Photoshoot

Magazine Cover

At 30, PEOPLE’s 2012 World’s Most Beautiful Woman has many accomplishments on her résumé, including being a 16-time Grammy winner, an actress and a style and beauty icon. But none is more important than her newest role: playing mom to daughter Blue Ivy, whom she and husband of four years, Jay-Z, welcomed in January. “I feel more beautiful than I’ve ever felt because I’ve given birth,” she says. “I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a sense of purpose on this earth.”

Congrats! Peep a behind the scenes video of her shoot below: