On Monday, Might 19, Tina Knowles (affectionately referred to as Mama Tina) graced the stage on the Brooklyn Paramount, dipped in Lorraine Schwartz diamonds and a bejeweled Bibhu Bespoke costume for the final U.S. leg of her worldwide Matriarch e-book tour hosted by household historical past accomplice, Ancestry.com. Gayle King moderated the star-studded affair (which included a soulful efficiency of “No person’s Supposed To Be Right here” by Deborah Cox) the place Mama Tina, the mom of leisure icons Beyoncé, Solange, Kelly Rowland, and Angie, chatted candidly concerning the wild rollercoaster trip of life she’s lived and remains to be residing. Matriarch, a revealing memoir drenched in tears and triumphs, particulars the brutal racism Knowles’ household survived within the South, the beginning of her daughters, rounds of marital betrayal, entrepreneurship as the last word escape plan, second probabilities at love, and the newest plot twist: surviving breast most cancers.
The opening chapter of the e-book, titled Underneath The Pecan Tree, waxes poetically via Knowles’ recollections of her late mom. It reads, “Later, a daughter will miss the sound of her mom calling her identify. You may’t persuade her of this when she is younger. Not whereas that voice is so plentiful within the air.” The passage, loaded with the unheard murmurings of a grieving daughter, speaks of a matriarch gone manner too quickly, however not quickly forgotten. Agnes Derouen Buyince: an elder who, although we’ve by no means met personally, we most actually know her by identify.
Her center identify Derouen is Home Of Deréon’s origin story, the nostalgic early 2000s model launched by Beyoncé & her mom that had us all rocking New Orleans’ fleur-de-lis patterned hoodies and denim as an ode to their Louisiana Creole heritage. And naturally, the final identify Buyincé would go on to turn into the primary identify of some of the prolific artists in world music: Beyoncé. Although Agnes would by no means meet her granddaughter on this life, their everlasting blood-bond is etched eternally within the sands of time and leisure historical past. Mama Tina made certain of that.
The 70-year-old advised HelloBeautiful backstage throughout her e-book tour that digging into her household’s previous was empowering. She displays on the great-grandmother she was named after, Celestine, who was bought at a slave public sale for $1,750, a element she discovered whereas working with Ancestry.com.
“I knew about my great-grandmother being bought, and I knew the one who bought her is somebody she had had a pair youngsters with,” she mentioned.
Tina mentioned “the most effective revelations” of her ancestral dig was studying each of her great-grandmothers have been in some way in a position to forestall their youngsters from being bought away.
“They stored their youngsters with them. They have been by no means separated. God is aware of what they needed to undergo to try this,” she mentioned. That Buyincé legacy of holding the household shut in any respect prices has endured via the bloodline. Daughters Blue Ivy and Rumi are presently on the multi-city Cowboy Carter tour with their mom Beyoncé, which isn’t solely a generational social gathering, but additionally a symbolic passing of the torch. And the apples don’t fall removed from the tree. Ms. Tina, who has backstaged her daughters’ careers for many years, as soon as had a style for the highlight herself. She shares in Matriarch that rising up, she was part of her personal singing group referred to as The Veltones. Although singing wasn’t in Mama Tina’s final future, she mentioned if she might sing any track from her daughters’ culture-defining music catalogues, it could be “I Was Right here” by Beyoncé and Solange’s “Don’t Contact My Hair.”
As a parting reward, Mama Tina supplied recommendation for mothers and moms-to-be who wish to create a legacy as enduring as hers: “Study who your youngsters are, and allow them to be them,” she mentioned.
“And allow them to do issues as a result of they need to do them. See them as people and never a collective. That’s my greatest recommendation.”
Ms. Tina Knowles’ Memoir ‘Matriarch’ Journeys Via The Maternal Line That Birthed Beyoncé And Solange’s Music
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