I'm a fan of human journeys, and I pay tribute to people that mark their time with positivity and possibility, and especially those who market for others. My guest today embodies that and more. His name's Matthew Knowles. He's been a crusader on so many fronts. So it's a privilege for me to give back, to give back the knowledge. I share my my mistakes. We learn failure is the
opportunity to grow, not a reason to quit. He was the guiding force behind one of the world's best selling girl groups, Destiny's Child, and helped to launch Beyonce's solo career. What makes you different? You know, the sound, the tonality, the songwriting, the performance. It's all of that. I mean, it's all of that in totality. It's not one thing. But Matthew Knowles has proven that his vision goes well beyond the stage. He ran the world's largest gospel music label, lighting a pastor
voices that uplift spirits. But beyond the glitz of music, he has been a fierce advocate for equality using his platform and his voice to level the playing field for the marginalized. And now in a deeply personal crusade, Mathieu stands as a beacon of hope and resilience as a male breast cancer survivor, advocating for awareness and early detection. This is chatter that matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC. Matthew, I thank you for joining me on Chatter That Matters.
I absolutely loved learning more about you. Instead of just the father of Beyonce, what I really came to respect is this crusade you've been on in terms of civil rights. And from what I understand, that torch was originally passed to you from your parents. It it was. It and specifically, my my mother told me. My mother went to high school with Coretta King and little small town Marion, Alabama. Also, Andrew Young's wife also was in her class. And it must have been something in the water.
Right? Because when my mother, left that little small town and and went to Gaston, Alabama, which was the 4th largest city in Alabama, She was hell bent that I was gonna get a better education, and so I desegregated and integrated, schools all of my childhood life, all the way up to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. But you know, when you talk about it now and it's almost like this is what she did, but this is you as a young kid as a
crusader. If I've got my research right, it was like 4 black kids showing up at the school, and it wasn't exactly you necessarily were welcome. No. We weren't welcome at all. Yeah. I I remember walking up and a lot of parents were out there, number of police. Because George Wallace was our governor that, had a law called freedom of choice, which allowed you to pick wherever you wanted to go to school as a parent for your kids. But he had, underlining
parenthesis there that you're on your own. I mean, you can pick any school you want to, but my state troopers and the police aren't gonna be there to help you. So there was a tremendous amount of fear, with us in going to these schools. And as you know, during that time, these 4 young kids, church in Birmingham, Alabama, there was a bombing. So, you know, there was a real sensitivity of fear, doing this as well. Were you angry
with your mom for doing that? Or did you feel this is kinda part of your destiny is to sort of light a path for others? Really good question. Because as we go through my journey, you will see fast forward to my forties that I imploded and that I spent years in therapy, and I had to really deal with, and process. There was a sense of anger, because I'm a little I'm a young kid. I didn't make that decision. I don't know any kid that wanna be laughed at, spit on, been beaten by
state troopers. I've been electrocroded. So I had to process that as I got older. And it affected me in a in a negative way with the really racial trauma that I experienced during that that period as a kid. One lesson that I heard you talk about was being laughed at in that classroom. I think you were sitting up and reading. And you said from that point on, I will make sure that anytime I
have the microphone at stage, I'm gonna be prepared. Yeah. I remember, like, yesterday with mister Jones at Litchfield Junior High, my first day 1st minutes of class of sitting to the first row, we had Shakespeare. They asked me to read a paragraph out of Shakespeare. Heck, it'd be difficult now to read a paragraph out of Shakespeare, you know? And these kids, you know, they they just I made mistakes. And when I did, they just laughed and spit balls at me,
the little airplanes, and it just belittled me. And it made me feel, like I wanted to disappear. And and I said at that time that this will never happen again, I'll be prepared. And kinda throughout my life, you'll see that they stayed with me of research and being prepared. We're gonna get into it, but I celebrate. You always seem to be 3 chess moves ahead of most when it comes to, you know, the situation you're in. And I think that's an
incredible lesson in life. But countering this sort of spitballs and this anxiety that obviously you had to unpack in trauma, you also talked about the lessons in life of living during a time of people like Martin Luther King, Jr, and probably conversations you had with your mom. Is there one lesson in life as time
passes that we cannot forget? And I know there's many, but one that really stands out for you that says, if I could just put a magic wand across society and we understood this, we'd be a better human race for it. A couple of lessons that during that period, doctor King, is was a sense of belonging that we all belong. That was really important because really that's what racism is all about, and I feel that
