Solange Knowles, Beyoncé"s Sister, Takes Life on Her Own Terms SHE has a million-plus followers on Twitter, but often walks her son to school. She was interviewed by Italian Vogue, but goes incognito to pop-up parties in Chinatown. She vacations on yachts in Europe, but talks giddily of sneaking into the Chick-fil-A in Greenwich Village. Since moving to New York City from Los Angeles last fall, Solange Knowles has kept up a dual life. Her public persona includes D.J."ing a party at the Ferragamo store on Fifth Avenue and posing for V magazine. But her schedule also includes going to see avant-garde musicians like Grimes in Brooklyn warehouses and attending fund-raising meetings at her 7-year-old son's school. "The strollers don't bother me, but the intensity of the moms does," she said of her new neighborhood, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Everyone does so much yoga and drinks so much tea. And while she is acclimating to New York, the shadow of Beyoncé Knowles, her older sister, extends like a skyscraper. During a recent lunch at Walter Foods, a restaurant in Williamsburg, Ms. Knowles glanced around the patio with a sense of relief. When she dined there with her sister several months earlier, she said, patrons ogled them and reached for camera phones. "It did not feel like this," she said, pausing from her steak salad to gesture at diners minding their own business. She wore a flowing white Tucker dress, Alexander Wang heels and powder-blue Prada sunglasses. "I'm so proud," she added, "of her success, but I could not do that. It's given me a pretty clear blueprint on what I don't want to happen. Instead of pursuing pop stardom, Ms. Knowles has wrapped herself in indie cred - a Pitchfork-approved chanteuse, boldfaced D.J. and fashion ambassador, as comfortable on the party pages of Paper magazine as she is on Beyoncé"s Tumblr blog. It's an appealingly spongy zone of celebrity for the 25-year-old. Ms. Knowles was born in Houston in an upper-middle-class household; her father was a successful salesman at Xerox and her mother ran a beauty salon. But in the late "90s, the rise of Destiny's Child turned the Knowles clan into an entertainment juggernaut. Beyoncé was the star, their father was the manager, and their mother was the stylist and choreographer. Kelly Rowland, another singer in the group, moved in with the family. Solange never joined Destiny's Child, but began traveling with the group as a backup dancer at 13, after a performer became pregnant. "It felt very orthodox in its own twisted way," she said of spending most of her high school years on tour. While her mother urged patience, Ms. Knowles followed her sister's path, pursuing a career as a singer and songwriter in her teenage years. Neither her debut album ("Solo Star," in 2003) nor her sophomore effort ("Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams," 2008) was a commercial success, but music seemed a secondary pursuit. At 18, she gave birth to Daniel Julez J. Smith II, which put her career and education on standby. She married his father, Daniel Smith, and moved to Los Angeles, then to rural Idaho, where he attended college. They divorced in 2007, and Ms. Knowles split time between Houston and Los Angeles, where she still owns houses. But New York City beckoned, not only because her family is now on the East Coast, but also for professional opportunities. "I've been trying to talk her into going to Brooklyn for six years," Beyoncé said. It's so close to her personality. She's such a fashionista - she'll get used to it. Indeed, Ms. Knowles has made an impression. Last fall, she sat in the front row at runway shows for Rodarte and Vera Wang, D.J."ed a Rimmel cosmetics party in London and hit the Kenzo and Kanye West shows in Paris. She has earned attention for mixing designer labels with vintage pieces and incorporates bright colors (especially yellow and purple) that routinely inspire "hot or not" polls on style blogs. In January, she signed with Next Model Management. "Solange can wear anything she wants," said Humberto Leon, a co-owner of Opening Ceremony, the influential SoHo boutique, who has booked Ms. Knowles to D.J. at several events. I've enjoyed watching her evolution as a style icon. Brooklyn is also fertile soil for indie music. Despite her R & B origins, she has deftly infiltrated the genre, remaking a song by the Dirty Projectors, recording with Of Montreal and collaborating with Grizzly Bear and Twin Shadow. "I sort of witnessed her charm the whole indie world in the last two years," said Alain Macklovitch, a D.J. who performs under the name A-Trak. When he gave Ms. Knowles a D.J. tutorial a few years back, he was surprised by her omnivorous musical diet. I realized pretty quickly that she had broad musical taste that was totally different from what you expected. She was ahead of the curve. Some skeptics say Ms. Knowles has curled leftward as a reaction to her sister's pop prominence. Hipster Runoff, a satirical culture blog, described her as an "alt hipster blipster songstress" and wrote last March that "Solange Knowles is on a never-ending quest to find her niche in the indiesphere." Ms. Knowles bristles at the accusation. "There's always going to be a bit of mystery as to how two people who grew up in the same household have different interests," Ms. Knowles said, referring to her sister. I'm younger than her, and even in five years, there's a total gap in how you're exposed to musical things and fashion and art. Despite her familial advantages, Ms. Knowles still has a younger sibling's stubborn streak. While she has helped to write several songs for Beyoncé - "Get Me Bodied" and "Upgrade U," among them - she has declined any professional help from her more famous sister. "My sister will not record with me," Beyoncé said. She's her own woman.