Grown Woman: Beyoncé's Best Girl Power Anthems

Celebrating the Bey-day with a look at her catalog of hits.

Happy Birthday, Beyoncé! - Beyoncé's had a phenomenal year since her last birthday. She continued to prove she's "more than just his little wife" with her solo world tour, dropped a self-titled album of music videos and made the world bow down to her role as one-half of music's most powerful couple with a joint jaunt with her hubby Jay Z, all the while mommying her beautiful daughter, Blue Ivy.What better way to celebrate all that female empowerment (and another turn around the sun) than with a look back at 10 of Bey's best girl power anthems? Destiny's Child hits included, too, of course. Read on.  –– Sia Tiambi (@tiambi)(Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainment/Getty Images)

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Happy Birthday, Beyoncé! - Beyoncé's had a phenomenal year since her last birthday. She continued to prove she's "more than just his little wife" with her solo world tour, dropped a self-titled album of music videos and made the world bow down to her role as one-half of music's most powerful couple with a joint jaunt with her hubby Jay Z, all the while mommying her beautiful daughter, Blue Ivy.What better way to celebrate all that female empowerment (and another turn around the sun) than with a look back at 10 of Bey's best girl power anthems? Destiny's Child hits included, too, of course. Read on.  –– Sia Tiambi (@tiambi)(Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for Parkwood Entertainment/Getty Images)

"Independent Women," Destiny's Child - "Question: How'd you like this knowledge that I brought/ Braggin' on that cash that he gave you is to front/If you're gonna brag make sure it's your money you flaunt/Depend on no one else to give you what you want," Bey spits melodically for this Charlie's Angels soundtrack cut.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Independent Women," Destiny's Child - "Question: How'd you like this knowledge that I brought/ Braggin' on that cash that he gave you is to front/If you're gonna brag make sure it's your money you flaunt/Depend on no one else to give you what you want," Bey spits melodically for this Charlie's Angels soundtrack cut.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Bootylicious" - When Beyoncé sang "my body is too bootylicious for you...baby," for this 2001 hit, the song's title became the mantra for bodacious body lovers across the globe. However, while Queen Bey helped to mass distribute the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, credit for the term actually belongs to Snoop Dogg, who first used it in 1992.(Photo: Sony Music)