I'm superior and that you don't belong. And I learned from my parents also, a a sense of entrepreneurship. During that period, there were black communities. We had grocery stores, and we had, pharmacies, and we had our businesses, and we lost that through integration. But there was a sense of pride of entrepreneurship back in those days in the in the black community. And me being a 3rd generation entrepreneur, my parents were entrepreneur as well,
That really stayed with me doing that period. There's very few things you haven't excelled at. And the one I smiled the most at is your first career was really in diagnostic equipment. Almost the Glengarry Ross mentality of sales, but you absolutely shot the lights out and and you sold a fairly sophisticated piece of equipment. Yeah. I did. You know, I moved to Houston without
a job. Now back then, affirmative action was a plain state in in a country, and Houston having all the energy and all, they had quotas that they had to fill, with with black employees. And so I started out in Houston with Pitney Bowes. And on Fridays, the fellows, we would get together, happy hours, and, you know, just regular guys in their twenties. And this little short white guy walked up to me, and he
says, can I speak to you too for a minute? And I said, sure. He says, I've been listening to you guys for about an hour, and you are a leader. And that's what we want at Xerox Corporation. How would you like to work at Xerox? I looked at the guy like, okay. You you're joking. Must be cameras handy camera or something. And then he he he sold me his business card, and he told me human resources. He says, how about meeting me at 8 o'clock Monday? And I said, absolutely. That's how I got my job,
simply by someone listening. And the point is you never know who's listening, Tony. You never know who's listening. So I wanna now move the story towards the fact you know, you get married, this lovely person, Tina, who's and you have 2 daughters, Beyonce and Solange. And as successful as you are in your business career, you somehow carve out enough time to be a combination of parent and then somebody that says to your
kids, I support your music dreams. So just take us back to that before Destiny's Child where you as a parent saying, you know what? I'm not here to tell you what path to follow. I'm here to say, how can I help you get to where you wanna go? And that was our method of of parenting, Tom. I teach a lot of kids that parents say, you will be a doctor, you will be an attorney. Normally typically,
that doesn't work out. The way my parents parented me was, Matthew, you can do whatever you wanna do and, like, make sure it's what you're passionate about. And that was the same method we had with our kids. I didn't care if they wanna be doctors, lawyers, attorneys, or indigenchiefs. As long as they found their passion, I wanted to make sure we supported that. So in the beginning, I was just a parent because Tina, we had the one of the largest hair salons in Houston. And so on the weekends,
she was busy working. And so I was a parent most of the nights doing homework with them and taking them to all these events with their friends, and began to see how music they really were passionate about at a very, very young age. You know, Beyonce used to say, Dad, I just wanna be an entertainer. I don't even know if she knew what entertainer meant. But, you know? So we always supported putting them put them
in dance, they excelled in that. There was a sing dance category, and Beyonce excelled in that, and then she started competing in elementary, junior high school, and excelled at that. That is sandwich launch. You know, when you talk about, you know, the kid going, dad, I just wanna be an entertainer, let's go back to that theme because a lot of parents would kinda even even whether they thought there was a career or not, they would dismiss that
as sort of a, you know, a childhood fantasy. What role should parents play in listening generously? Almost like the person that listened said you're a leader. Really listening beyond their biases and recognizing that that's a kid calling out saying, this is something that I feel inside me that matters. Well, kids are curious. Right? And so as parents, we we have to listen to them and ask them also the question, why? Why do you like that? Beyonce, why do you wanna be that? It's
her answers would she would watch TV. She's, I wanna be like Michael Jackson. I wanna be famous. And I was like, well, it's more than that. You gotta say it's a lot of hard work involved. Are you is that really what you wanna do? Are you willing to put in the work that's required? And and as you know, to be really great at something requires you to put in that work. But when a passion is there, and when you can establish with your kid that's their passion, and and then give
them the tools that they can succeed. I remember many teachers, really frustrating as a parent, why is she spending and you spending all of this time in this music thing that's never going to happen? Well, one of those teachers' son has worked for Solange as her assistant for over 20 years now. That's that's wonderful. And the other thing I read that you said, no matter what you wanna do, there's some chords you gotta play. You mentioned hard work. We also talked
about authenticity and perseverance. You know, it's almost that desirability and feasibility. You can go for it, but you have to also understand that there's certain things that are really the the heart of the matter. Was that an easy thing to instill? Because as you start finding success as a young person, we're gonna get into Destiny's Child, is it still easy to communicate to the people that's saying, the hard work is just beginning versus the hard work's over?
