Mathew Knowles EXCLUSIVE on Beyoncé, Destiny’s Child & More

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Speaker 1: Reality with the King is hosted by me, Carlos King. I'm an executive producer who have produced some of your favorite shows from the Real Housewives in Atlanta, New Jersey and my own creation, The Love and Marriage Franchise and Bell Collective. Every episode we recap reality television from the Real Housewives Franchise to The Bachelor or Selling Sunset, in addition to celebrity guests, whether in the unscripted space or scripted as well.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: What mister knowles up, Carlo, I am in the castle.

00:00:43
Speaker 3: Come here, it's really here. He brought my favorite about your favorite.

00:00:48
Speaker 4: My mama raised me, right, she did.

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Speaker 3: Yes, don't go no one's.

00:00:51
Speaker 4: House empty handed. Never Well, you know this is you. I'm in a presence of a legend.

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Speaker 2: I got to make sure I looked the part, dressed apart and you.

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Speaker 4: Know, come looking good.

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Speaker 3: So you're looking great.

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Speaker 4: Okay, you come from Atlanta.

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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I was just in Atlanta.

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Speaker 4: You are literally making some deals.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah I did.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Look at the art. My mister knows the artwork.

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Speaker 3: That I have to tell you about this house. We bought this house four years ago. It was built in the nineties by a black man. A black man was the same man, architect and builder in our whole neighborhood, sixty five houses, he built two, and we're grateful and fortunate to be in one. And it has that spirit. It does spirits that spirit. I feel that a black man, this is good. Got the summer. That was that was, that was, That's that. I love showing this stairback. This is why I bought the house. This is why I bought the house.

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Speaker 4: Right TV Crims, all right, we TV what you got? Oh lord, no, yo, I've never seen that before. I've never seen that before.

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Speaker 3: So when we first looked at the house, Gina, who's your biggest fan bout it? Gena was down here with the realature, you know, we were looking down here. Then he was like, let's go upstairs. So I just stayed right here. They got upstairs and he said, I don't think your husband liked this house. She was like, no, he's trying to figure out he's gonna bite it because that is it was ray on. My price was raised. Look at that.

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Speaker 4: Oh god, I can't beat that.

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Speaker 1: Come in, man, well, listen, thank you so much for inviding me in your home.

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Speaker 4: You have no your home is beautiful. Thank you.

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Speaker 2: You and miss Gina did a splendid job.

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Speaker 3: Well we've been here four years now, okay, and it was a hot mess when we moved there, but we're there now, we're there, We're happy.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: Gina trusts me to design this. The person that built this house was a black man. I love that, you know, I love that. So we're we're we're at home. Yeah.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I give all the props to your wife, Gina, because she's the reason why I'm sitting here.

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Speaker 3: She is.

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Speaker 4: I've been telling to day. You have no idea who I was. And when my.

00:03:43
Speaker 2: Team reached out to you to request the interview, I was told by my producer you said, but first of all, who is this Carlos King you talk about?

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Speaker 4: And then you told your wife She said, oh, I love him.

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Speaker 3: You need to do it absolutely, And I was like, rollo, who is that? She was like, you have to know who that is? Well I was like, okay, because I trust her, Yeah, I trust her. Yeah.

00:04:06
Speaker 4: Well no, it's going to be good. So listen, I want to start by saying this, and I mean this.

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Speaker 2: With every fiber in my being, with every sentiment in my soul. Okay, this interview means the world to me because, unbeknownst to.

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Speaker 4: You, I have followed.

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Speaker 2: Your career since I was fifteen years old. What fifteen, I'm forty five. I'm forty five years old.

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Speaker 4: Okay, you are someone that I.

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Speaker 2: Have looked up to for thirty years and counting.

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Speaker 4: And the reason why I wanted you to.

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Speaker 2: Know that is because you have no idea the impact that you have made on my life being a black man in an industry that at fifteen years old I knew I wanted to be a part of. I do reality television and podcasting and digital, but I don't know at fifteen I.

00:05:06
Speaker 4: Was going to do that.

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Speaker 2: But for me, mister Knowles, I saw a black man who took charge of a white, male dominated industry and you did it unapologetically. You did it with such a masterful strategy, and I don't think you get the props you deserve.

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Speaker 4: So I want you to know this. Okay.

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Speaker 2: I'm here to give you your flowers. I'm here to give you your respect, and I also want to be able to use my platform to educate my peers and the younger generation on the establishment that you have created and curated for people like me to be able to take your blueprint. And it doesn't mean you have to be in the music industry is for ever person in the world who came from a community where they were invisible and dominated, and this interview, this conversation rather is an opportunity for me to let the world know how much not only mean to me, but what you mean to our industry.

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thank you. Those are very, very surprising. You never know who's watching, who's looking, what influence you have. So to hear you say that, I say with gratitude, thank you.

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Speaker 4: Now, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 2: So listen, I want to get into your background, because let's take us back.

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Speaker 4: A little bit, mister Knowles when it comes to.

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Speaker 2: The fact that you were born at a time of the pre civil rights movement in Alabama, and I just kind of want to know, like your story terms of what that was like for you and how you were able to become who you are today.

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Speaker 3: So I was wanting eighteen fifty two so that due the math a little small town Gaston, Alabama. I understand you, No Huntsville, I understand you.

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Speaker 4: No, thank you Oprah.

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Speaker 3: Yes, but born in Gaston and my mother lived in a smaller town. Grew up in Marion, Alabama, and went to high school. Actually went Kreta King and Andrew Young's wife. So imagine these three ladies going to high school together and Mary and Alabama. Just like Correta, my mother took up the torch of desegregation. And when she moved to Gaston and married my dad. I never went to a black school. Now imagine that. So fifty two Elementary I would have been six years later in fifty eight Integrated Elementary, Integrated Litchfield Junior High, Gaston High, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. And so growing up in Gaston, there was a lot, a lot of challenges. I've been spit on, I've been electric pridate, you know, ran by the state troopers running after us, after doing boycouts, boycotts, all of that. That's how I grew up. I had a lot of trauma when I think about gas in Alabama and had to go to therapy for years for that trauma.

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Speaker 2: Well, did you gotta go to therapy starting when as an adult or do you have to go through that through your childhood as an adult as an adult and the trauma that you experienced, did that show up a lot in your adulthood.

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Speaker 3: I would say not a lot, but at some point I unraveled, had too much going on, and it showed up very very strongly then.

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Speaker 2: And did therapy teach you how to sort of deal with that?

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Speaker 4: Like? What was that process like for you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Therapy did. Because there's triggers, right, you know, there's things that trigger and trauma, and so I had to learn how to understand those triggers. I had to learn various how to Workaholism is a thing, just like alcoholism, the isms. So you know, all of it is about escaping from society, right, just escaping from the moment we use work, drugs, alcohol, whatever it could be. And so I had to understand that I had to understand the value of my worth and not let that little kid Matthew control sometimes my behavior.

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Speaker 2: What's fascinating is you grew up, you know, with this horrific sort of experiences by being sped on and all the other stuff, but you were able to sort of as a man, enter a career, you know, working as Xerox, where you were, you know, a top executive there. How did that experience your childhood manifest to where you were still able to dominate an industry that at this point was it even in the music industry. But you were able to sort of be this executive at this company and do amazing sales during that time.

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Speaker 3: I want to come back to that, because I listened very well. You said a word horrific. In my childhood, my childhood, as tough as it was, I had these amazing parents. My mom and dad were amazing black people. My mom made three dollars a day as a colored maid. She convinced that white woman to give her all her hand me down and on the weekends, my mom and her two best girlfriends, and I know this because I had to as they got older, I had to thread the needle for them. They would make these beautiful quilts, callers, these beautiful quilts. My dad made thirty dollars a week as a truck driver, and he would convince those white folks that own the produced company to keep that truck twenty four to seven, and he would tear down the old houses, sell the copper aluminum, all the wood, the medals. He would go because in Alabama, as you know, they sometimes abandoned their cars in the front yard if it didn't stop he would go buy a car for twenty five dollars and sell every part on it. So my parents as well as my grandparents were entrepreneurs, and I love that. They always gave me hope. They all always told me I could do anything I wanted to at length, So I just wanted to go back for a minute, rewind, and then now I answer your question about corporate America. You're get a CeNSE of me now right, Yeah, No.

