Beyonce talks to NY Times about her mother
For sisters in the public eye, Beyoncé and Solange Knowles have managed to resist the siren call to overshare the minutiae of their personal lives. But there is one topic they are happy to gush about: their mother, Tina Knowles Lawson.
In the January issue of Interview magazine, Solange is interviewed by Beyoncé and waxes lyrical about how their mother “always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work.” Last June, when accepting the fashion icon award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Beyoncé dedicated it to her “fabulous and beautiful” mother.
And in November, when Solange appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” a backstage video posted on Instagram, showing the singer carried by Mom and Big Sis, caused the internet to let out a collective “aww.”
Ms. Lawson, 63, now finds herself in a newfound role as an artistic bridge between two of 2016’s most critically lauded albums: “Lemonade,” Beyoncé’s fiery visual album that is up for nine nods at the Grammy Awards next month, and “A Seat at the Table,” Solange’s spare and poetic R&B record, which topped Pitchfork’s best-album list last year. In October, her daughters made history when they became the first sisters to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in the same year.
The shadow of Ms. Lawson, a former Southern beautician who is a lifelong collector of black contemporary art, hovers over the artsy allusions in “Lemonade” to intergenerational African-American motherhood, marital strife and their family’s deep Creole roots. On the agitpop single “Formation,” Beyoncé shouts out her “Momma Louisiana.”
The journalist-averse Beyoncé broke her silence to talk about her mother’s creative influence (though on email, coordinated through a publicist). “I think it was important to my mother to surround us with positive, powerful, strong images of African and African-American art so that we could reflect and see ourselves in them,” Beyoncé said.
“My mother has always been invested in making women feel beautiful,” she added, “whether it was through someone sitting in her hair chair or making a prom dress for one of the girls at church. And her art collection always told the stories of women wanting to do the same.”
In the January issue of Interview magazine, Solange is interviewed by Beyoncé and waxes lyrical about how their mother “always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work.” Last June, when accepting the fashion icon award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Beyoncé dedicated it to her “fabulous and beautiful” mother.
And in November, when Solange appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” a backstage video posted on Instagram, showing the singer carried by Mom and Big Sis, caused the internet to let out a collective “aww.”
Ms. Lawson, 63, now finds herself in a newfound role as an artistic bridge between two of 2016’s most critically lauded albums: “Lemonade,” Beyoncé’s fiery visual album that is up for nine nods at the Grammy Awards next month, and “A Seat at the Table,” Solange’s spare and poetic R&B record, which topped Pitchfork’s best-album list last year. In October, her daughters made history when they became the first sisters to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in the same year.
The shadow of Ms. Lawson, a former Southern beautician who is a lifelong collector of black contemporary art, hovers over the artsy allusions in “Lemonade” to intergenerational African-American motherhood, marital strife and their family’s deep Creole roots. On the agitpop single “Formation,” Beyoncé shouts out her “Momma Louisiana.”
The journalist-averse Beyoncé broke her silence to talk about her mother’s creative influence (though on email, coordinated through a publicist). “I think it was important to my mother to surround us with positive, powerful, strong images of African and African-American art so that we could reflect and see ourselves in them,” Beyoncé said.
“My mother has always been invested in making women feel beautiful,” she added, “whether it was through someone sitting in her hair chair or making a prom dress for one of the girls at church. And her art collection always told the stories of women wanting to do the same.”
