Thank you today our guest is none other than top tier the legendary miss tina lawson as if she needs an introduction she births beyonce and solange let’s get into it thank you for having me i’m i’m really excited about talking to you your daughters are phenomenal and they have such a poise and grace to them that you can’t help but to see in you what did you do to foster those characteristics in them i think one of the main things is just to teach them from a very early age that their only competition in life
Is themselves um and to just always be grateful and to be graceful and to have gratitude and humility they started very early performing it wasn’t my first choice for them to be performers to be honest with you but you know once i saw the passion and how talented they were i tried to encourage them in everything they did but i always taught them to have a sense of humility and gratitude because you know nothing is promised to you yeah and and i just felt like it was such a blessing that god gave them just to make
Them appreciate that absolutely now you say it wasn’t your first choice for them to be inside of the business if they weren’t who they are today what would you have saw as a mom we always have these aspirations for our children so what would you have saw beyonce be and solange to be i cared what it was i mean if they wanted to be a nurse or a doctor or you know a hair stylist like their mom it it really didn’t matter to me and when i say it wasn’t my first choice it’s just because of all of the normal things i mean
You’re a mother you know all the things that they’re exposed to in a music business and that you know sometimes when people make it the odds of you making it are like one to million you are a part of a group um it was called beltones the bell tones and it was me and two other girls and um you know we were really quite good we we were good and we wore the best outfits because me and my mom made all of the costumes and so we were as much known for our costumes as our singing but um you know i was from a really tiny
Town in galveston texas and it was like there were no role models of people that made it in show business that was so far removed from us that i never really thought that that would go anywhere and it didn’t you know but i would never have thought that all the things that i learned like making costumes and practicing and rehearsing and you know trying to have a cute little walk or whatever would come in handy uh for me as a tool to work with the girls and so you know you just never know yeah and when you say that
Like that was one of the things that they were known for were their amazing outfits and for you to brand them as just well put together you could see so many uh remnants of you inside of their clothes and everything and if you had to describe one of your passions what would it be is it singing your passion or is fashion your passion or both oh definitely it was fashion it was fashion you know like i said i was in the singing group in high school but i never had these aspirations to be a singer past that time during those times of
Like the uh late 60s 70s it was all about motown and every black kid in the country had a you know at their school they had talent shows and they were in groups so it wasn’t like a thing that was such a passion but fashion has always been a passion of mine my mom was a designer and seamsters for me i never really liked sewing but i sewed because i grew up poor and in order to have those fabulous clothes that i used to copy out of vogues magazines i had to learn how to sew that’s amazing you said that you you grew up poor take us into
Your journey of how you progressed and from the young teen to the person that you are now i grew up really poor the youngest of seven kids um to parents that were from louisiana who had very thick accents and it was very embarrassing for me as a kid because you know kids would make fun of the way they talked or whatever so i had a lot of challenges and the other challenge was that my mom sent us to a private school which i never understood because i’m like and we’re so poor why are y’all paying for us to go to school
And my parents used to do all this work for the school my dad used to drive the nines um my brothers cleaned the school yard my mom made all the ultra clothes and i was just like why are they such slaves for the nuns they treated us really bad uh they treat you know they would always tell me i didn’t belong there if you only knew and you know i’m like five years old so um come to find out later and what i have to say is that i became a warrior at five because they used to always say they were going to break my
Spirit and i would be saying to myself no you’re not and i would fight them not fight physically but like i just wouldn’t let them get the best of me and break my spirit and my mom was really passive she would never really like she was the sweetest nicest lady but she just didn’t take up for for me uh my brothers and um so anyway it treated me really bad and i think that’s when i learned to fight later i found out that the reason why i was because my parents were bartering they were doing all this work so we could go to this private
