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I’m looking at her and I’m looking at Beyoncé like, This girl don’t do nothing!
I leaned in to what I needed to hear as a kid. “This is just the start of great things for you,” I told each girl. “Whatever you set your mind to, you will achieve.”
Some stylists I’d met would never reveal their secrets, but I wanted to share as my mother had done. It would sometimes unlock stories in the clients about grandmothers and great-grandmothers doing their hair as little girls, the feel of their fingers on their scalp, caring for them. Hairstyling is more than the act of doing hair—it’s how a mother’s love is transferred through that care.
The staff started calling themselves Tina’s Girls, and they became an extension of my family. I had so much mother love to give that I wanted them to reach their full potential.
One of our best, Toni Smith, started as a shampoo girl, and when I quickly realized she could do anything she set her mind to, I encouraged her to get her license to cut hair. Succeeding at that, she then got her bachelor’s, then her master’s, and then ran for political office. I was also proud that so many Headliners “graduates” would later go on to become salon owners themselves.
Solange was just rousing from sleep when I got there, and I picked her up. She looked at me with her big, beautiful eyes, and we breathed each other in.
We had ended up buying a house the next block over from MacGregor, on Parkwood Drive.
Her daughter Ebony lived with us in the main house, and by then I had taken most of the responsibilities for Ebby. Denise was a great mom but needed time. Let her party and be young—I had time and love to give.
Interesting
“You don’t like jelly, yeah, I know.” I glanced to where Beyoncé was dancing around in the kitchen, up on the ball of her foot and doing a twirl.
I met with the teacher. She said, as if this were an offhand remark: “You know, I know you needed to start Beyoncé young. But she is struggling.” I heard the “needed to” and felt the hair on my neck stand up.
Teachers hold so much power over how kids feel about themselves.
Not beautiful “too”—there was no need to factor in a certain criterion of beauty that centered whiteness. The pride should be based solely on her own self. Black is beautiful.
She would have figured out a way to give me the lesson I needed without fussing and flat out yelling, “They’re jealous of you!”
“Well, you know the lesson in that, Beyoncé,” I said, “is that sometimes people will put something down that you have or do because deep down they’re actually sad they can’t have what you have or do what you do. It’s called being jealous. You gotta understand that because you can’t let other people’s jealousy change your mind on how you really feel about something.”
Maybe this will help her shyness, I thought, writing her name on the sheet. Help her fit in.
I glanced over her shoulder at Beyoncé for a clue, but she was acting like some kind of music librarian, making those tapes look perfect.
Miss Darlette entered her in the contest, and Mathew and I worked with Beyoncé to practice John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Lol
“I just wanna get my trophy and go home and eat,” she said. I answered, “You don’t know if you won.” Beyoncé turned to face me, and raised one eyebrow in that way she still does. I shook my head like “watch yourself.” But she was right. She won.
Selena hit at the contradictory messages my mom had given me. She told me I was more than my looks, but once I grew into them, she changed that to “God, if you’re pretty you can get by a lot on your looks.”
Then a little girl got up to sing, her mouth somehow staying in a straight flat line as she sang Shirley Temple’s “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Her mom stood up in the audience, hissing “Smile, smile!” as the child’s face remained blank through the dirge. I bit my lip as the mom started doing the choreography to get her child to do the moves, flapping her arms in the animated way she probably did as a pageant girl herself.
She threw the judges a kiss. I saw the effect, a wave going over the crowd and the judges melting. No one had ever told her to do that. It was just the instinct of a born showperson.
Luke tells us in the Bible that to whom much is given, much will be required.
Wit great powa
I have no problem saying that my children are geniuses born with gifts, but all that just remains unrealized potential if they don’t work on their craft.
Mathew joked that if our girls were interested in medicine, we would figure out a way to buy a hospital and I’d be finishing up a nursing degree so I could assist in the OR.
“Those little Knowles girls, they just take all the attention,” parents would say.
I remember that first class, the surprised flash of a smile on Beyoncé’s face as she was challenged by the elevated skills of the other girls. Solange was right there too, holding her own, with none of the baggage of being the little sister.
The adults in charge were wearing Beyoncé out with all that extra work teaching all these girls. On the ride home, she would melt into the seat, resting her head on the passenger side door. When I asked if it was too much for her, she said, “It’s fun.”
