Beyoncé: Lady sings the blues

Upstairs, in the hotel's window-walled penthouse, the 27-year-old sat back, sipped a glass of water and announced that, like her suit, she was all about business with flair: "Barbra Streisand, that's the career model for me, I want to be like her. She is just the ultimate. And I want to be an icon too."

It's a bold statement, but Beyoncé is someone willing to pursue her goals fearlessly. She got her first record deal when most kids are getting their driver's licenses, and she recently married longtime love Jay-Z, the rapper whose relentless careerism is legend. At this point, she must move past any remaining preconceptions that she's like the character she played in the lavish musical "Dreamgirls," a talented beauty without truly defining textures, a torch singer without real fire.

A pair of new projects might shatter finally any such notions. The singer has a new double album, "I am . . . Sasha Fierce," which follows the model of notable releases in recent years from OutKast and Justin Timberlake in bundling two conceptually different discs into one package. Here, "Sasha Fierce" is the pop glamour and dance-floor manifesto while "I am . . . " is the surprise, a collection that might be expected more from Alicia Keys with its neo-soul emotion.

That disc is a companion piece of sorts to Beyoncé's upcoming film, "Cadillac Records," in which she plays Etta James. James, who was born Jamesette Hawkins in Los Angeles in 1938, still performs at blues festivals and was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2002. Her signature hit was the swooning ballad "At Last," which has become a staple of film and commercials, but her grittier soul recordings made her a key influence on singers such as Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt. Beyoncé said the singer was "a powerful woman but also so troubled, and that comes across in her music."