Beyonce’s Father, Matthew Knowles Says Light Skin Favoured Her Career

In the past, Matthew Knowles, the father to superstar music star, Beyonce has said he does not think his daughter would be as big as she is now if she has darker skin.

The talent manager who recently visited Clay Cane on SiriusXM Urban View on Tuesday where they addressed the issue of colourism emphasised his opinion that Beyonce’s success in the music industry has a lot to do with her having light skin.

The host shared that his Texas Southern University students did a study that showed in a 15-year period, Top 40 airplay artists who were black women were all lighter-skinned. This list included Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Beyoncé.

In reply to that, Knowles said,

“In the music industry, there’s still segregation, as you know. There used to be the black division, race records, and programmers, especially at pop radio, has this image of what beauty looks like. They wanted that imagery to be the same that’s singing those records. If you look back, even like Whitney Houston, if you look at those photos, how they lighten her to make her look lighter complexion because there’s a perception in colourism…the lighter you are, the smarter, the more economically… all around the world about colour, even with black folks, there’s a perception.”

Rihanna and Beyonce | Photo – W Magazine

Cane then asked Knowles:

“How different do you think Beyoncé’s career would have been if she were a darker skinned woman?”

Knowles replied,

“I think it would have affected her success. I use Kelly Rowland [as] a great example. The great thing is Kelly did exceptional outside of America, especially in Australia. Kelly sold over 4 million records.”

It would be recalled that Forbes recently placed Beyonce as the fourth richest female musician with an estimated net worth of $400 million (N143,832,000,000) while another black artist, Rihanna took the top spot with $600 million (2,157,480,000.00)