Dotchin only knows one other female plumber and one female student plumber. "We shared the lead part in the school play and learned the songs and the little dance routines together. It was [sings]: 'I got no strings to hold me down / to make me fret or make me frown.'"With LaTavia Robertson and Kelly Rowland, Knowles, then nine, was already singing in a group called Girl's Tyme. In 1993 Luckett joined the outfit at the ripe old age of 11, and when Knowles's mother, Tina, found a phrase in the Book Of Isaiah that she liked, the vocal quartet was renamed Destiny's Child."It was demanding to be in a serious band so young," Luckett admits. "We had to go to singing lessons at 6am and we sacrificed part of our childhood. We were pulled out of school in the sixth grade, so we didn't get to go to the prom or do any of that homecoming queen stuff It was exciting, though.
We were very keen and focused for a bunch of kids."It seems fitting that Knowles and Luckett first teamed up on songs from Pinocchio. The way that Luckett and Robertson tell it, Knowles's father, Mathew, was the puppet master of Destiny's Child. With Luckett and Robertson living chez Knowles for a time, Mathew's influence on them as guardian/manager was considerable. But it was Knowles, so the story goes, who got to sing the best lines and wear the prettiest dresses.Any squabbles were innocuous, though, compared with those that arose once Destiny's Child became successful.
When the group released their 1999 breakthrough album The Writing's On The Wall, Luckett and Robertson were seeking to free themselves from Mathew's management contract, claiming he kept a disproportionate share of profits.Luckett and Robertson had not intended to leave the group, but the die was already cast. When the video for "Say My Name" premiered in February 2000, they learnt of their sacking. Featuring Knowles and Rowland lip-synching to a Luckett co-write, the promo also introduced new children of destiny Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin. (Franklin would soon go the way of Luckett and Robertson.) Naturally, her sacking is not something Luckett is keen to talk about now but, when pushed, she says the saddest thing was losing such close friendships "We were so young," she says.
