Tina Knowles, mother of Beyoncé and so long, talks to Michel Martin about her new memoirs: NPR

Tina Knowles at The Billboard Women in Music 2025, which took place on March 29 in Los Angeles, California, in the YouTube Theater.

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Would you prefer to watch? Take a look at the interview video below.

Before Tina Knowles became known as the strength behind the scenes to style and lead her daughters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and as long as Knowles, she had a beauty business. She liked to cook and took care of her family and friends and she was proud to help other people realize her dreams.

Well, in a new book with the title, Matriarch, With the insider story, how she helped her daughters to reach rare heights of fame as an entertainer and cultural icons.

Michel Martin from NPR recently spoke of Washington DC to Tina Knowles, who was in a studio in Los Angeles. Knowles spoke about growing up in Texas, her relationship with her ex and father of her daughters, Mathew Knowles and the importance of sharing their own history for future generations.

This interview was easily processed for length and clarity.

Michel Martin: Can I call her Ms. Tina?

Tina Knowles: Naturally.

Martin: I had problems describing your book. It tells the story of the black entrepreneurship of how she and her former husband, Mathew Knowles, built up her business, and it is also the story of mothers – mother, the mothers we had who we had. It is a lot. And I wondered when they started writing this book, is it that you started, or was it just like that?

Knowles: You know, I wanted to write a book about things behind the scenes with my career in the music business, but it just came out of me when I started writing. It was as if I just wanted to tell my story.

Martin: One of the things I got out of the book was how hard it was to fight to allow the girl to express her style. There was a magazines -Cover shooting in which they wanted to put Beyoncé’s hair in a roll, and they said: “You won’t put your hair into a roll. Why do you have to be in a roll? ‘And Maxwell was also in the same cover shoot. This was at a point where Maxwell know that he was the hair crown, which was his signature, which was his signature, which was his signature, which was his signature. But they wanted to do a hat.

Knowles: Right. I take his hat off. I didn’t even know him, but he looked sad. And so I went over and said: “Why do you look so sad?” And he said, “Oh, they made me put on this hat.” And I took it off and took my selection and selected his hair. But Maxwell and I connected that day and we are really good friends.

Martin: This happened over and over again. In fact, one of the music companies actually spoke to her ex, Mathew Knowles, who was her manager, and actually said that they hold the girls back.

Knowles: Well, they only did what they knew. And they felt like four black girls, curvy land blacks from Texas with large hair and very motown-like costumes, that wasn’t. You were right, there wasn’t the style back then. There were all these pop icons that had great careers, and they felt that they should look like them and they should wear jeans and Midiff tops. And they said: “It is so that Motown is so exaggerated.” But we liked exaggerated. We were from Texas. They looked different. And I think that was refreshing for the audience, because in the meantime people came up all the time and said: “We can hardly wait to see what she will have next.” And some of them looked a bit crazy. I mean, I look at it as we are looking at it now. We said what did we think? But it was this time.

Martin: How did you get the Chuzpah? This is not a Texas word. I come from New York, so I’ll say it. The Chuzpah to say to these people: “They want to wear that.”

Knowles: I will tell you I was a kind of behind the scenes. I wouldn’t say a little shy, but when it came to my girls, I was a beast. Like most mothers, you know, the mother bear comes out and I would bring out Badass Tenie B. and I would bother people.

Martin: Who is Badass Tenie B?

Knowles: Badass Tenie B was this little girl who had to protect herself from the nuns, and before the news that I wasn’t enough and I didn’t belong and I had to fight. So I had no problem saying that this is what they are. That is what they like and people would say: “Oh god, who is someone who comes in here to tell me my job?” But I fought for it. I fought with people and I’m really proud of it.

Martin: You write a lot about your relationship with your ex in the book. It moves and it is deep and it must have been difficult to write. Very on and off and off. And I will say that for people who have had no opportunity to read the book yet, don’t let yourself be taken off. You talk about the way you participated.

Knowles: Well, it takes two people to be in a relationship. And for so many reasons, I only stayed in this relationship longer than I had. But he was the first person in my life who really said I will not say the first, but the second person who told me could do everything and always said: “Oh, you have that, you can do that.” He was always my biggest cheerleader and it is difficult to give up.

Martin: Have your daughters received inputs or read it in the book? Did you get a processing?

Knowles: You didn’t read the book. You only read your parts.

Martin: Interesting.

Knowles: Parts in which you are involved. You are somehow busy.

Martin: How do you now feel where you have released your story that you have them on paper and that it is out there for the world?

Knowles: It is a kind of scary. It’s a kind of scary, I tell you. Sometimes I wake up and I think: “Did I really do that?” You know it’s a big deal because you open. But it is important to me to tell my own story, especially in my family, because there were so many stories and so many speculations. And I only think that everyone should write their story for their children and their grandchildren and their great, original grandchildren. I wish I had that from my mother.

This story was produced by Majd Al-Waheidi for the web.