School and they never told us which i don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing because we probably would have been embarrassed more than we were but at least i would have understood why they picked on us all the time especially me and so you know it’s funny because i think i used to think of that as god that was a that really sucked as a child to have to deal with some adults and for them to tell me the negative things that they told me and send the negative messages and whatever self-esteem issues i had i think came
From them but i learned how to fight and i learned how to be a warrior and i’ve been a warrior ever since typically i’m just a really easy going loving type person that just adopts everybody and loves everybody but if you mess with my kids i turn into a beast as i’m sure you do too and that came from having to stand up to them and fighting them and and my parents weren’t the type of parents to say oh you can do anything you know you can do anything you put your mind to they were like look if you graduate from high school you get
A good job that’s like a government job or at the post office or something like that you made it and you get your family and you have kids and you’re you know that’s a happy life it’s about them breaking those limitations for their children because so many we’re told that you know with the representation that we are it’s like go get you a good city job what happened if i don’t want a city job and the people that are successful is because their parents their people like you that say you know the sky’s the limit and if you want to go even higher
Than that then you can what did you sacrifice the most if i had to say anything that i sacrificed it was um a lot of leisurely time and it’s interesting that we’re having this conversation because i was just talking to solange about that and i and i was saying to her you know i don’t ever remember taking like a lot of time off or i worked probably seven days a week you know because i was the hair stylist at first i was a hair stylist i was the wardrobe person and when i say wardrobe person i’m not talking about a stylist like you
Probably had today to come and just style you i’m talking about packing up the clothes steaming them doing everything and you know it’s funny because one of the other parents early days of destiny’s child we used to carry the luggage because obviously when you start off you’re staying at the holiday inn or you know the ramada inn and this we get in late and there’s nobody to help with the luggage so we would say oh no girls you don’t carry the luggage we’ll get it in because we want them to feel like you know they worked they were
Entertainers and uh it’s just so funny because we did everything and it was so much work and i didn’t have a lot of vacation time so i think just leisurely time for myself i sacrificed you know many years of just making it about protecting because i’m sure you can relate to this because that’s what we’re talking about the girl started very young like 12 13 they went to atlanta and we always had a parent with them 24 7.
they were never alone never in the studio by themselves never because we were determined to protect them so in my quest for wanting to protect them i and having another younger child that was five years beyonce and solange are five years apart i worked i was working seven days a week and so that was the sacrifice that my my years then are like a blur you know i was like maybe 40 and that scene seemed old then but that’s very young to me now but i just it’s like a blur i don’t even remember a lot other than working so that was probably a sacrifice
Describe who you were before you were a mother and how motherhood changed you i heard that you know that you know texas and i stated every day on the beach i hung out on the beach i just was a beach bum and i really up until 14 because i had bought into the fact that okay i’m gonna live in galveston for the rest of my life i’m a i’m gonna go and do i mean you know i had these dreams about being a fashion designer or something to do with fashion but my circumstances said you’ll probably be right here and at 14 my
Brother’s girlfriend came into my life she drove up like a commercial in a red miata convertible she had an asymmetrical haircut she was dressed to the nines and i was like oh my god i just fell in love with her and i followed her around and i just wanted to be like her and she was the one that said you got to get out of this town like you are too talented you can sow you can design you can do makeup you can do hair you know get out of here save your money and go go to la go to new york go somewhere and get a career and
That is the first time that seed was planted into my head and you know i’m mentor kids now my husband and i mentor 96 kids tina’s angels and richest warriors and they’re south central kids you know that don’t have hardly any opportunities and we have shown them like taking them to museums to plays to alvin ailey uh we took 10 kids to africa last year so that is why i mentor and i get choked up because if that girl hadn’t come into my life i probably would be there with a bunch of kids in galveston so she took
Me to my first nice restaurant and she took me to see a play and we went to see alvin ailey and i saw all those fly black people up there on the stage i had never seen anything like that before the people that were at the albany had on they were dressed they had nice cars i was like wow black people live like this and it sounds crazy because i wasn’t in a third back in the country but i was in this little one-horse town where we had one black doctor how can you dream big if you never see it i started beyonce in dance class
