Finding her way, post-Destiny

WHEN you’ve fulfilled your destiny by age 24, what do you do for an encore?

Kelly Rowland of the superstar singing group Destiny’s Child will face that question soon enough, when the R&B-pop; trio will amicably split up after its current concert tour ends next month. But Rowland, still on the road with group mates Beyonce Knowles and Michelle Williams, isn’t focusing on the future just yet. “Right now, my No. 1 priority is the tour,” she says.

The singers have already had a taste of life -- and success -- on their own. After 2001’s smash album “Survivor,” they temporarily concentrated on solo projects.

Knowles made the biggest splash, with her “Dangerously in Love” album going multi-platinum and winning five Grammy Awards in 2004; she also launched an acting career with the Austin Powers film “Goldmember” in 2002 and “The Fighting Temptations” the next year. Williams released two hit gospel albums and starred in the Broadway musical “Aida.” Rowland’s 2003 “Simply Deep” yielded the chart topping, Grammy-winning Nelly duet “Dilemma.” Rowland also starred in that year’s slasher flick “Freddy vs. Jason” and the 2004 indie romantic comedy “The Seat Filler,” in which she played a pop star who falls for a law student.

Destiny’s Child reconvened for last year’s “Destiny Fulfilled,” which has sold 2.8 million copies. The tour supporting the album brings them to the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim next Thursday and Staples Center on Sept. 2. Just eight days later comes the last stop, in Vancouver.

Rowland hasn’t completely mapped out a game plan for the DC-free future, but one thing is certain: There will be time off.

“I think you’ll hear all of us talking about vacations,” says the singer, who speaks glowingly of the love and support she enjoys in the group, although it has seen more than its share of strife, lawsuits and personnel changes since officially forming in 1990.

“We have to go back and refuel, and we definitely have to refuel with some kind of ocean view, and some kind of really fattening fried something,” she adds, laughing. “Someplace where we can just be us, be Southern girls and just chill.”

She often talks in the plural form. After all, she’s been part of this team since 1992; planning in the singular doesn’t seem to come naturally. Not that Rowland isn’t looking forward to following her own path -- including another solo album and, she hopes, more acting -- but the finality of Destiny’s end hasn’t quite taken hold.

“I think I’m going to really feel it the last three or five shows,” says the Atlanta-born artist. “There’s a part of our show where we come together, and we do this little two-step, and we hold each other. And we kind of get wrapped up into it, because you think about, ‘Oh, my God, it’s going to be the last show, and we can only do this for the last time, and how is that going to make me feel?’ ”

Ending Destiny’s Child is “bittersweet for us, of course,” she says. “The sweet thing is embracing growth and supporting each other throughout all of our endeavors.” These include Williams’ fall Gap commercials, in which she sings Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” and Knowles’ work in the upcoming remake of “The Pink Panther” as well as the silver-screen version of the musical “Dreamgirls.”

Rowland has begun to plan her next album. “I’m in the process of thinking about who I want to work with,” she says, explaining that she seeks a producer “who has a new, refreshing sound.... I don’t care who the person is; he [could be] making beats in his basement in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or wherever.”

Although she’s happy to contemplate recording and writing songs that will “just talk about what’s going on with me,” she’s still mulling other projects.

She has a soft spot for kids in need and would like to get involved with charity work for autism. And she’d love to appear in more movies and TV shows. But, although Williams aspires to create a line of bath-and-body products, and Knowles is going full steam ahead with her fashion designing, “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” Rowland says.

“I’ll have to think of something, I guess, that’s more like me.”

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Destiny’s Child

Where: Arrowhead Pond, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim

When: 8 p.m. next Thursday

Price: $37.25 to $97.25

Info: (714) 704-2500

Also

Where: Staples Center, 1111 S. Figueroa St., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Sept. 2

Price: $37.25 to $97.25

Info: (213) 742-7340