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Speaker 4: I love that.

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Speaker 2: But the thing before we even into that, you come from a family entrepreneur.

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Speaker 4: So was that instilled in you as a kid.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely that, Sir Davis Whiskey, that's my grandfather, My grandfather, Dave Holk, Marion, Alabama. Two hundred acres of land. Let me tell you what my genius granddad did. He would partial off like fifty acres to the paper mill in this little town and they would come cut off the trees, clear the bush and they would lease the land from him, and then he would go behind them and farm. They would pay him to clear off the land. Genius. Genius. And at the same time it was a little creek that ran through his property that he became a moonshine distributor. I remember I was about twelve years old and there was a knock on the door when Saturday, these three white men and they knocked on the door and asked my grandmother, it's mister Hole here. So it was the first time I ever heard a white man called a black man. Mister. I mean, I'm so proud of my grandfather. You spent a lot of time with me. And on my dad's side, my grandmother, they lived next door to the best, the biggest club in that part of Alabama, and after one o'clock she would make these fish and chicken sandwiches and bootleg So you know, I had an entrepreneurship spirit on both sides of the family.

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Speaker 4: That's amazing. So both I want to stay on certain Davis for a bit.

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Speaker 2: So when that whiskey came about, was there a conversation that was had about honoring your grandfather in that way?

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Speaker 3: And there was a conversation that was a conversation I I still think, uh, and hopefully Beyonce and I can go to Mary in Alabama. I hadn't been there a long time. Uh, just to experience that experience, that childhood uh uh that I had and I understand better her grandfather and grandmother.

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Speaker 2: When you got to corporate America? Was that a industry that you wanted to get into?

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Speaker 4: How did that come about?

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Speaker 3: Cause as a kid, always wanted to be a businessman. Yeah, you know how we be a kid and and hey boy, what'd you gonna be when you grew up? A businessman? So I had mentors, uh, Rev and B. L. Walker. He was a minister. He was my godfather, a mentor.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

00:14:47
Speaker 3: I had my parents as mentors, and I always wanted to be a businessman. Didn't quite as a kid knew exactly. I just know when Reverend Walker would go down to the story had a suit on. I was like, Reven Walker, why you wear a suit just to go to the store. And he would tell me it was about perception. Me and Jena call it optics. It was about optics, and I just knew that's the life. I wanted to live. That type of life.

00:15:19
Speaker 4: All this xerox coming about?

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Speaker 2: That? Was it some of you applied for or you know, dominating that world of.

00:15:29
Speaker 3: What year was that? It was nineteen eighty six, December sixth eighty six, Actually it was December sixth seventy six. Yeah, because I just graduated from Fisk and I had never been to Houston, and me and somebody frat brothers Omega sci Fi had been there the month before for the football game with Texas Southern, and I decided this is where I want to live. So without a job, I was working with the Bell System in Houston, and then you couldn't transfer, So without a job, I came to Houston and I worked with Pitney Bowls for a couple of months, and me and some of my friends and we were just you know, it used to be a happy hour. Friday night was a big deal in corporate America. And so maybe about ten guys, we're at a bar, just hanging out a happy hour, and this little short white boy comes up to me and says, can I speak with you for a second? And I'm like, what, I've been listening to you, guys. I've been sitting here listening for about an hour and I love hearing your leadership. You are exactly what we want at Xerox. And I was like, yeah, right, okay, yeah, And then he showed me his card, he said human Resources. He said, can you meet me? This is Friday, Can you meet me at eight o'clock at my office. I was like, of course, that's how I got my job. You never know who's looking, never know who's listening.

00:17:12
Speaker 2: And let's go back to the optics thing, because you're just being yourself and somebody overheard you speaking and then offer you. Would you consider that to be the job of a lifetime. At that time in nineteen seventy six, you could.

00:17:23
Speaker 3: Get no better than IBM and Xerox. There was no better. And Xerox was ranked by Forbes repeatedly as the best corporation for blacks in America to live to work. Let me repeat that Xerox was ranked by Forges repeatedly to be the best place for blacks in corporate America to work.

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Speaker 2: And what was your job exactly? Because it was doing sales, correct sales.

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Speaker 3: And marketing. That branch was the number one branch in this country. So I had to be a trainee longer than usual. So I trained in another division, the engineering division, selling a micro fish reader printer. Did very well as a trainee. Then I got a territory selling copiers, was the top sales quarterly. And then one evening I'm at the office late and I hear a ticker tape machine imagine that takes you back, right, and it's just going off in the office and I go and I read and it says grade eleven, and I'm like grade eleven, like I'm on grade six. And I saw the salary and then I looked at it. I couldn't pronounce the word. It was zero radiography sales position. I went in the next day and I asked the branch manager could I interview for the role, And he kind of laughed, like, you know, you just got here. This is like the top f exelon of sales at Xerox. There's no way you're gonna get this job. But I think it be good, a good exercise for you, knows so. But what he didn't know is the the public library was two blocks over, and I went to the library every day I could and study up on breast cancer cause that w that's what it was. M zero radiography in the eighties was the leading modality for breast cancer detection. M So I I did my thing that I always do, research, research, research, So when I interviewed, everybody had been there longer than me. I was the only black then interviewed. But they talked about well, I've been here fifteen years and I went in talking about breast cancer and that impressed the sales manager that I was the only one that took the time to understand the modality. That's how I got the job. Mm mm m.

00:19:56
Speaker 2: And what was the yearly salary at that t time for you?

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Speaker 3: I think the salary was around eighty five But forget that it was a commission ah.

00:20:07
Speaker 4: Because you had to like go and sell this device.

00:20:09
Speaker 3: I covered four states. I covered Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, five Louisiana in the third of Texas.

00:20:18
Speaker 4: So she's making money.

00:20:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did good.

00:20:20
Speaker 4: You did good.

00:20:21
Speaker 3: We did good.

00:20:25
Speaker 4: So going back to that time, so here you are. You're a black man from Alabama.

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Speaker 2: You are dominating in Texas at this time, and during this whole thing, you obviously meet a woman named Celestine Bianza. Can you talk to me about how y'all met and where you were out in your life at the time.

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Speaker 3: I was still at xie Rox Medical and my roommate graduated from law school and I threw him a party and she came with another fraternity brother. I thought they were on a date, but it turned out as the evening went on, they weren't. And that's where I met.

00:21:08
Speaker 2: Her, and you approached her and said, I am mister Knowles.

00:21:13
Speaker 3: I approached her like she was holding my vinyl with her finger prints like this, and that was excuse me, like please hold my vinyl like this, like I really had a strong vinyl collection, Like I don't know, damn finger prints all my vinyl. Like that's how it started.

00:21:38
Speaker 4: Yep, mister Knowles. You asked the question, and I love the answer. So she's I don't think her vinyl wrong.

00:21:53
Speaker 5: And your way of breaking the ice is correcting the waves being held.

00:22:00
Speaker 3: Even trying to break.

00:22:02
Speaker 4: You gonna make sure your vinyl.

00:22:04
Speaker 3: I was trying to break ice. I just wanted my battel. I mean, I was really into my nyl collection.

00:22:15
Speaker 4: So what was her response to that?

00:22:18
Speaker 3: Kind of looked at me crazy? What That's that's how it started.

00:22:29
Speaker 2: This is Reality with the King and I'm Carlos King. Let's get back into the show. So what was it like in that in that early days of dating? Like did you know at that time when you first met.

