Only an extremely old-school Destiny’s Child (DC) fan would honestly recognize the group that appeared under the DC banner from when the band was just starting out because they’ve all changed so much since then. Speaking of the band starting out must spark a few questions, and so you might wonder: what was their first song?
Destiny’s Child’s first song was ‘Killing Time’, released in 1997 shortly after the band signed with Columbia Records. Two years later, the band made it to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with their single ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’.
Read more below about how the band left their mark on the music industry and the reason behind why the group eventually parted after nine years as an active girl group.
Slow and Steady Rise To Fame
Still in their juvenile years, the trio was assembled by their acting manager (and Beyoncé’s father) Mathew Knowles in Houston in 1990, and it featured his 9-year-old little girl, Beyoncé, and her companion LaTavia Roberson. Taking their name from a section in the Book of Isaiah, the pair – who met at a tryout – included Beyoncé’s cousin, Kelendria “Kelly” Rowland, to the mix in 1992 and started becoming famous on the neighborhood scene with a performance that consisted of singing and rapping.
Not long after Rowland signed up, the trio made their debut on the American entertainment show, Star Search, where they rapped as opposed to singing in their now-signature three-section song.
In a 2019 interview with Insider’s Olivia Singh, Kelly recalled the moment it was announced that the band had lost Star Search. “We just cried so hard, because we were so excited about the opportunity and everything. But also beyond that, we still felt there was something inside that was just like, ‘No, we’re still going to make it.’”
The group’s unique setup was solidified in 1993 with the expansion of LeToya Luckett, and the group of four took to the street, taking care of obligations opening for everybody from SWV and Dru Hill to Immature.
Following four difficult years, they signed with Columbia Records in 1997 and made their recorded debut single that year with the melody ‘Killing Time’ which later appeared on the soundtrack to Men in Black. DC’s self-named debut dropped the following year, with Jermaine Dupri, Wyclef Jean and Corey Rooney assisting its formation.
Shortly after, DC exploded like a bomb, shooting into the public eye with the cheeky lead single, ‘Bills, Bills, Bills,’ a smackdown to men who don’t take care of themselves. It turned into their first number-one single in the late spring of 1999, and their album appeared at number six. The complementary follow up single, ‘Bug a Boo,’ hit the main 40, however, was only a small taste of what was to come with perhaps the greatest hit of their entire career, ‘Say My Name.’
Staying Together Not Part Of Their Destiny
Across their career, the girl group achieved so much more than they probably originally expected to given that the first blow was early on in their career after they lost Star Search which would’ve made it easy to be disheartened. However, the group were something special and even won not one but two Grammy awards for their popular hit ‘Say My Name.’
But why did they disband?
According to a statement via Today, the group said in 2005, “After a lot of discussion and some deep soul-searching, we realized that our current [2005] tour has given us the opportunity to leave Destiny’s Child on a high note, united in our friendship and filled with an overwhelming gratitude for our music, our fans, and each other.”
Nonetheless, Destiny’s Child still remains one of the most successful girl groups in the history of R&B and pop music history.
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