Because she was very shy and she just was that shy kid that was just um not only just shy but just into her own world not not at all not confident just like i don’t you know i don’t really want to be bothered so it was more of a social thing to get her in dance class and her dance teacher i call her her stage mother because she was the stage mother she was like oh my gosh she can sing she can dance she’s going to be a star and i’m like yeah okay you know because most parents i talk to they would think oh my kid is
You know so special and and everybody thinks their kid is special but for me i was always a little more skeptical you know so she would say oh no she could really sing in my my ex-husband and i we were he was in the sand group too so he played the piano he’s the same when she was a little girl and so i think that that kind of instilled it in her but he just thought to me that she was way more special you know he was a typical she’s really special and i’m like okay and it’s funny because beyonce and i were talking and
She said mama remember the time i overheard you and my daddy talking and stacy lattimore do you know who that is because you’re so young stacy lattimore was this young girl i think she was maybe 13 and she did love on a two-way street she was on some show and i said to him do you ever think that beyonce will be able to sing like that he said absolutely she’s gonna say better than that so years later after they’re you know out there she said mama remember the time you and my daddy was talking and you said you didn’t know if
I would ever be as good as stacy lattimore and i was like yeah you heard that but it was always my thing and maybe it was my upbringing you know from my mother saying all the time that you got to be realistic that pie in the sky stuff you know it’s like so i don’t know what that was but we supported her 100 once she decided that that’s what she wanted to do and that was always her she was always at five years old selling tickets and making people watch her dance and making people watch her sing and you know nobody wanted to watch for
Very long uh they used to perform at my hair salon nobody wanted to look they they’d be captain under the dryers and they couldn’t go anywhere so they’d be like oh god here comes one thing is we just put 100 into it where when i didn’t really think she was as serious tell no maybe around seven she got in a talent show and actually her her dance teacher put her in the talent show and it was all the parochial schools all the catholic schools competed and um and and she got in that talent show and when she sung because
She was shy she just took over the audience and she just had all the stage presence and she got a standing ovation and the prize was a hundred dollars and a trophy and she came and said back down she said i’m hungry i just want to get my trophy and my hundred dollars and leave and i said you don’t even know if you won but she did since she was four she went to a michael jackson concert she said i’m gonna be mike i’m gonna be michael jackson and i was like okay baby that’s so sweet you know even her looking at
Whitney saying the national anthem she was like i’m gonna sing the national anthem one day and i was like oh that’s so sweet but she did because it was in her and and the same with solange from like four years old cilantro’s winning competitions and she was by 10 she was writing songs and going in the studio like that’s all they thought about kelly all of them they sung from morning to night they danced they made you watching whether you wanted to or not how is it having your children be like where even people’s favorite artists look to them
Like that’s their celebrity a lot of times when the children embark on a career like that their walk becomes yours right so now you’re thrown inside of the public eye and now you have to um deal with the celebrity of having a celebrity child and uh you yourself how do you deal with that well you know it’s interesting uh because for so many years i was so behind the scenes and i never wanted to come out so i was really hiding um i was working so hard that my hair wouldn’t be combed so many pictures out there that were early on and um i
Remember this one picture that we were at the golden globes and beyonce got a you know she was there to present and i was doing her you know all of her stuff and and they were like they want you on the red carpet i’m like for what i don’t want to go on a red carpet and they were like no they really want a picture of you and your husband and her so i went out there and i had one one mascara on one eye it’s the saddest picture ever i had my hair natural curly and so i used to blow it out and it would look nice
But i didn’t have time it was i look crazy and i got this and i looked very sad because i know i don’t look cute and that’s the picture that they showed all the time of course but i look back at the picture and i get so sad because it was a time in my life where i was just working all the time and i was hiding and i didn’t want to be seen and i didn’t want to ever do anything to embarrass my kids so i was always just hiding and it’s funny because once i you know i got the clothing line and i was on a hsn show where i sold my clothes
