.

She’s now working on a new album, and it promises to be just as tongue-in-cheek and in-your-face like her previous work. Solange prides herself in never selling out because she has already made peace with the fact that she’ll never get the same media and mass support as her sister, Beyonce, she says. What gets her through the day and contributes to the feeling of satisfaction she has when she looks back is knowing that she does what she likes, without compromising and, most importantly, that there are people out there who appreciate that: her fans.

“It was never my intention to have this huge commercial success because otherwise, I would have made other kinds of records. I know how to write pop [and radio] records. I’ve written them for other people. But that isn’t the music that inspires me. It isn’t the music that I feel good about performing or that makes me want to get up and push every morning and be in 10,000 cities in one month promoting. I think people are the ones to put expectations on you. I never really put expectations on myself. I know that it’s a business and the record label has to make a profit from it. I understand that side of things, but at the end of the day it was always my goal to do exactly what I was able to do. That makes me feel really good.” Solange further explains.