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"Bootylicious," Destiny's Child - "Bootylicious" was more than a fun-loving song celebrating curves, it changed the vernacular of what is accepted as beautiful so much so that it became an official entry in the dictionary.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Bills, Bills, Bills" - There was much DC slander when this first dropped in 1999. The all-girl group was deemed a bunch of "man-haters" and Yonkers-based rap group Sporty Thievz even spoofed it with "No Bills (Why, Why, Why)." But before that infectious hook, Bey lyrically breaks it down, "At first we started out real cool ... But now, you're getting comfortable/Ain't doing those things you did no more/You're slowly making me pay for things/Your money should be handling." Or, in other words, dude tried to pull the okie-doke and she checked him. Girl power.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Bills, Bills, Bills" - There was much DC slander when this first dropped in 1999. The all-girl group was deemed a bunch of "man-haters" and Yonkers-based rap group Sporty Thievz even spoofed it with "No Bills (Why, Why, Why)." But before that infectious hook, Bey lyrically breaks it down, "At first we started out real cool ... But now, you're getting comfortable/Ain't doing those things you did no more/You're slowly making me pay for things/Your money should be handling." Or, in other words, dude tried to pull the okie-doke and she checked him. Girl power.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Me, Myself and I," Beyoncé - Beyoncé smooths it out with this cut about a cheating man who has no problem leaving his three children with her. Instead of taking the emotional abuse, she decides, really, she's her own best friend. (And, in the video, she decides to key his car; kids, don't try that at home.)(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Me, Myself and I," Beyoncé - Beyoncé smooths it out with this cut about a cheating man who has no problem leaving his three children with her. Instead of taking the emotional abuse, she decides, really, she's her own best friend. (And, in the video, she decides to key his car; kids, don't try that at home.)(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Girl," Destiny's Child - This 2005 "Sex in the City" remake video accompanied one of DC's lowest-charting songs, a.k.a. one of the realest. In 2013, Kelly revealed that the cut was actually about a very serious experience that she endured (and that she revisits in "Dirty Laundry," along with a confession about how it affected her relationship with Bey).(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Girl," Destiny's Child - This 2005 "Sex in the City" remake video accompanied one of DC's lowest-charting songs, a.k.a. one of the realest. In 2013, Kelly revealed that the cut was actually about a very serious experience that she endured (and that she revisits in "Dirty Laundry," along with a confession about how it affected her relationship with Bey).(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Irreplaceable," Beyoncé - Every rapper knows a lil' ish-talking can help lift the spirit. Plus, this anthem for the brokenhearted features Bey's all-female band, the Suga Mamas, in it and they rock.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Irreplaceable," Beyoncé - Every rapper knows a lil' ish-talking can help lift the spirit. Plus, this anthem for the brokenhearted features Bey's all-female band, the Suga Mamas, in it and they rock.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Freakum Dress," Beyoncé - Shout out to her Grammy-winning "Single Ladies," but this cut about going to the club made the list because girl power isn't always about being solo. Beyoncé dedicated this track to a woman who just needs a moment before going home to a man who's been acting up. Mama Knowles (Tina) designed the freakum dresses for the video.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"Freakum Dress," Beyoncé - Shout out to her Grammy-winning "Single Ladies," but this cut about going to the club made the list because girl power isn't always about being solo. Beyoncé dedicated this track to a woman who just needs a moment before going home to a man who's been acting up. Mama Knowles (Tina) designed the freakum dresses for the video.(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"Run the World (Girls)," Beyoncé - Who runs the world? Obvi. Girls got this one, so says a horse-riding Beyoncé with her army of female soldiers and a couple of Tofo Tofo dancers straight from Mozambique. The track is one of the more aggressive beats Bey's jumped on (before she went all Beyoncé on us).(Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Records)

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"Run the World (Girls)," Beyoncé - Who runs the world? Obvi. Girls got this one, so says a horse-riding Beyoncé with her army of female soldiers and a couple of Tofo Tofo dancers straight from Mozambique. The track is one of the more aggressive beats Bey's jumped on (before she went all Beyoncé on us).(Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Records)

"No, No, No Part 1" Destiny's Child - No, really, Beyoncé woke up like this. DC's debut single (circa 1998) is about a woman being truthful about her feelings and requiring that her male counterpart do the same. For the video (definitely worth the throwback viewing) the ladies donned themselves in ... what is that, velvet?(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

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"No, No, No Part 1" Destiny's Child - No, really, Beyoncé woke up like this. DC's debut single (circa 1998) is about a woman being truthful about her feelings and requiring that her male counterpart do the same. For the video (definitely worth the throwback viewing) the ladies donned themselves in ... what is that, velvet?(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Music)

"***Flawless" - Kicking off with "Bow Down" — the chopped and screwed banger fans heard earlier in the year — "***Flawless" is a hybrid of two concepts. Mid-song, Bey swtiches from commanding that her adversaries "bow down b-----s" to a call for female empowerment.  (Photo: Columbia Records)

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"***Flawless" Beyoncé Featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Achibie - First, don't be surprised that Bey uses the word "b---h." It popped up on the tender "Flaws and All" in '06. Second, in this video, Bey gives us the trillest beautiful nightmare of a dance for waking up "flawless." Contradictory? No. Being a woman — perfectly imperfect and all — ain't easy. Third, fourth and fifth, Bey features Chimamanda Ngozi Achibie's TED Talk "We Should All Be Feminists" on the track, and Nicki Minaj (who, in her own "Anaconda"-like way, is also a symbol of feminism) on the remix. You know, Bey, we just might all be feminists thanks to your career.(Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Records)