This little fourth grader sounded like one of my daddy’s longshoreman friends.
That’s why she sounds better than you.” And, oh, what did I say that for? “I. Hate. You,” Beyoncé said slowly.
“Mama, I’m happy that you didn’t go up there and fight with them,” she admitted. “You made me work for it.”
Hmm
“What is wrong with you?” this woman asked. The last words she would say in my house. “He has breast cancer,” Johnny answered for Peanut. She got up and left. Not a word; left her coffee to get as cold as her heart.
Weird
Peanut’s spirit had flown away anyway. He was somewhere in heaven, just above our heads, admiring his Johnny dancing in swirls of sweat and loss and revelry and remembrance.
Johnny was getting his bearings living with grief while the poetry of Solange’s life was just starting. She was developing her innate cool, and there was no better mentor in that than Johnny. They would drive around in my convertible, each with a knee up, Solange wearing a bandana made to match his.
There are moments I treasure, ordinary bits of time that I didn’t see coming. Me walking in the door and seeing Beyoncé and Solange, already in their pajamas, wildly dancing with Uncle Johnny. The radio was so loud they didn’t hear me come in. I was going to make a joke about me and Johnny, how my house was now the Down Beat or the Session. But this moment was theirs, just Johnny’s and the girls’. I took a picture with my mind and tucked it in my heart to keep safe forever.
Kelly would join us for my spaghetti, which was all about this Italian sauce I’d mastered. What makes it good is wine—lots of wine—cooked long and slow with bell peppers and onions, then I put beef sausage in.
Yumm
My house was the hangout house for friends and family, something I got from those years of watching everyone call my mother Tenie Mama as she made them feel secure.
She and Beyoncé shared a discernment beyond their years, two old souls with new ideas, so relieved to find each other.
It was assumed even then by people outside the group that Mathew showed favoritism to Beyoncé, but he was far harder on her than anybody.
Well,
For them, Mathew developed summer “boot camp,” part of which involved taking them jogging along Brays Bayou. He had them sing the entire run, to increase their lung power while they did their choreography. Solange would join in, wanting to be wherever the action was.
Making small talk, the reporter complimented the girls’ matching dresses, red-and-green plaid skirts with holly-green tops. “Johnny made them,” Beyoncé and Solange answered in unison.
“Your house is so Christmasy.” “Johnny decorated.” “Oh, something smells so good,” she said. “Johnny cooked,” they answered. “Your hair looks so beautiful, girls.” “Johnny combed it.” “You have such a pretty home.” “Johnny cleans it.”
“No, actually, Johnny is my wife.” She looked startled. She thought this meant we were a lesbian couple. This was not in her notes. “No, no, no,” I said. “That would be cool, but I am kidding. Johnny is my nephew.” “Oh,” she said.
Literally not funny LMAO
Beyoncé, Solange, and Kelly gathered in front of the TV to watch Whitney Houston sing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl XXV. I was as entranced as the kids—from the land of the free to the home of the brave; from the buzz I felt in my head to the chills on my arms. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was not supposed to be for us, but Whitney made it so. When it was over, Beyoncé said in a quiet voice, not bragging, not even dreaming, simply stating a fact: “I’m gonna do that someday.”
The Browns, she informed me, let her go swimming when she was sick. “I don’t care about them,” I said, too harshly. “They’re made up anyway.” Her whole body recoiled. She looked so crushed.
We walked in and found her sitting in a chair, smiling ear-to-ear and holding court as two young guys smoking Marin County’s entire supply of weed hung on her every word.
“This little girl is a trip, man,” one of the men said, smiling just as much as her. He looked to be around nineteen or twenty. “She’s been in here talking and dancing!” It was Tupac Shakur.
WHAAAT
When Tupac got big, it was Beyoncé who recognized Solange’s buddy. I didn’t see anyone that cute in the studio, but she remembered him.
If you teach your kids to care about other people—that they are important too, no matter where they come from—that’s a value that will stick with them.
The church itself was in terrible disarray, but we all got together and painted.
Ew..
Solange standing up on the stool to pass out the bread because she wanted to look everyone in the eye.
