At 41, Beyoncé Knowles is one of the richest and most powerful women in the world. In 2022, his fortune is estimated at 450 million dollars by Forbes magazine. She is married to one of the most important rappers, Jay-Z, who is also one of the richest: he weighs 2.5 billion dollars. She has sold 200 million albums.
Last year, her new album, Renaissance, broke the record for most streams in one day by a female artist in 2022 (43 million streams in 24 hours, one billion streams in total). She has also just won the record for the most awarded artist of all time at the Grammy Awards (32 statuettes). But its success owes nothing to chance. Mother, daughter, wife, singer, businesswoman and super-sexy superstar, Beyoncé is a hard worker, known for her perfectionism and flair.
She also owes a lot to her dad. And vice versa… Manager of his daughter’s first group, Girl’s Tyme, when she was 8 years old, Mathew Knowles trained her in dance, singing, and especially discipline, in Houston, Texas, where she grew up. She wants to be a star, fine, but for that, she’s going to have to work. He is intractable and takes her to all the singing competitions. A firm believer in his daughter’s career, Mathew left his executive job at a medical equipment company to create and develop Destiny’s Child, his oldest daughter’s second girl band, through his company: Music World Entertainment.
Manager and producer of the group, he invests all his savings there, and hits the jackpot: a contract with the Columbia record company and a placement in the soundtrack of the film Men in Black. With their hits ‘No, No, No’, ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’, ‘Say my Name’, ‘Independent Women’, ‘Survivor’ and ‘Bootylicious’, Destiny’s Child became one of the greatest pop groups of all. time. On the strength of his success, Mathew signs a slew of singers R
In 2003, when her daughter began a solo career, Knowles was still behind her to manage her, along with the other members of the group: Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. The other girls, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson, sued her (and the band) for embezzlement. The parties will come to a financial agreement. Solidarity, in her ballad “Daddy” released in 2003, Beyoncé pays a touching tribute to her “papager”: “I want / My unborn son / To be like my daddy / I want my husband to be like my daddy / There is no one else like my daddy / And I thank you For lovin’me. “Little Electra complex?
The surprise is all the greater when, on March 29, 2011, this 30-year-old daddy’s girl announces that Mathew Knowles will no longer be managing her. Officially, it’s a joint decision, which was only made for “business” reasons. In reality, the relationship between father and daughter has been deteriorating for several years. Indeed, in 2002, another man took hold of her heart: Queen B is now in a relationship with rapper Jay-Z, one of the greatest American rappers, and above all a brilliant businessman in whom she has everything trust. She becomes his wife on April 4, 2008, and the husband soon eclipses the father.
When Mathew’s mistress (who has always been a fickle husband) becomes pregnant in 2009, Bey, very close to his mother, hardly speaks to her anymore. Beyoncé is even asking for an investigation into the finances of her “I Am…Tour” tour, because she suspects him of having embezzled part of the $119.5 million in revenue. The court will rule in his favour. In March 2011, therefore, she fired him to create her own management company, while she entrusted her tours to Live Nation, of which Jay-Z is a shareholder.
In November, the singer’s parents divorced. Beyoncé stays by her mother’s side. Two years later, neither she nor her sister Solange will attend the wedding of their father, who abandoned his former mistress and their child for an ex-model, Gena Charmaine Avery.
In 2015, a rumor was circulating that Beyoncé was ready to sue her dad to get her rights to the Destiny’s Child brand back because he still owns the band’s name and copyright. In 2016, in her fabulous album Lemonade, she sang on a bluesy melody: “Came into this world / Daddy’s little girl / And daddy made a soldier out of me / Daddy made me dance / And daddy held my hand / And daddy liked his whiskey with his tea…” To avoid any ambiguity, Beyoncé even inserts images of her father playing with his daughter, in the clip of this “Daddy Lessons”. He now has to cry on social media so he can wish her a happy birthday.
In the meantime, Mathew Knowles continues to profit from the Beyoncé brand: he has created a “bootcamp” for those who would like to succeed as well as his daughter in the music industry and publishes a manual for achieving success: The DNA Of Achievers: 10 Traits of Highly Successful Professionals. He also bought the publishing rights of country artists (including the rights to certain Johnny Cash songs), launched into children’s music… And released unreleased tracks from Girl’s Tyme, to which he still holds the rights, accompanied by a book: Destiny’s Child: The Untold Story. At 70, he finally retired last year, with a good fortune.