00:22:45
Speaker 4: Mss Tina that this is my wife? I said, I trying to see how long can I make? You should have seen the look hell and damn brow.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: How happy people get to know your comedic side.

00:23:15
Speaker 4: You know, people think you're so serious.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: I love I love the fact that you actually are jokester.

00:23:23
Speaker 3: I have a joke that they don't now, if they don't.

00:23:28
Speaker 4: Know before, they know.

00:23:29
Speaker 3: Now every night, Gina, we we crack. I have her cracking up, man, just cracking.

00:23:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you one thing that was really funny. I didn't see Tina because I have to pause because Tina, Gina.

00:23:48
Speaker 4: I never put that together.

00:23:51
Speaker 3: Make sure I say Tina, yes, Gina correct asking me about Tina. Yes, all right, Okay, we got that right. So I didn't see her really for almost seven or eight months. I covered downtown selling copiers. Then I was, and she worked downtown. And there was Macy's where kind of the black folks at lunchtime would congregate, and there was a little coffee shop. It was a couple of places. I saw it at the coffee shop, and I just kind of looked in and kept walking. I saw her at Macy's. I walked the opposite way because I'm like, okay, she stood me up right, Because I had asked to take her to lunch the following week when I had met her with the vinyl and I had written her name on the shoe box B hyphen o, Z hyphen say and say why b ounce say say that fast ys say yeah yeah. So she told me she worked at MasterCard, and I got all dressed up. The next Monday lunchtime, I'm at the receptionist asking for this lady last named Beyonce, and there's no one that works there. So I use my business card to then say that I'm a service representative. And while I'm here, I like to check your copiers, and so she let me go back to where the copiers were and then I asked, well, is hell tenab? I said, they're like you know, and so I walked away disappointed. Almost three months four months past and we're downtown two or three o'clock in the afternoon. She's on one side of the light street on on the other side, and we're looking at each other. We have to cross pass and then in the middle I was like, oh, yeah, that is that person who stood me up. And she was like, get out of the street. Let me tell you. I was waiting on you. I said, no, you weren't wait on me. I was at MasterCard. She said, fool, I told you Visa. Yeah.

00:26:26
Speaker 4: The fact that we get to talk about this, I just love it so much. Okay, So you got the wrong merchant.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got the wrong one. I got excited.

00:26:35
Speaker 4: Okay. So then the coffee shop thing happened.

00:26:40
Speaker 2: So you guys were able to communicate, hang out.

00:26:46
Speaker 4: Obviously, you guys get married.

00:26:49
Speaker 2: When you look back on your life at the time, mister Knowles, was marriage something that you just thought, like, I'm successful, I'm a great job, I met this great woman.

00:27:02
Speaker 4: Is this the next step for me in my life?

00:27:05
Speaker 3: At fifteen? You were thinking this when you follow me, this is what you were thinking. You were thinking about my marriage and I was happy and ship like.

00:27:15
Speaker 4: Come on, man, come on, man, this to know I said today take by defense.

00:27:23
Speaker 5: He's like, because you know, there's there's there's there's there's levels to this, there's levels to this, and like I said to you earlier, this is your life.

00:27:34
Speaker 3: Mister Knowles, I appreciate you for having this conversation with me. I really do, really do.

00:27:40
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:27:41
Speaker 3: So what was your question?

00:27:42
Speaker 4: I forgot that was.

00:27:43
Speaker 2: Okay, So when you got married, did you think at the time like that was just the right thing to do just based on like what we're taught during that.

00:27:52
Speaker 4: Era in our lives that okay, graduating.

00:27:55
Speaker 3: My brain did when you said when you got married, I just immediately went to Jena, you want to stay on this conversation?

00:28:06
Speaker 4: No no, no, no no we could.

00:28:10
Speaker 2: No no no, we could.

00:28:12
Speaker 4: Move on from Yeah, we'll move on from that.

00:28:16
Speaker 2: So the thing for me, though, that I really wanted to get into, is you have this successful life for yourself, a successful career for yourself. What made you though I feel like, Hm, I see my child be this person at the talent show who's doing great, but I have this great job that is taking care of me and my family. What wasn't in your mind that said to yourself, maybe this is the risk that I should take because that, to me, in my opinion, mister Knowles doesn't get talked about enough because I know what it's like to leave one career and tab it to another and have success in it. But it's scary and it takes a lot of prayer, a lot of faith, a lot of belief. What was it at that time that you felt the need to have at leap of faith?

00:29:12
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know often and you'll probably be the first to get the interview right. Most articles say I left Xerox and went on with Beyonce career. I left Xerox in nineteen eighty eight. The then president of Xerox Medical Systems went to another diagnostic imaging company, Phillips was Picker International, which became Phillips. And I became the first black in America to sell MRI and CT scanners in nineteen eighty eight. And that's really important that we get that right. That's a big damn deal that you were selling a four million dollar piece of equipment that it takes another two million to install in nineteen eighty eight. And you've got to explain technology because his first generation stayed there five six years, and then I went to Johnson and Johnson in one of their divisions called Codman as a neurosurgical specialist. I don't want that to get erased because that was those eight years was before Beyonce. So when I started working with Beyonce, I had twenty years of corporate America experience in sales and marketing, being the number one sales rep in the world, so I had this. I want people to know what I brought to the music industry. And so here's this six seven year old that's passionate about music. She's quiet, she always listening to music cause music wasn't around a a house all the time. And and she finally, uh is in elementary school and decides she wants to compete in a H A A A music contest and we say yes. And it's middle school kids, so we're saying she's gonna lose, you know, but let's make sure she she didn't you know, fall hard, uh that we hold her while she fall, but she didn't, uh I. And she got there and sitting there for the event and said, hey, mom, dad, I'm getting bored. When am I gonna go up and sing so I can get my trophy of my hundred dollars. And we were like, how do you know you're gonna win? And I was like, you know, you know they're older, you might not win this first time. She said, oh no, I'm gonna win. And when she got on that stage, you know, one of her albums is named Sasha Fears. This is why this story I'm telling you, because when she stepped on that stage at eight nine years old, she became Sasha Fierce. Something happened once she got on that stage, and that's when I knew, and my former wife knew that something special was here, that she really was passionate. And then the role of a parent, my belief is not to say I want you to be this when you grow up. I teach a lot of those. I teach a lot of students who parents told them they wanted to be this, a doctor attorney, but that wasn't what they wanted to do. So we were never that way. I was never that way, but we supported her. Then you surround your child with the tools. So she got in dance a true excelled in that, got her vocal lessons. Was really passionate about that. Then one day, just out of nowhere, we owned a major hair salon in Houston. These ladies came and said, no, that was when these young groups were coming, sir, all those little young kids were doing it that they wanted to form a young girl group and they wanted Beyonce to be the lead of it, the lead singer of it. That's how it all came about.

00:33:13
Speaker 2: And was this something that Because I want to get this part of the story right, there were two managers at the time from my understanding, you're being one of them, and I believe miss and.

00:33:26
Speaker 4: Tillman is not at this time, not at this so that that was later.

00:33:30
Speaker 2: So when the sort of development of the group happened, was that solely your vision.

