Mathew Knowles, the father of Beyoncé Knowles and founder of her first chart-topping musical act, Destiny’s Child, recently announced his entrance into the cannabis industry.
Knowles will serve as the first Chief Marketing Officer at BANGI, Inc., a real estate investment firm that specializes in acquiring property for cannabis dispensaries, cultivators, and hemp farms.
“As one of the world’s most successful music and entertainment pioneers, Mathew is a relentlessly innovative and creative marketing leader whose experience will ensure our success in the rapidly-growing and dynamic cannabis industry,” said Dr. Neil Parsan, BANGI’s CEO and a former US ambassador, in a press release.
Knowles has worked in sales and marketing for over four decades. Early in his career, he sold medical equipment for Xerox. Then, in 1992, he shifted gears from diagnostic technology to music by forming Music World Entertainment, a record company that he still manages. And it’s not as if he needs weed investment money to pay the bills: Music World has sold over $450 million in tunes since its inception.
“I’m a marketing guy. I like to think outside of the box,” Knowles told Page Six. “I like to be on the beginning of a trend and not at the end of it.”
Of course, while Knowles may be getting on the bus during the cannabis industry’s infancy, one of his closest relatives already beat him to the weed game — by about a week. Earlier this month, his son-in-law, billionaire rap mogul Jay-Z, became the Chief Brand Strategist at one of California’s biggest weed companies, Caliva.
“I found out the way you found out. [I thought,] ‘How ironic,’” Knowles said, recounting how he learned through the news about Jay-Z’s newest heady venture. “I called my people, [and was like,] ‘Damn, I wish mine would have come out first!’ The same week is cool. Neither one of us knew what the other was doing.”
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