Elena Bergeron
Just over a decade ago, during quiet times traveling between New York and Houston, Tina Knowles began to improvise, recording memories and childhood stories in voice notes on her cell phone.
Then 59, Knowles was still occupied stylizing and being the mother of her world conquering daughters, Beyoncé and Solange Knowles (she also considers Kelly Rowland and a niece, Angie Beyincé, like her) and had just divorced her husband after 31 years. There were several deaths in your family.
She wanted to leave a legacy for her children and grandchildren. “I started thinking about mortality and ‘I won’t be here forever,” she said. “I felt old; I felt sad.”
The result was the memoir “Matriarch” (which means matriarch in Portuguese), released last week in the United States, which brings the life of Knowles to the center of the stage. It has the drama of its creation in the segregated south and the journey of personal improvement of a working mother compelled to defend her children, but not to herself, as well as cautious optimism.
Knowles reveals for the first time that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024. After surgery and treatment, she is free from the disease – and daring to dress with “transparent mesh” after a reduction. “This was my positive side,” he says.
“My children love me and admire me and everything, but I think they also get a deeper understanding of me and why I did some of the things I did,” she said. “Once they read this book, they will understand much more.”
In some circles, Knowles, now 71, is a kind of mother on the internet, regularly filming silly videos and sometimes sharing childhood stories and tours of tours. Fan armies are also lurked for times when she inadvertently publishes photos not approved by her daughters.
When “Matriarch” was announced, Beyoncé showed his support on a post on social networks that also came with a warning. “I’m glad you share some of the stories that shaped her to who you are,” she wrote. “Knowing you is to love you. But please be careful.”
Her family is famously reserved and her starry descendants, including son-in-law Jay-Z, explore personal pain and triumphs in their own very deliberately produced art-and rarely elsewhere.
Although Knowles was keeping her voice notes when she was approached to write a memories book, she initially hesitated: “They will want to hear about my children; they won’t want to hear about me.” “That’s what I kept saying to myself, that no one wants to hear my story,” he says.
She gave in, imagining that she could compile the harmless behind -the -scenes that succeeded in her social networks. Some of these stories remain splashed throughout “Matriarch”. As a hairdresser of Destiny’s Child’s first video, “No, No, No (Part 2),” Knowles realized that she had not taken enough extensions to the set, so cut blond locks from her own head until Beyonce had a ready -made look look.
These memories often serve another purpose: detailing the arduous battle that the whole family faced in the search for musical careers. After signing with Columbia Records, the label’s executives belittled the home style of Destiny’s Child.
“No one understood,” said Stephanie Gayle, who was the label’s vice president of marketing in an interview. “Tina was doing her hair. Tina was responsible for the clothes. Every video recording, all we did, was just a complaint, complaint, because they just didn’t understand.”
Some of Destiny’s Child’s most iconic looks – as the torn camouflage of the “Survivor” video – were the result of Knowles’s quick thinking and the label’s budgetying petty. Although the group entered the number 1 singles and became one of the best -selling female groups in history, the budgets continued to decrease, with Knowles would be awake all night by adding rhinestones or draft fabrics. “This is Tina,” said Gayle.
But instead of chained behind -the -scenes stories, “Matriarch” goes to the root of why Knowles ended up spending all her creative energy on her girls’ careers without keeping that glamor for herself. And why she remained in a marriage she, she writes, was challenged by infidelity from the beginning.
The book is also the first time she publicly recognizes this tension. Mathew Knowles refused to comment, but called his union “a great team” in terms of business and confirmed that he had received parts of the book that refer to him before the publication.
Born as the youngest of the seven children of Agnes Buyince, Knwoles earned the nickname “Badass Tenie B” of the older brothers for their stubborn way and sharp tongue. According to her, Agnes transmitted what was known about family history: that both his great -grandmother and his grandmother fought to prevent her children from being sold or separated during slavery. As this was done remains a mystery.
Agnes was a seamstress who exchanged clothing for her children’s enrollment at a Catholic primary school where, according to Knowles, nuns stood out for punishments (sometimes bodily) because she did not belong to the group of children of the city’s black class. When Knowles was running home after being humiliated or assaulted, her mother took her back to the class to apologize.
“It never left me because it left an indelible mark on my brain and I’m sure in my self -esteem,” she said in a flow of talking conscience. “On the one hand, I was this person who was a great fighter. But, on the other hand, I think it shaped my relationships. I think it shaped my self -esteem and sometimes [sentia] That I simply was not worthy and I have scars that I will take to the tomb. “
The ability to beautify things and people, Knowles learned, could be a means of survival and advancement. Opening a busy haircut in Houston that attended black professionals, Knowles wore their designers with high heels and gave them newspaper articles to read so they could keep conversations with customers.
In writing about her life to the public, Knowles tries a deeply difficult feat for someone so close to such a great celebrity: claiming the facts of her life as more than just fans service.
When she started researching genealogy on the internet while researching the book, Knowles could not be sure that the information had not been filled by fans. A search for his single -grandmother’s single grandmother showed a branch of women who all had solange as a middle name. Knowles thought he had found a fraud.
She asked a researcher to help investigate and in minutes he called to say that the information was legitimate. “I sent a message to my girls, and Solange answered me, ‘Mom, what kind of voodoo mess is this?'”
Knowles’s famous daughters do not appear until chapter 15, and their fierce protection of them shapes much of what it is – and it is not – in the book. When I suggest that this book of memories, with its themes of maternal lineage and revelation about infidelity, made me think of how your experience may have connected with “Lemonade”, Beyoncé’s album that explores the same topics, Knowles said very definitely, “I won’t talk about it”.
Despite the insatiable appetite of the public by any crumbs about their children, “Matriarch” is resolutely a book about Tina Knowles. “I still think I have some fear too,” she said, she said, adding that she sent her children and ex-husbands the passages that mention them by name. “And then I started dealing with the fact that this is my story.”
Source: Folha
I am Frederick Tuttle, who works in 247 News Agency as an author and mostly cover entertainment news. I have worked in this industry for 10 years and have gained a lot of experience. I am a very hard worker and always strive to get the best out of my work. I am also very passionate about my work and always try to keep up with the latest news and trends.