And part of that process in in that journey is failure and mistakes. I think why my kids have excelled is you have to remember, they got to come home every day from school. Their dad was the number one sales rep in the world. Their mom and dad owned a business, a hair salon business that that made no. We made our first $1,000,000,000. Beyonce was 2 years old. And we shared our daily successes and our
daily mistakes and failures with them. So hopefully, we were an example, a role model to our kids. Now the days are coming to an end in terms of your business acumen because talk to me a little bit about how Destiny's Child formed. I know that initially it was a part time job for you, but the success, you suddenly you had to make a decision
to say I'm all in or I'm just gonna be the parent. So take us back to that time because, again, I think it's an important note for the audience to listen to in terms of you making that decision because you're saying, I'm gonna step off my path now and help to help my daughters blaze the trail they wanna go. I had always said, Tony, I would do 20 years of corporate America. And it was almost to the day, 20 years. And by this time, I had stopped
I left Xerox Medical. We had closed that division. I had sold MRI CT scanners. But now I'm with Justin and Justin as a neurosurgical specialist. At that time, Beyonce was in a a they were kids, 11, 12, 13 years old girl group called Girls Time. They got on Star Search, but at the same time, managed care had hit the medical industry. And I was selling instruments that were very expensive, and the neurosurgeon called me to his office one day and said he couldn't use
my instruments because of the cost. And that's when I knew the writing was on the wall, no pun intended, of the 2nd Destiny's Child album. But I knew at that time that I had to transition to my pastor. And
but these things happen at the same time. And seeing her moves on Star Search, talking to the, host of Star Search, and see him telling me that people that consistently won on the show didn't go on to success, it was the ones who lost, who became really successful, like Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, those kinda names. And and that's when I went back to school. I didn't quit my job. I always say when I'm
speaking, I didn't quit my job. I transitioned. I went back to school, took courses and classes in music, business, went to every seminar that I could, and then I became a full time, manager. How do you also dance the tight rope between, I'm your dad, I'm the parent, especially with your wife, Tina, so busy with, you know, running this this multimillion dollar business. And at the same time, I'm also gonna be the manager because managers have to make tough
decisions. They have to decide who should be in the band. They have to sometimes be you know, make decisions that aren't necessarily what the daughter might want. So give us a sense of how you navigated that period. Yeah. That's tough. I I always say to people that that's not easy when a parent is managing their kids. Fortunately for me, we own the business. We have family members that we had to to, terminate their employment. Fortunate for me, I came
from corporate America. Xerox was my trainee trainer, and I learned so much from them, people skills. So I I had that experience, but still, I had to make tough decisions that didn't always were in the best interest of Beyonce. But I had that corporate experience that allowed me to think through those in a different way. It's not easy though. It's not easy when you sit at dinner and every conversation turns into
business. Pay the price for that as a parent. At a certain point, your your kids just want you to be their parent and not their manager. That was a difficulty that I had to learn how to do. Just for the audience, because we all know of Destiny's Child, but just compress it in the sense of how much success that you both had in terms of in this world where so many people seek stardom and recognition and validation
and their passion. You achieved it. First of all, the girls were passionate, and extremely talented. I, built a team that built a strategy. Instead of the record labels was in the music business, we were in the branding business, since that's a different approach. So we understood how to brand the group. But there was so many successes that it came from artist development. I I say this all the time. That's the style booster when they would have