00:33:36
Speaker 3: It was another step, and that step was the they were young. I'll call them girls, the Girls, they will call it Girls Time Accident, Girl's Time. We producer from Sosilito, California, Arnie Frager. He had this amazing top recording studio, record plant, Prince Dinah, Ross, you name it, that's where everybody would go. And he signed The Girl's Time to a production deal. Again, they were like ten eleven years old, and he got them on Star Search, and as a dad, I went because they thought they were gonna win for a month and they got an extra hotel room just for the wardrobe, and my job was just to help with the wardrobe. But then they go and compete against a forty year old rock band and lose. And I had shared with the managers that I thought it was the wrong song because it had rap in it. I was like, these fifty year old white men that are judging, they've never heard rap. I researched and watched previous shows. I don't think this is a good idea. I think you should do this beautiful ballad and Beyonce, they weren't even leading the song. It wasn't about that, it was about winning. I said, I think you should do this beautiful ballad. No, no, we know what we're doing. And they lost. Asked ed McMahon, what do a dad do? These kids are crying. I don't know what do I do because all I used to do was drop Beyonce off, go play basketball, pick her up. And he said, for some reason, the folks that consistently win on Star Search go nowhere. It's the one that lose. And you know the names, he started saying, Boys to Men, Alna s, Marcet, Britney Spears, justin Timberlake. I can go on and on and on. These people lost on Star Search, and he said, for some reason, it's a defining moment. They go back and they change, they change the organization, they change members. He said, boys and men, they changed the member that's not the same group that was here, and they rededicate. And that's when I decided, why don't I transition. It's been twenty years. That was my goal why don't I transition to the music industry. I went back to school because I believe knowledge is power, and I went to every seminar that I could and began to build relationships. And by the way, my first artist that I got signed, MCA Records, was the number one urban record label. Everybody from Mary J. Blise, the Puffy to you name it was there. Rapper in Houston. Little Old is the first artist I ever got signed. That Destiny shod. Oh see I got it all wrong.

00:36:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we're here to get a right.

00:36:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that's right. There's this group called UGK. That's the first tour I ever did with Little Old and UGK. We went to all the clubs, was a fight every night. I had my Ugk's Pempcy's mother, My West was the manager for UGK, and I had the brief briefcase. They had a bag of weed, a bottle of Crown Royal and a forty five and the money. That was my job to carry that briefcase and I had a damn suit on. Everybody looking at me like I'm crazy. And then after about ten of those I was like, I can't do this though, so y'all got it all wrong. How I did got in it, y'all got it all wrong and finally got it right.

00:37:29
Speaker 2: Well, that's off here because I do my research like you did, so I'm glad we cleared that up when you made a decision to focus on the music industry and do your research. Did you officially quit your full time job at the time or were you still balancing both?

00:37:46
Speaker 3: No, I officially quit my full time job. Transition. I didn't quit. I always say you don't quit, you transition. So I transitioned out slowly as I'm going to school. But we had a million dollar business. I was also co running Headliner's hair salon.

00:38:05
Speaker 2: Yes, do you remember how much money you had in your bank account to make such a risk? Like it was like no fear of Like I got the mortgage payments, I got the property taxes, I got these kids in private school.

00:38:20
Speaker 4: You know you have this.

00:38:21
Speaker 2: You lived in a nice, big house, you live in a suburban area, you live in the gated community. So the sacrifice that you made for a dream. Mister knows that at that time obviously wasn't happening.

00:38:36
Speaker 4: But you you saw something. Because I do.

00:38:39
Speaker 2: Believe that God gives every one of us in vision that no one else can see.

00:38:45
Speaker 4: And that's fine, but only you can see it.

00:38:47
Speaker 2: But was there a moment where you look at your account and say, all right, brother, you got maybe two years to get this right, or are we gonna have to like make some other plans.

00:38:57
Speaker 3: Well, you said two traits in my with the DNA of Achievers, ten traits of highly successful professional You just said two of them risk taking and being a visionary. And I hope I was both of those of those traits. I had a vision for the girls, and I was willing to take a risk to the point that almost lost our house, came very very close getting forecloses because I was constantly spending money. I was sending packages out, going to these all these meetings around the country, putting the girls in the studio. You know, I had to finance all of that, you know, So you know that was a risk I was willing to take. But also it wasn't just the girls. I had another artists again, who I had then gotten signed to a record label. So it was not I never left corporate America, be clear. Just to do Beyonce, I love corporate America. To start a music company, music World entertainment, which ended up being management as well as record label. That was always a goal. I'm not going to be doing a one off. You obviously don't know me if you think I'm just going to do a one off kind of thing. And I hope we talk about music World in this conversation.

00:40:29
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, because I do want to get into the fact of the company and how.

00:40:34
Speaker 4: Much you sold it for you're still part of it, all those.

00:40:36
Speaker 2: Things, So that's definitely something I want to highlight too in this conversation because to me, what I want to of course highlight is the intentions behind these risks, because I do feel like nowadays everybody wants a success, but a lot of people don't want to take the sacrifices that it takes to get there. And I think that you are the prime example of somebody who did it right.

00:41:02
Speaker 4: And there's so many gems and lessons in your.

00:41:04
Speaker 2: Story that I want to talk about because I know that a lot of people be inspired by that. So one of the things that I do want to get into is the fact that you have this vision right.

00:41:17
Speaker 4: And obviously it works, and we're going to get into.

00:41:19
Speaker 2: All of the accolades that you have a mask for yourself. But the one thing I've always wanted to ask you because I to me, this is so specific, right in terms of how you were able to have this vision for this group. What made you say I'm going to put you girls in high heels and jog and do this sprint exercise?

00:41:46
Speaker 4: Because did you know at the.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: Time that I see longevity and I see you young women being the superstars that will become the biggest girl group of all time.

00:42:00
Speaker 3: That's a number of questions and I'm gonna answer again. I'm a research guy. I love to research, and I believe how you practice is how you play because I'm an athlete. I was a high school basketball star, I played college basketball. How you practice is how you play. So I wanted to make sure that when Destiny's Child practiced, they didn't know the lights might go off, the sound might drop, even down to the point that a heell might break. So I wanted them to practice because this is how they were going to have to play. And when they were jogging and singing, that was for conditioning, and all of those things become important. And so our artist development has become you know, worldwide acclaim. You know, artists a lot of artists have gone through our artists Development camp all the way down to media. You know how you answer conversations, So we were that thorough in our approach to the industry.

00:43:08
Speaker 2: Do you feel like when you enter the music industry where you prepared for a lot of the racism that exists.

00:43:17
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, now, let's do a deal and we make this a documentary and I can give you like ten more names and we interviewed it. No bullshit, like this is feeling real documentary And I'm good with that. But me and you're gonna have to own it.

00:43:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to do a documentary on you.

00:43:42
Speaker 3: We're doing it now.

00:43:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is the precursor to it.

00:43:50
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, what was the question I ever got? I got excited got.

00:43:57
Speaker 2: Out when you enter the music industry because again, and I don't want to make this about me, but I need you to know that I was not prepared for the racism that me in television had to experience, mister Knowles, until I got into it, and then I saw I felt all these microaggressions.

00:44:24
Speaker 4: And what I want to talk about with you is the.

00:44:26
Speaker 2: Fact that you know, listen, I want to fast forward.

00:44:29
Speaker 4: To the highlight reel if I may.

00:44:32
Speaker 2: Because we're going to do a documentary, so I want to fast forward to the highlight reel if I made, mister Knowles, it bothers me that you don't get the props that you deserve.

00:44:47
Speaker 4: Like your white counterparts do.

00:44:50
Speaker 2: It bothers me that you never grace the cover of Variety magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, and no disrespect to these people.

00:45:01
Speaker 4: But we've seen Clive Davis, Scooter bron.

00:45:05
Speaker 2: We saw Clyde Davis because obviously he had many Houston and obviously amazing artists under his tutelage.

00:45:10
Speaker 4: We saw Scooter.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: Bron because listening he had Justin Bieber, Arianna Grande. We see Chris Jenner and what she did with the Kardashians. What has always bothered me is the fact that you literally have done the work to create the biggest selling girl group of all time, the last girl group to have a number one hit on Billboard Hot one hundred with the song Booty Delicious. Your daughter Beyonce was just awarded the greatest pop star of the twenty first century.

00:45:45
Speaker 4: With all of that success, I.

00:45:47
Speaker 2: Feel like you do not get excuse me, you do not get the prophet you deserve and it bothers me.

