September 19, 2024 • 36 mins
Have you ever wondered what it was like to raise Beyoncé as a father and be her manager? Or how Destiny's Child came to be one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. The role brands like L’Oréal and Pepsi played in Beyoncé's early success as a solo artist.
Mathew Knowles, the father of Beyoncé and Solange, joins Chatter that Matters to share his remarkable journey from a Father of Beyoncé and Solange to a Music Industry Manager, then a Mogul to a Civil Rights Crusader, a Survivor of Male Breast Cancer, and Keynote Speaker.
Mathew Knowles will deliver a keynote at the After Breast Cancer Gala on September 29, 2024, from 12 to 6 pm, at the Bellvu Manor in Vaughan, Ontario. Tickets can be purchased here: https://www.afterbreastcancer.ca/pink-diamond-gala-2024
10 Moments That Matter:
1. [02:09] Matthew Knowles discusses being a child when schools were being desegregated
2. [05:09] The classroom incident that taught Knowles the importance of being prepared
3. [08:30] How Knowles got his job at Xerox through a chance encounter
4. [11:05] Beyoncé as a young child
5. [13:19] Sharing Destiny's Child's successes and failures and why both matter
6. [15:06] The decision to transition from corporate America to music management
7. [16:46] Navigating the challenges of being both a parent and manager
8. [18:41] Practicing failure as part of artist development for Destiny's Child
9. [19:18] Approaching the music industry from a worldwide perspective
10. [20:48] Knowles' battle with male breast cancer
To learn more about Mathew Knowles, https://www.mathewknowles.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
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.
(00:29):
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.
(00:51):
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
(01:13):
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.
(01:49):
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,
(02:12):
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
(02:35):
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
(02:56):
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,
(03:18):
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
(03:40):
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
(04:01):
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
(04:24):
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
(04:47):
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
(05:10):
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
(05:31):
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
(05:54):
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
(06:16):
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
(06:38):
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.
(07:01):
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
(07:23):
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
(07:47):
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
(08:09):
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
(08:30):
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,
(08:53):
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
(09:15):
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
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
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,
(10:20):
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
(10:43):
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
(11:05):
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
(11:28):
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
(11:50):
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
(12:12):
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
(12:35):
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
(12:57):
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?
(13:19):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:03):
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
(14:24):
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
(14:47):
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
(15:10):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:19):
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
(16:41):
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
(17:03):
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
(17:26):
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
(17:48):
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
(18:11):
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.
(18:34):
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
(18:56):
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
(19:19):
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.
(19:42):
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(20:49):
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
(21:11):
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
(21:35):
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.
(21:58):
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,
(22:20):
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
(22:43):
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,
(23:06):
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,
(23:28):
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
(23:50):
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
(24:13):
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
(24:35):
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
(24:57):
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
(25:20):
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
(25:43):
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
(26:05):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:50):
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
(27:13):
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
(27:35):
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
(27:58):
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,
(28:21):
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
(28:44):
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,
(29:06):
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.
(29:29):
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
(29:52):
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
(30:14):
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
(30:36):
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
(30:59):
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
(31:21):
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
(31:44):
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
(32:07):
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
(32:29):
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
(32:51):
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
(33:14):
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
(33:36):
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
(34:00):
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
(34:23):
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
(34:46):
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
(35:10):
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
(35:32):
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
(35:54):
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
(36:17):
presentation of RBC. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for
listening. Let's chat soon.
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.
(00:29):
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.
(00:51):
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
(01:13):
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.
(01:49):
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,
(02:12):
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
(02:35):
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
(02:56):
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,
(03:18):
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
(03:40):
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
(04:01):
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
(04:24):
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
(04:47):
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
(05:10):
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
(05:31):
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
(05:54):
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
(06:16):
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
(06:38):
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.
(07:01):
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
(07:23):
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
(07:47):
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
(08:09):
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
(08:30):
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,
(08:53):
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
(09:15):
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
(09:35):
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
(09:57):
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,
(10:20):
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
(10:43):
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
(11:05):
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
(11:28):
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
(11:50):
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
(12:12):
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
(12:35):
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
(12:57):
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?
(13:19):
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
(13:40):
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
(14:03):
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
(14:24):
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
(14:47):
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
(15:10):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:19):
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
(16:41):
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
(17:03):
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
(17:26):
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
(17:48):
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
(18:11):
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.
(18:34):
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
(18:56):
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
(19:19):
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.
(19:42):
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(20:49):
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
(21:11):
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
(21:35):
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.
(21:58):
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,
(22:20):
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
(22:43):
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,
(23:06):
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,
(23:28):
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
(23:50):
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
(24:13):
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
(24:35):
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
(24:57):
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
(25:20):
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
(25:43):
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
(26:05):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:50):
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
(27:13):
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
(27:35):
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
(27:58):
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,
(28:21):
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
(28:44):
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,
(29:06):
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.
(29:29):
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
(29:52):
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
(30:14):
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
(30:36):
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
(30:59):
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
(31:21):
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
(31:44):
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
(32:07):
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
(32:29):
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
(32:51):
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
(33:14):
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
(33:36):
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
(34:00):
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
(34:23):
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
(34:46):
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
(35:10):
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
(35:32):
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
(35:54):
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
(36:17):
presentation of RBC. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for
listening. Let's chat soon.
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