rehearsals and practice. We would practice failure. But what do you mean by practice failure? Well, we would do things like, in the middle of the performance, we turn the music off, or we turn the lights off, or we would have a button, we purposely would make sure we're pop doing their dance routines. Those things that happen on the stage, we practice that. So they were extremely prepared. Gosh. There there we go again. Right? Being prepared. But but they put in that work,
and and we understood that we had to have great songs. It's a combination of a lot of things, that America, what the only place you could sell records, that the world was much bigger. And so we approached it from a worldwide perspective. But we did things
different. When we come back, Matthew talks about the tiny dots of blood that he found on his shirt, the horrible diagnosis that followed, how that changed the trajectory of his life, and why he's coming up to Toronto to talk to after breast cancer. Hi. This is Tony Chapman. I wanna talk to you about what RBC Wealth Management is doing to support healthy aging. Old age is becoming old
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healthy aging, and start planning for your future. Healthy aging, well, that matters to you, to me, and to RBC. As a matter of fact, you know, some people give her the name Bey. My father used to call her Bey when he used to rock her in the Sleepy Would Sing tour because he couldn't pronounce Beyonce. You're listening to Chatter That Matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC.
My guest today is Matthew Knowles. He's a proud father of Beyonce and Solange, the manager behind Destiny's Child and Beyonce's early career, a record mogul in his own right, and also an advocate for male breast cancer. Beyonce's solo career, I love the story about her first album. He only had a $1,000,000 to market it. Then here comes Matthew with his 3 chess moves ahead, doing a deal with L'Oreal that where they spent about $25,000,000
helping you get where you wanted to go with Beyonce. So share that because to me, that's kind of the out of box thinking that we need to study more in school because that's not classic textbook. Yeah. And that's part of marketing and building a brand and brand development. I realized that Sony had a a $1,000,000 marketing budget. And, I started thinking, hey, we have strategically
female empowerment is what Destiny's Child was all about. If you listen to their songs, Independent Women, Girls, Girls, Girls, Bills, Bills, Bills, Bills, those were female empowerment songs. So naturally, I would want to partner with someone who had a female audience. So I called on the president of L'Oreal. My sales former sales skills kicked in and built a relationship, and sold him Hey. Let's let's put Beyonce in commercials. Let's put her song
in commercials. And as they would grow together because you would help her create the success. And her success at Star, done would help you sell your brand. And so it was a win win for everyone. And so we did that with L'Oreal, we did that Pepsi, we did that with McDonald's. And oh, by the way, McDonald's, we're not selling hamburgers and french fries, we're gonna sell healthy living. And so, McDonald's came up with a salad. That's how they came up with
salads. Because we said, No, we're not gonna do french fries and hamburgers. And so we partner on the worldwide tour, and it it was those kind of thinking outside of the box, strategic partners that we brought, American Express, Mercedes, Nintendo, all strategy. We fast forward to Beyonce. I think of her work in formation. I think of and I think of the little girl around the dinner table with your wife and realizing the torture mama given to you, she's now carrying on in terms of what
she believes matters. That that her song, her voice, she's not afraid to risk. And I'm sure there's some people saying your risk. To her, the reward was I can now have the ability to change society. It must have been a very proud moment for you to know that some of the lessons in life have gone from one generation to another generation to Beyonce. Well, I am proud. I I mean, I'm so proud of Beyonce and Solange because Solange is exceptional songwriter.