00:45:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you totally, and you know I say this with a lot of gratitude. It's not only what you just said. I mean most people don't realize. If you look at Billboard, they have every decade they put out a special edition. So if you look at the Billboard in twenty ten for the bill artists of the decade two thousand and two thousand and nine, Beyonce in two thousand and nine of the decade was the number one female artist. See people think this successful. Beyonce just happened. So I want to clear this up. Okay, Beyonce was the number one artist of the decade in two thousand and nine. At the same time, Destiny's Child was the number one female group of the decade. Why is this important? Billboard is probably the only way that you get accurate information. This ain't height, this ain't social media. These are real sale those numbers. So I look at that. It's extreme credibility on that. In that same edition, Destiny Shall was number eight overall, Beyonce was number seven overall, and jay Z, who I didn't even know, was number nine of the decade. From two thousand to two thousand and nine. What people don't know is, along with the help of B. T. Sunday Best, when I came up with this idea of destiny shall each having their own solo projects Michelle. Because of Michelle, I started music World Gospel and we partner with be T. Sunday Best. Most people don't know that Leandre Johnson number one artists female artist Gospel. We built that little small Music World the number one gospel label in the world with three with Trinity F five to seven, Nita buying them, Brian Courtney Wilson. I could go on and on and on, and at the same time I sell Music Well to a company in London, Sanctuary, and we partner to form a record label. I'm the president of a whole division of seventy five employees. Who's on that label Earth Wind and Fire. Last album with Maurice Old Jay's we did two albums, Daylight, Soul, Sunshine Anderson. I could go on and on on the record label side. Then I bought five young men in their late twenties early thirties and made each one of the millionaires. And they deserved it because they had some of the top black artists in the world. We'll start with Mary J. Blige about Kendu Isaac's He wasn't her her husband at the time, he was her producer and manager. There's a young man out in La Troy Carter and his business partner. Oh gosh, his dad's top basketball player. How could I think forget his day? Doctor? Oh, doctor J doctor J Julius Irvins. He worked with Nelly, No, you're close. They worked with Floora Tree Eve and then towards the end of the career Lady Gaga.

00:49:42
Speaker 4: Yes.

00:49:43
Speaker 3: And I remember many hours talking to Troy as he was going on his first tour and he didn't understand tour and explaining it to him.

00:49:53
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:49:53
Speaker 3: And then there was a young man out of Saint Louis that managed Nelly and then met Guildry out of Atlanta managed Mary Mary and was by GM. There was a reason why Nelly and Kelly did a song together. There's a reason why Lady Got Got and Beyonce did Telephone together. But people don't know this. People don't know how it works. People really don't know, and they shouldn't because this music industry is very complex.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: And all of that was just a strategy in terms of how you saw things. So the fact that people don't know that, is that your way of explaining why they don't give you the covers. Do you think it's because they don't know that? Or to be candid, do you think because at the end of the day, you were a black man who taught himself the music industry and you came into an industry, mister Knowles, and disrupted it in a way that you felt like, I am going to do this to protect not only my legacy but any artists that I have on my label.

00:51:07
Speaker 3: I think it's more because of the disruption I did. I truly do, and I can't forget ever to leave Solange out of that whole equation because we I managed and she was on the record label. But it was because of the disruption. I think in the early beginnings I played that role of being behind the scenes. But I think historically now people and to be clear, the names you just name those magazines in the industry as a whole, it's disruption. And if I was you started it out, if I was a white Matthew knows, everyone would know that. Everyone would know that what we've accomplished and what I've accomplished in the music industry would be noted.

00:51:57
Speaker 4: Does it bother you?

00:51:59
Speaker 3: Yeah? It does because it's his story, not history, and it's time that we don't allow his story. And it's a time young people that get on social media and chatter, at least get facts. Chatter after you get factual of data and then whatever your perspective is, I can live with that, but don't be an idiot and chatter and you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

00:52:29
Speaker 4: I agree with that.

00:52:30
Speaker 2: I agree with that, and it's honestly the main reason why I wanted to sit down with you is because I need this young generation to understand that who they enjoy now has a direct correlation with what you built.

00:52:45
Speaker 3: Because it's not microwave success. And that's what our young generation has to understand. If you look at all those before and after in any area just talking music, I'm talking sports, I'm talking corporate. These people put in the work, They put in the work, and I you know, Outliers is one of my favorite books by Gladwell Brother Glackwell up in Canada, brother, and he talks about and he researched for years. To be great requires doing it ten thousand hours. And when you look at Serena and Michael Jordan and Beyonce, a lot of other people, they put in ten thousand hours, even in interviewing. That's why I'm grateful to do well as a motivational public speaker because I've done it ten thousand hours. That's why i can sit in this interview and have fun and be comfortable because I've done it ten thousand hours. I put in the work, and so that's what I hope you are people get out of this interview. Whatever their passion is. Passion and work ethics go together. You just can't have a passion. You can't have this million dollar idea, but then you put in minimum wage type of work. I don't go together million dollar idea, but minimum wage equivalent work. You have to work, have to become great at something.

00:54:33
Speaker 4: Do you miss it? Do you miss do you miss the music industry?

00:54:36
Speaker 3: I missed the corporate I actually missed corporate America. And I've thought many many times. If I had to do it again and it was done a different way, and I knew that Beyonce and Solange were good, I would have never got into the music industry because I was earmarked and being tracked. I would have become a president of a fortune five hundred company. I'm sure of that. And I literally I made a lot of money in music, but I would have made a lot more in corporate America.

00:55:13
Speaker 4: You think so, well, just do the math.

00:55:15
Speaker 3: I mean, when you are at that level, you are making you know, ten fifteen million a year, and then when you retire, you know, it's a whole different thing. Absolutely, no question.

00:55:31
Speaker 2: I'm surprised by that because and I'm gonna take on surprised by it because.

00:55:38
Speaker 4: And I do mean this, and I hope you feel the sincerity.

00:55:42
Speaker 2: If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have Beyonce Somange Destiny's child.

00:55:49
Speaker 4: We wouldn't. That's my opinion.

00:55:51
Speaker 3: I do believe this.

00:55:53
Speaker 4: I do believe this.

00:55:54
Speaker 2: I get that there's tons of people who say Kim Kardashian them the Kardashians would be nothing about Chris Jenner. And I understand what that means based on this Mama bear having to orchestrate people.

00:56:05
Speaker 4: She know, I think you were the only one.

00:56:11
Speaker 2: And I want this generation to know that, despite what they may feel or whatever. And again I'm getting trouble for saying this and my apologies in the band, I strongly believe we wouldn't be.

00:56:25
Speaker 4: Enjoying the music or even knowing who they are. But it wasn't for you.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: And that's why for me, a father's sacrifice to see his kids' dreams comes true should never ever be relegated to just like, oh what he was just there doing a father does, and I don't believe in that. I look at you and Joe Jackson, in my humble opinion, I think you and Joe Jackson are the most disrespected black men to ever exist in the music industry. And I strongly believe that because you two have to be a father and a man and what that presented itself to this industry, which is why I feel sad that Joe Jackson's legacy in my opinion, and you don't have to agree with this, obviously, you know what you want to do. It hurts my soul that Joe Jackson's legacy to me is the fact that people see him as, oh, well, you.

00:57:19
Speaker 4: You whip your kids.

00:57:21
Speaker 2: You whipped your kids, not really seeing the sacrifice this black man made twenty years thirty years before your time. And when I look at you and I see you made the same sacrifice this and people just say, oh, whatever, you know, he did this, he did that, And it's like, do.

00:57:40
Speaker 4: You not understand what that means?

00:57:42
Speaker 2: Do you not understand what it means to dominate an industry that isn't welcoming to someone who looks like you. You are tall, handsome, dark skinned black man, and you came in And my favorite story is how you came into the record label and you switch the lights back and forth.

00:57:57
Speaker 3: So keep the lights on, and you said, I keep the light on this.

00:58:00
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, like, stop playing with me. Your approach may.