And i could go and do that with my eyes closed but i still never thought of myself as being a celebrity i’m just like i’m just tina your cover with you and the red it was so regal when i say it was so regal i’m talking about at work i had this on my screen saver like this is goals you know how you look at something and it just gives you chills like it was so powerful ebony came to me and they said we want you to be like a sexy 60 and i’m like oh oh absolutely not and i told him no and the publicist came back to me and said tina you really
Should do this like you women want to see that you can still be you know you just you got a new boyfriend you got a new town you got a you know a new life and uh i said no and then my my husband said who wasn’t my husband and he was like tina you are gonna do this like stop hiding and so that was a big deal for me and let me tell you mike i called my kids and i said do y’all think i should do that and they were like we don’t know because you know it’s funny about kids because because i’ve been my whole life hiding from the camera and in
The background it was hard for them when i got on instagram they hated it like i had to just say listen i got this you know and i’m living again so mind your business and when i did the cover i called them and asked them could i do can i do it i mean is it you think it’ll be okay and you know of course they were solange was like yeah absolutely mom you should do it beyonce was like mom you know how private she is she’s like you know i guess you know it’s fine if it’s it’s going to be really classy and you know i just don’t want you to be looking
Thirsty and i’m like you know i’m not gonna look thirsty but and i did it and it was one of the best most liberating things that i did you know because it was um it was all about me and it wasn’t about you know being somebody’s mom or being somebody’s wife or being you know just anybody’s anything it was just about tina so it was it was really like liberating for me and as i said before representation is so important because you don’t even understand how many women you inspire are just with that so i have to switch gears for a minute and ask you
What i ask all of the parents give me some embarrassing nicknames you used to call your girls oh um beyonce pumpkin i mean i called her pumpkin until she was probably about eight and um i called solange bay and that’s so funny because now and i and i have to clarify that because you know french creole people say baby so i used to call her baby but she probably would kill me if i’m telling people that i called her baby you know so i’m saying bae but uh and now bae is like really cool right i mean well maybe that’s
That’s probably over by now because i can’t keep up so what secrets do you have for developing these legendary children if you had to say and i like to say them separately because they have successful careers separately so what went into making beyonce because no two children are alike so what were just three ingredients that went into making the great beyonce i think just work ethic um treating people the way you want to be treated i mean that that pro i think it had a lot to do with it because you know i think when you i see so many young
People and i’m sure you’ve seen it too that get a little fame and they get a hit record or they get a movie uh and they just go crazy like they they they they decide to do big divas and you know and not treat people kindly and um and i think that that has gone such a long way in both of my girls all three of them kelly uh as well to just really don’t burn all these bridges and treat people bad look them in the eye um you know treat people like human beings and that’s going to go a lot further than than throwing temper
Tantions and being divas so they stay grounded and i think that that helps you because that is the one thing that i see that destroys celebrities more than anything is getting the big head with solange what is her our ingredients same thing because you know i just i just same formula formula with solange but i think also what i told solange all the time and i still tell her now is that she is totally an individual you know i my two kids were very different in a lot of ways and i think that celebrating who you are
And walking to the beat of your own drum great balance of divine feminine energy and you can tell that they are unapologetically them on each level and i know that that comes from you like you say i let my baby do what she gonna do let her do what it is that she’s gonna do what are you working on now i know that there’s so many things well the main thing i just signed up for um for a podcast and i’m really looking forward to it because i did this thing called talks with mama tina during the elections to get people out to vote and
I just loved it i love just talking to people like we’re talking and sharing them sharing their stories with me and i had everybody from chloe and halle to um michelle destiny’s child and uh and i had stacy abrams and i did black love and i you know i was cheating a little bit and i would always relay it back to uh voting but i enjoyed talking to people about their relationships and you know their experiences so now i’m gonna do that and um and i’m really looking forward to it i’m tina knows and my children are beyonce knowles and solange
Knowles and [applause]
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