You know, to see them have a voice and culture today, to see Beyonce step outside of the box with a country album. And and even as of yesterday, 2 days ago, the Country Music Awards didn't even recognize her, the most successful country record this year. But she understands that's part of being out front. That's the price sometimes you have to
pay in leadership. And I'm so proud of her as a leader, and as a a mother running a business, with this exceptional talent and exceptional exceptional love of her her fan base. You know, that bullshit was the Country Music Awards because I think it was but I go, you taught her how to learn from failure. She's okay. I also wanna just finish with Beyonce, and then we wanna move on to, the 2023
Grammy Awards. I love the way she said I'd like to thank my parents, my father, my mother for loving me and pushing me. There's gotta be times father, manager, tension, all the things that happen within that current. The fact that that that it all comes full circle And she looks to you and she says it says to me that those were moments well spent. She always recognizes
both of her parents. And she as she's gotten older now, I think she really begins to understand what my role was in her career and why I made some of the moves I did. And understanding some of those very difficult, making changes, Destiny Shaw very difficult. Having a strategy that between each album, each one of the ladies would have solo albums. I think she now understands why they did that so that she could begin to build
her solo career. And I think she's she's become a better businesswoman, and a be better parent also, and understanding that it all was based on love. You know, the last question I'll ask because I know the global appetite for Destiny's Child coming back together. I hope it happens because I think it'll take you back to leaving the corporate world and remembering the early days of rehearsal. So we'll we'll I guess we'll, time will tell if that's
possible. Yeah. Time will tell. We all all hope that, you never know. And technology is such now that some interesting things are happening. Just yesterday, I told someone I say, you know what? I think I'm gonna go and pick 6 Destiny's Child songs, one with Cell On that, Lonnie O'Ritchie wrote. I'm a pick 6 Destiny's Child songs and remix them and turn them to country songs just to put it in the country music awards space. I think one day, there will be some regrets on
the award thing. Before we move on, so people know it wasn't just Beyonce Solange. Thank you. You had the largest gospel label in the world. You produced some extraordinary albums for bands like Earth, Wind, and Fire. So the guy that went back to school and took seminars and figured things out, he certainly became one of the leading and driving forces on how music and marketing and win and win can all work together without selling out, if anything, just lifting that much more people
with positivity? Yeah. I partnered with a a a rock label in the largest management company, and we built our urban division, and we built the largest urban management company in the world. And then we had a record label side of that, the Earth from the Fire, OJ's, Sokka Khan, Cool In The Game, some major names, in the industry. And we partnered with, BET, they had a number one show called Sunday Best, and that's where we built the
gospel label. But again, it took, years of learning in the industry, from a business perspective, learning how to run a record label, and continue growth. And I continue to grow, Tony. I continue to learn. I love learning. Don't always get it right, but a lot of times we do. It's with the the help of a team.
It's not just me, eyes, weak. Now I wanna talk and shift gears because a while back, you started to see drops of blood on your shirt that you dismissed initially as maybe some bad laundry, but it turned into a pretty tough health diagnosis that created yet another path that you're gonna advocate on. So take us back to those days when and how you found out you had male
breast cancer. You know, today, that evening, you know, getting ready for bed and I take off my white t shirt, I see imagine a white sheet of paper, take a pen, red pen and put 5 dots on it. It. And so I didn't think much of them. You know, I had remarried back then. I I I I married, you know, Tina, now my new wife's name is Gina, which I get confused sometimes. But I say to Gina, like, there's some dots on my
shirt. Like, did you buy new t shirts or something? She says, no. The last 3 or 4 days when I cleaned the sheets on your side of the bed, I've been these drops of blood. Now go in reverse, I was the top sales rep selling mammography equipment for breast cancer. So we had training on male breast cancer, not much, but we had a couple of days training. And that was the number one, diagnosis is, nipple discharge. And I knew immediately
that that could be that I had male breast cancer. Called my doctor, kinda blew it off at first, but I convinced him, no idea the mammogram. That was the first time he had even, recommended a man get a mammogram. And I get a mammogram, and then I find out after surgery that I'm genetically mutated. So, they're called BRCA 2 mutation, which means I have higher risk of breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and melanoma. So I have to