00:58:07
Speaker 2: Not have been the virgin Mary right. Your approach to getting things done may not have been the most Pollyannic way of doing it, but let the records show is because you also weren't welcomed into their world either.

00:58:27
Speaker 3: Well, two things come to mind. There's a part of me certainly agrees with the father part. I think in all respect to mister Jackson, he came with a more musical background than I did, so his approach was coming from a musical standpoint. They will ban that's different than a group just the whole ethos of it all. I brought and go back to corporate. A lot out of our success is my corporate macro approach. I'm so proud of this showman. There's a number of people that I've had the opportunity to in some way mentor so. The president of Sony Music Publishing of John Platt, I have so much respect for this young man who used to fly down from Denver and talk to me and we would just talk. And I saw this young I could see in some people that they are star. You're a star. I just met you. You're a star. I didn't know what to respect. But John just told me last week. He said, I never really forget you gave me this message on leadership, and you invited me to go Beyonce's first performance at MTV. And you were there and you were checking everything out, and they brought in the audience and you got on the phone and you like talking to her publicist. You were going off like, what is this? This ain't no damn b e T. Why all these black people in the front row. I need some damn white people in the front row. This is damn Beyonce's first time on MTV. What the hell is going on? And he was and then he said. I looked at you and I was like and then I said, okay, I fixed that. We gotta go. He was like, you're not gonna stay. I said, I can't build being here watching all the things Beyonce are doing. I gotta go make shit happen. I was never that manager that had the I was on Macro, I wasn't micro. So my point is my approach was corporate. My approach was I knew the budget of Columbia Records marketing budget was let's say a million dollars. I needed to go to Lorel and get Destiny Child, Kelly's Salons, Beyonce, they all did things with Laurel get their music in the commercial or get them in the commercial and as well as their music, Laurel has a twenty five million dollar marketing budget. So why would I accept the million dollars when I could go out and bring in these strategic partners who had twenty five million dollar budgets. That's what's a secret sauce. Along with the talent and the passion of the ladies, along with having great songs, along with and I'm having this next week. I'm planning right now my first masterclass at Prairieview, the strategy for Destiny's Child. If you think about imaging in nineteen ninety seven, it was TILC had to the bag, baggy boots, WV, same thing, escape, same thing, and bam, here comes glamor and glitz by this little young group. Nobody's understood bills, bills, bills say my name, Booty lishes girls, girls, girls, independent woman, female empowerment. Everything was about female empowerment. And that's what branding is, what differentiates you and understanding brand development. That's what we did at the industry. They were selling records, I was building brands. Different approach.

01:02:52
Speaker 4: No, that's empowering.

01:02:53
Speaker 2: It's empowering because when you look at that era, it was all about that.

01:02:57
Speaker 4: It's funniness and knows.

01:02:58
Speaker 2: Iva was reading this article recently about the makings of Independent Women and how Columba records her Part two. Then they hire this production and obviously the beauty of you is you understood immediately the pop publishing and what that meant and really, you know, making sure that those girls understood publishing and writing your own music. And one of my favorite stories from LaToya Luckett is when she talked about, you know, they had a day off and they were teenage girls and they're playing and she told this a tank and she said she was like, where's Beyonce.

01:03:36
Speaker 4: And they're like, oh, she's Beyonce. It's in the car.

01:03:38
Speaker 2: And she goes to the car and your daughter is and she says, hot outside. She's in her car and she's writing music and she sacrificed playing to write music. And that, to me, I always thought about in terms of like, I just felt.

01:03:54
Speaker 4: Like your DNA is so much, so much into that. So my question to you is do you you feel.

01:04:00
Speaker 2: Like you have sacrificed your life to make other people's dreams come true?

01:04:05
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think a lot of us have sacrificeice of black men and women. Again, now you know my background growing up and those experiences that I had growing up, I've seen a lot of people's sacrifice. I see my parents' sacrifice. I see my daughter's sacrifice for their kids. Now, so I think as leaders, the keyword is leadership. As if you're going to be a leader, that's part of it. Part of being a leader is letting that water just fall off of you. Part of being a leader is being ethical. Leadership is a strong thing, and every team needs a coach, So I absolutely that leadership role. I accepted that.

01:05:00
Speaker 2: Now, what do you feel like it's the one thing that the public got it wrong about you?

01:05:09
Speaker 3: How much I love Jena Avery knows No, I'm serious, Like, I think the one thing people don't know is I'm a cancer survivor. And six years now I went through cancer and COVID at the same time. And actually that's when we bought this house. Actually and my you know, Jena and I are now married twelve years, so that was halfway in in the first half. It's like any new marriage. There's some ups and downs, some tough sides, but COVID and cancer our lives have been so amazing and I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful that I have this wonderful woman that encourages me and we laugh and smile and it's one hundred percent authentic, there's no bullshit. That's what most people don't know is how happy I am. That's what they don't know.

01:06:17
Speaker 2: And do you feel like your wife, Gina provides you with this peace and happiness that you're now able to at this time in your life. You're still working and you're still you know, motivational, speaking, and you're in London, you know, teaching, and you're doing all these things. But is it nice that you have Gina, that you get to sit back and look at this view and have someone to enjoy all this with.

01:06:43
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean it means the world to me. I would be quite lonely without it. We travel and around each other probably ninety seven percent. I think sometimes you want me to. I think she like, give me a little space. But no, I'm extremely happy today and I hope that shows because it's authentic and it's real.

01:07:10
Speaker 4: Yes, No, I mean, listen, it is authentic.

01:07:12
Speaker 2: And even you know, when you talk about your cancer diagnosis, a lot of people don't know this. You were diagnosed with breast cancer. Males male breast cancer, and I don't think people even understand that that's a real thing. Like did you know that prior to your diagnosis? I mean obviously you you sold, you know, equipment that dealt with cancerous situations, but did you were you're aware that male breast cancer was even a thing.

01:07:38
Speaker 3: Well, I sold specifically mammography equipment, and so yet the answer is yes, we did training in the eighties when we were the number one modality, we did training on male breast cancer. Twenty two thousand men a year worldwide are diagnosed with male breast care. Answer. But the more important thing is through that experience, and I got a genetic test. There's something called BROCA too. Mutated. Half of the world, almost experts say, are mutated. That's why we have so much disease. People are walking around with mutations with their genes from their parents and grandparents minds. Is called BROCA two and for men, that mean the higher risk for prostate cancer. My grandfather died of prostate Three of my dad's brothers died of prostate His only living brother, ninety three, had prostate cancer. Overcame it. Breast cancer is I've done research. My grandmother on my mother's side sister died of breast cancer. My mother's only sister died of breast cancer. Two of her three daughters died of breast cancer. So I've learned about early detection for both prostate one and eight men in their lifetime will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Let me say that again. One in eight, seventy five percent greater risks for black men. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime higher risks for black women. So it's important for me at this point in my life to share those things, and that gives me a lot of joy to be on the forefront messaging how important it is for early detection as well, and that brings peace and joy to me as well. Some days I just look out the window. Some days I just look out the window. That's where my creativity comes from. It's just being still. I've lost about forty pounds over the last five or six years. I exercise walk two miles, you know, three or four times a day. I changed my diet and what I eat. All of that along with spirituality, along with friendship. My best friend is my wife, all of that becomes important.

01:10:20
Speaker 2: Take care of you so I love that because we need you around, because we need you to teach the world.

01:10:25
Speaker 3: I don't plan on going nowhere.

01:10:27
Speaker 4: Yeah no, I got you the number.

01:10:32
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make sure I get I get a picture of everything you eat.

01:10:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got we got some things to do.

01:10:38
Speaker 2: So before I wrap this up, I do I do want to ask you this. When you look back on your life, mister Knowles, and everything you have created, curated, managed to develop, I want to list some names, and I just want you to talk to the to me into the world about your proudest moments of each of the people are able to do that. When you look at your granddaughter Blue Ivy on stage and she's twelve years old and she is just doing amazing things choreography and lion king.

