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Tina Knowles and Janet Mock creative

Source: Creative Services / iOne Digital

Janet Mock has turned her “love of conversation and culture” into a new podcast dedicated to discussing the “moves and mishaps” that shaped some of her favorite people. This week, she kicked off the inaugural episode of “Never Before” with guest Mama Tina Knowles-Lawson.

Mock joined Knowles-Lawson in her Los Angeles living room to discuss motherhood, beauty, education, and art.

Here are five things we learned from this conversation with everybody’s favorite mama.

1Robert Pruitt is her fave contemporary artist.

The artist who is known for mixing “contemporary culture with traditional African culture” has earned a permanent place in “the matriarch of pop music’s” formidable art collection.

2 Sometimes she’s too generous.

She lent Beyonce two of her favorite art pieces, and her daughter refuses to give them back like the woman didn’t give her life! Tina also recalled literally cutting her own highlights out of her hair and gluing them into her daughter’s to avoid breaking a promise. Between that and Tiny rocking Zonnique’s mug shot, it’s clear that nobody has nothing on the love of a Black mama!

3 Tina isn’t actually her first name.

The corny joke time star was actually christened Celestine Ann Beyincé. She may have always seen herself as standing in the background, but with a name like that she was clearly prepared to stand out.

4 She was first to touch down in Baldwin Hills.

Mama Tina started from the bottom working at the mall in this affluent Black California neighborhood later explored in the popular BET reality series in her youth. She was shocked to see Tina Turner walk in one day and cites that moment as the one where she realized she was now living among stars.

5 She intentionally exposed her daughters to #BlackExcellence.

During their conversation, Mama Tina revealed to Janet that growing up the images that she saw “of someone that was beautiful and successful they weren’t Black.” As a result, she worked diligently to make sure that her children knew their history and were surrounded by Black art.