I had to make a lifestyle change with all of that. And mental health also becomes a part of that. Your advocacy, rather than hiding of it or thinking that's something weak for a male to you went the other way. You went full on and tried to wake up the world. And in fact, you're coming
up to Toronto. I mean, I know what your schedule's like. The last couple of weeks you've been all over the world and yet you're making time to come up to a charity called After Breast Cancer, which is helping people come to terms that they've lost a breast, they need a bra, they need self esteem, they need to find a that renew their sense of purpose in life, that that's not the end of their life. And you're you're making your way up. So this is
important to you. Very important. So if you could I can wave a magic wand. 2nd wand I've given you today. What should society do so that they're focused on prevention and they're focused on healing versus sitting back and waiting and reacting to something might happen? Yeah. It's all about early detection, Tony. I I wish I could make it complicated. A kid can can grasp it. A kid can count to 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Cancer is about the stages. Stage 1, you
get one result. Stage 4, the result and its treatment is totally, drastically different, and the outcome can be drastic drastically different. So it becomes important, the early detection, finding it early. I wanna find it early. That's why I got a MRI twice, 3 weeks ago for my prostate and my pancreas. Because if I do have a problem, I wanna find it early. Because in my male breast cancer, I found it early, stage 1 a. So as a result, I took a pill a day, a pill a day. I
didn't have to take radiation. I'm very grateful for that because I found it early. And so that's my mission. And now I partnered and and and also genetics because I think that'll become the first line. We won't wait until 4050. You know, in our twenties, we'll get a genetic test that gives us information because information is powerful. It'll say, no, that you're not gonna get it, but you have a higher propensity of getting it. So maybe you wanna do these things. Maybe you wanna get a mammogram
earlier now. Maybe you don't wanna wait till 50. Maybe you wanna do that now in your twenties or thirties. That's the information, and that's why I get on this platform because I'm first of all, I'm grateful that I have a platform. And I think when you have a platform, you use it in a positive way. But also, again, just sharing that information with men and women. What's your legacy, Matthew? I mean, you're a you've been a crusader on so many fronts.
How do you hope you remembered many years from now in terms of what you did and why you matter? You know, I began to think about that. I I just wanna remember that I cared, that I was authentic. You know, I I I share my life story now, and I'm sugar coated. That I really truly came from a place of wanting to help and make a mark on the world. I always believed that I could impact the world, in some way, and that might so some people be like, what?
But I I really believe that. And I'm gonna work very hard. You know, I always say, you know, I tell my wife, I say, hey, when you have my my ceremony, from leaving, I would love the homeless people that I used to go up to in Houston and we all give money, but I would give them a hug, Tony. I would give them a hug, and that meant more to them than the $20 I gave. The fact that I gave them a hug, looked them in the eye and say, brother or sister, I love
And that's the lyrics. You know, Matthew, I always end with my three things. And, number 1, I see the little kid, spitballs coming at him, and you're looking back and saying, from here on, I'll be prepared. And prepared is a chord that we've played all the way through. The second one is practicing failure is such a wonderful lesson in life because we so often get paralyzed by failure. We give up because of failure. But if we practice failure, we realize it's just a
circumstance to overcome. And the third one that is that you found a way, maybe it was your forties with the therapist or whatever, but love roars through your brother. It roars through you and everything you do when you're, you know, this is a podcast. I wish every time you talked about Solange or Beyonce, I could see the love in your eyes, the smile on your face. I am just so happy that you're coming up to After Breast Cancer. I can't wait to be in
the audience, shake your hand, give you a hug. And I know that the message you leave with them will be a message that'll be shared to 1,000 more. And for that, what a great life serves. And I I really appreciate you joining me in Chatter That Matters. Well, thank you. I'm looking forward, to the gala. So those of you listening, could you take us if you haven't. But, I look forward to sharing my story. You know, it's not the destination. It's the journey. And we all
still have a journey. Chatter that matters has been a presentation of RBC. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening. Let's chat soon.