01:11:14
Speaker 4: And amazing stuff. When you look at Blue Ivy, what do you what comes to mind?

01:11:21
Speaker 3: Proudest moment. I was in London the very first time she danced. I take that back. It was the second time she danced. I was in London and I went backstage and I was like, I went backstage and I was like, well, we'll Beyonce's where's Blue Ivy And she says, Oh, she's in there practicing. I was like, oh, okay, she's practicing. Yeah, she's practicing. And I was like, she's going to dance again. Because it was never meant to be this ongoing that she was going to perform. It was a one off and she had a young girl friend that travel and her parents travel and she Beyonce said, yeah, uh her friend uh talked how bad she danced last night on social media and so she being in there practicing that was a problem moment for me that she took because in life, failure and mistakes are opportunities, opportunity to grow and get better. Again, it goes back to Star Search and the people that lost and the the people that won, but the ones lost got better. And then to hear Blue about Blue Ivy that someone said something negative, negative, that that wasn't good. She didn't go and go write post some negativity on social media. She went in practice. That was a problem moment. Hopefully you all understand that she didn't go post negative stuff. She went and practiced because she needed to practice. And she understood that at a young age that if I'm gonna get better, I have to put in the work. So that's the Blue Libby problem.

01:13:13
Speaker 2: Mama, your grandson Joel's jewels, jewels, that's my boy.

01:13:21
Speaker 3: So gush, what would be my proud moment with jewels?

01:13:25
Speaker 6: Man?

01:13:27
Speaker 3: I guess one time we were recently, we were in New York and we had lunch and it was a long lunch and it was a problem Mama to hear him because of me. Papa G. He was like, Papa G, I'm so happy I got my bank account, I got my credit cards, I'm saving all my receipts. I was like, okay, okay. I was proud of him to see who's going into man into a businessman. So that was a problem moment for him.

01:14:05
Speaker 2: Your twins, your twin grandchildren, Roomy and Sir.

01:14:10
Speaker 3: They're young. Yeah, so you know their proud moment has yet to come, but just to watch them grow up.

01:14:18
Speaker 4: Michelle Williams.

01:14:20
Speaker 3: Michelle is the connector of why Destiny Charles stayed because Michelle has never been negative. Michelle has always been let's do this. Is that what you guys want to me, Let's do it. She has been a connector. She's never had one negative comment or action as long as I've known her, not one. And by the way, Michelle's on Broadway strategically, going back to when I put her on Aida again, people don't know these aren't happenstance stuff. I mean that was each one of those ladies were ill earmarked, earmarked by me of what the future could bring. Michelle was Gospel, She's had four number one Gospel, and it was then Broadway with Aida, then she went on Color Purple. These things weren't happenstances.

01:15:31
Speaker 4: You have the vision, yes, because Herd. The Word is my jam.

01:15:37
Speaker 3: I love that song. I love the word. It's my favorite.

01:15:43
Speaker 4: That's my favorite wife. I like say yes, I like she has this one call.

01:15:47
Speaker 3: I love the music Calatine Minutes.

01:15:49
Speaker 2: That's another that's a really good on fifteen minutes. But heard the word does something to me.

01:15:55
Speaker 3: I love that song. DeAndre did that. I got to co write g.

01:16:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that was a good one.

01:16:05
Speaker 3: Kelly Rowland, Kelly is so proud to see what she's doing in TV. But Kelly still has this has this huge following. Kelly kind of then followed the plan one hundred percent because Kelly earmarked to be the it girl for international, for in Europe Australia. The good thing is she got off script. But when it comes down to TV, she's getting a lot of work in London in Australia. Yes, and that's I had wanted Kelly to be pop and international, but some people got in her ear and convinced her different. But thankfully it's working to a benefit what she built because Kelly platinum artists repeatedly in Australia, multi platinum and the UK and other parts of Europe.

01:17:15
Speaker 2: Commander is Kelly's best song to me, David Greta like.

01:17:22
Speaker 4: That whole international play you did, mister Knowles Is it will be studied. But I just want you to know.

01:17:29
Speaker 3: Commander is like and David's done an exceptional job. He's he's been with her. They're great friends. Yeah, I'm very proud of Kelly. Yeah.

01:17:39
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:17:40
Speaker 2: We saw you recently rer night with LaToya and Tavia at the backstage at your daughter's concert. What was that moment like for you?

01:17:50
Speaker 3: You guys have no clue. We had already had dinner months before the whole thing. So, Jedi mind trick, Well, you talked well, I study you.

01:18:03
Speaker 4: You talked about your your class in Texas Southern.

01:18:07
Speaker 2: You taught your artist that Jedi that And it's funny because I know this, that's your favorite word when it because of the gotcha you're like, I got y'all, y'all have been seen this coming, okay to the Jedi mind trick. So before that moment that we saw you already had dinner months ago. Yeah okay, And what was all that like for you?

01:18:24
Speaker 4: Miss it?

01:18:24
Speaker 3: Know, we're gonna keep that private.

01:18:26
Speaker 4: Okay, We'll keep that private for sure when it comes to your daughter.

01:18:31
Speaker 2: Before I get to the prodest moment. I do want to ask you this because I was an intern at the View. This is back in two thousand and three, Crazy.

01:18:43
Speaker 4: And Love just came out and your daughter was performing Crazy and Love.

01:18:49
Speaker 3: See if I was a white man and did all I've done, uh huh, all the times that my publicists was trying to get me on the View, if I was a white man on the View, whooping, y'all would have me on there.

01:19:06
Speaker 2: Well, that's why we're happy you on Reality for the King with Carlos King, because this is gonna change lives. Yeah, all of ours included, because I needed to.

01:19:15
Speaker 4: I wanna tell this story. I remember you were in the green room.

01:19:20
Speaker 2: And obviously your daughter's rehearsing, and I remember cause this is back in the day y'all was a CD and you had the Dangerously in Love CD, and.

01:19:33
Speaker 4: Obviously you heard the song many many, many many times. But it was something.

01:19:37
Speaker 2: About the fact that we were playing in the green room the song Daddy, and I am not your son, but you are the godfather of music. To me, mister Knowles, when you heard that song, I like till this day it it does something to me when I hear it. The sort of adoration and l that was spoken about you. When you heard that song for the first time, What were you surprised by it?

01:20:09
Speaker 4: Meaning, did you know she was even working on it writing it?

01:20:11
Speaker 3: No, I did not know, and I probably made one of the biggest mistakes her father can make. When I heard it the first time, I was in work mode, and when I heard it, I gave feedback in work mode, which was a huge mistake, one that I've apologized to Beyonce for and since then. When I hear that song, I damn near cry. But when I heard the first time it was she. I don't think it was she. She didn't play it. I'm trying to remember who played it. But I was in work mode and that was a mistake. But now when you hear you just yeah, it's it's extremely emotional. Yeah. But I'm not gonna bullshit you, man, I'm I'm What you see is what you get. You ask a question, I'm gonna tell you the real about it.

01:21:14
Speaker 2: What is your problem's moment when you when you look at your your daughter, Beyonce, now.

01:21:19
Speaker 3: That she's just a good person. I've always said that she's just genuinely a good person. If she never made music, uh was any industry. She's just a person that has so much goodness inside of her. Uh that would be as respectful to the gardener as she would to I don't know the king. Uh, She's just that person.

01:21:47
Speaker 4: Let's talk about Solange.

01:21:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm very proud that Godslunch just so creative, so as such an artist and am amazing songwriter. But you know, I'm proud of Solange for two things. Solange when she was a kid used to wear like stripes pants and zig zag shirt. And I'll be like, what the hell you got on, Solange? And she was like, I'm doing me. Solange in junior high got the students to do a petition to fire the teacher because she turned in a research project that was talk about a poet and why you like them? And the poet was nas And the teacher said, a rapper is not a poet and Solons is not the one. I get a phone call the principal of we have a problem with notes. Can you get down here.

