V
MASTERING THE CULTURE AND THE LIFESTYLE—ONE PAGE AT A TIME
ON RESORTS
AND ISLANDS
Music’s hardest-working
couple reigns supreme
We see you, Jayoncé: Don’t mess with
Texas plus Do-or-Die Bed-Stuy. North and
South. Virgo and Sagittarius—Earth and
Fire amid the winds of those who would
wage war against you. Beautiful, ultratal-
ented, imaginative, thorough—and at the
top of what we keep calling “the game.”

ELIOT PRESS/ BAUER-GRIFFIN.COM; PHOTOGRAPHED ON JUNE 15, 2005. AT PAMPELONNE BEACH, SAINT-TROPEZ.

If it is a game—this music business, this film industry, this fashion world, this multinational, multitiered, conglom-sponsored, blood-red diamond-rocking new jet set— then it’s all ladders, no chutes, for Beyoncé Knowles and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. They’re all the more potent and spellbinding as a couple for never quite acknowledging the fact that they’re together (and everywhere to boot: in performance, at a New Jersey Nets game, or, as pictured here, on a rare and splendid holiday). Their previous public trials—the myriad incarnations of Destiny’s Child and the struggle for control of Roc-A-Fella Records—all melt away in the face of what seems (to those around them who dare whisper a word) a true, complicated, elaborate, and hardworking love.

And this month there’s the new Kingdom
Come from Jay-Z and Dreamgirls, the
soundtrack and the film, featuring Beyoncé.
Yeah, we surely do see you, Jayoncé. All up
in the Winner’s Circle. Big money and big
love, hot ’n’ heavy…all the way to Candy
Land. And Monopoly. DSW