01:22:58
Speaker 7: It's like seven thirty in the more God and he's sitting with sistant principal and the teacher like, Solana, just have petition to get the teacher fire because she said she did the report right, and I was like, she's one hundred percent right.

01:23:17
Speaker 3: He is a poet. See that's the lunch. And when I hear that song Cranes in the Sky, Remember I talked about this period of life. I was going through things. Just those words you can't dance it away, you can't shop it away, you can't drink it away, you can't sex it away. That was very meaningful for me in a period of my life. So that song has so much meaning for me.

01:23:52
Speaker 2: What would you like your legacy to be like in the history books?

01:23:56
Speaker 3: I say this all the time. I I don't want to write my legacy. I want you and you to write my legacy. In a way. I think that's when I hear others that say this is my legacy, that's their perspective, and I respect that. But for me, I just think there's a degree of arrogance in I want to write my legacy. I want others to write my legacy and let that be about my body of work and my impact, talk about my successes and failures. I'm good with that because life hasn't been perfect for me, and I've learned a lot along the way. It's you know, I remember my first book tour and I was going in this hotel and I had all these boxes and books, and the billman was pushing the cart and I was like, young man, when am I getting to my room? Because the always was long, and then we turn and long and I never forget. He says, Doctor knows. It's not about the destination, It's about the journey. That's what I want my legacy to be about. Not my destination, but my journey.

01:25:21
Speaker 2: Can I tell you what I would like it to be from if your perspective, I think you are the greatest music manager to ever.

01:25:31
Speaker 4: Exists in the business.

01:25:32
Speaker 3: Thank you for that.

01:25:33
Speaker 4: And I do mean that.

01:25:35
Speaker 2: I do mean that because you have talked about your successes, but you also have mentioned your failures. And I think it takes a great man, a great person, if you will, to acknowledge both, because I do believe in order for you to be great in anything that they they kind of go hand in hand, because you oftentimes learn more from your failures than your success.

01:26:00
Speaker 4: So I would like that to be it.

01:26:02
Speaker 2: And the reason why I love this interviews because you know, I want this to go in the history books for people.

01:26:07
Speaker 4: To watch, you know, in classrooms.

01:26:10
Speaker 2: You know, I want your grandkids to one day look at this and really get to know their grandfather in a much deeper way, you know, to really just have something tangible to look at and say like, this is who my grandfather is or.

01:26:24
Speaker 4: Your great great great grandchildren.

01:26:26
Speaker 2: You know, when I look at the family crest, you know, I will love for your picture to be as big as that artwork over there, so that when generations of the Knowles family, you know, come around and it's two thousand and fifty and they look at this black man and they say, well, who's that, Well, that's your you know, your great great great great great grandfather, Matthew Knows spelled with one team, okay, and he his sacrifice that he made.

01:27:01
Speaker 4: Allowed all of us to spread the wealth. So I would like that to be a legacy.

01:27:06
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that gift and just a mere fact that I could impact someone, that impact you when you were fifteen years old. It makes it all the trials and tribulations and hard work and gratitude. It makes it worthwhile for me. That really touched me about you to know that at fifteen years old. And it also tells me when we think people aren't watching, they're watching good or bad. Yeah.

01:27:40
Speaker 2: My final question, mister Knowles, what happened to the Alicia Keith at Beyonce music video for for What a Love Song?

01:27:51
Speaker 4: Where is it? Mister Knowles?

01:27:53
Speaker 3: Which video?

01:27:54
Speaker 4: Mister don't tell I'm watch.

01:27:57
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?

01:27:58
Speaker 2: The music?

01:28:00
Speaker 3: What song?

01:28:02
Speaker 4: Say you love me? Said you love me?

01:28:04
Speaker 2: Put it in a love song, Put it in a love song, put it in a love song on Alicia Keys album.

01:28:10
Speaker 4: I want to say I shot in Brazil. We saw a little like glimpse of it.

01:28:18
Speaker 3: I get a phone call because I'm not a micromanager and they're in the projects hood ghetto in real and Sony hadn't paid the gangsters and they had to be helicoptered out of there. A whole lot you don't know, young man. Yeah, it's a lot that people don't know. Thank you, Thank you.

01:28:56
Speaker 4: At least listen we got the song.

01:28:58
Speaker 3: I don't rather everyone to say, no, that's really what happened.

01:29:03
Speaker 4: I didn't.

01:29:03
Speaker 3: Well, no, that's what nobody talked about.

01:29:10
Speaker 4: Matthews, ladies, and.

01:29:21
Speaker 3: No, thank you, thank you.

01:29:24
Speaker 4: I make you brown.

01:29:25
Speaker 3: You made me very very and.

01:29:28
Speaker 4: I hope you know my sincerity.

01:29:29
Speaker 2: I mean what I said, I I don't want this world too. And when I say this, I'm not being of course like dramatic. I can't have this world not know your impact. I just I just I think. And it took me to enter this business and to see the roadblocks that I've had to endure.

01:29:50
Speaker 4: And I was like, when people say that means because my.

01:29:56
Speaker 2: Language, and I'm like, oh, I'm get it.

01:30:00
Speaker 4: No, because he was like, you're not gonna play with me. You're gonna play with me and I or mine and I have to I have to do that and make sure that they're protected.

01:30:11
Speaker 2: But I'll be the bad guy in this situation and they will always be seen as the angels.

01:30:16
Speaker 4: But I'm gonna be that.

01:30:17
Speaker 2: It took me to enter this business for me to be like, now, I get it, I get it.

01:30:23
Speaker 4: I get it because being nice don't work, no, not at all.

01:30:27
Speaker 3: And you've got to have in this business your own creative direction. I mean, there's been many things. When Beyonce turned in her first.

01:30:37
Speaker 6: Album Crazy and Love, Baby Boy, Me Myself and I Angelsy and Love, it was another hit on there, uh, naughty Girl, Naughty Girl, and then that video.

01:30:51
Speaker 4: Which one you said baby boy?

01:30:53
Speaker 2: Already it was crazy love, baby Boy, naughty girl, me myself and I.

01:31:00
Speaker 4: Things of Love, freakom dress. But that was day. No, it was one more that's baby, That's that's b day.

01:31:10
Speaker 3: It was no one that you showed me that.

01:31:12
Speaker 4: Hip hop wasn't hip hop star?

01:31:14
Speaker 3: What was the one that you showed me that you said that he was going to show me let's be there. Well let's said those five. Yeah, Well, when you turn those into Columbia Records, they rejected the album. We had to have a meeting with attorneys and all kinds of stuff. They rejected the album. They said there was not one hit on the album. They were sort of right. It was five.

01:31:49
Speaker 4: I love it. I love it so much.

01:31:51
Speaker 3: But you have to have your own direction. I mean they didn't know these white boys, you know, and then you have so many yes people. As you learned in the entertainment industry. They sit in meetings and they look to see what the lead person and they go, oh that's great. They we don't like nobody has their own opinion, you know. It's like, so we always had our own strategy. I mirrored Columbia Records. That's I had the record. That's how I came with the out of management to records because we had every department they had we had and we kind of shared responsibility. But anybody and everybody will tell you at those meetings at Columbia Records, I was at the head of the table.

01:32:38
Speaker 2: Listen, you are the best in if y'all done, because I've never had anyone guide me.

01:32:46
Speaker 4: I did. I never hear a bigger journal mast.

01:32:53
Speaker 2: I never had the subject tell me this is the direction we're going.

01:32:59
Speaker 3: Without without how to say it, I said, let's rewind.

01:33:09
Speaker 1: Reality with the King is executive produced by me Carlos King, produced by Lizzie Nimitz, and a partnership with the Lack of Effect Network. You can also find us on my YouTube channel at the Carlos King Underscore