Saudi Arabian artists need to find their own identity for the kingdom’s music industry to flourish.
This was the key take away from Mathew Knowles's keynote address at the three-day XP Music Futures conference in Riyadh this week.
The US record label executive, who is also Beyonce's father, cautioned artists against cashing in on latest musical fads.
"I used to travel to Africa where artists would tell me they wanted to sound like the music coming out of the US and it is the same thing when I was in South Korea. But now these two regions are exploding with Afropop and K-pop," he says.
"Look, it's important to know what other countries are doing and genres are doing. But it is also important that in Saudi Arabia, artists find their own identity when it comes to music. You need to give it a name and then market it."
While praising the rapid evolution of Saudi Arabia’s music industry, he says there is still work to be done to build an efficient music infrastructure.
These are insights born out of Knowles's four-decade career, during which he managed Destiny's Child and launched Beyonce's solo career.
The ‘secret sauce’ of a great song
Knowles recalled entering the music business as a concerned father. It was 1993 and he was backstage watching Beyonce, then aged 9, make her television debut with the band Girl Tyme on the talent show Star Search.
They came in second place; a sobering experience Knowles said revealed some hard truths about the industry.
“They lost because their managers picked the wrong song. Instead of choosing their best one, they chose the one they felt was more inclusive,” he reveals.
"Also 18 other A-list artists — people like Aliyah, Christina Aguilera, Alanis Morsette and Boyz II Men — also went on the show and lost. This just shows you that failure in this space is an opportunity to grow and not a reason to quit.
“It is going to happen for you. It just takes time and a lot of hard work."
According to Knowles, the timeframe to fully develop an artist can range between five to 10 years.
He cites Beyonce, who began her career at the age of eight before finding sustained success as a member of Destiny’s Child at 17, as an example.
It was a belief Knowles imbued in the group when ditching his career in sales to take on the role of their manager. He went on to executive produce all five of the group's albums, including 1999's blockbuster The Writing's on the Wall, which sold 13 million copies internationally.
Knowles also takes credit for encouraging members to launch their solo careers.
He recalls Beyonce’s debut album, 2003's Dangerously in Love, initially receiving a cool reception from label Columbia Records, but it went on to win a Grammy at the awards in 2004.
"The record executive said there is not one hit on this album and we should go back and re-record it," he says.
"It got to the point where we had to get our attorneys involved. The record label was right: there was not one hit on the album, there were five."’
The reason why the album’s anthems Crazy in Love and Me, Myself and I became global hits, Knowles says, is because they are composed for immediate gratification.
"The secret sauce for a successful career is that you need to have a great song. A whack song in a Beyonce album is still a whack song," he said.
"I have never really been concerned about the verses. I just want to hit you with the hooks because that's what people will sing along to and always remember."
The Mathew Knowles story
Knowles also explains that the advent of streaming platforms only increased the pressure on artists to make an immediate impact, both in the studio and on stage.
"Labels would rather invest in three singles than an album because of streaming, so artists have to work extremely hard to make sure the songs are the best they can be," he says.
"And with streaming royalties being as low as they are, most of the money an artist can make now is performing live, so there is that aspect as well."
He also confirms reports that a biopic, The Mathew Knowles Story, is in the works.
"We are definitely having conversations and we just want to make sure that there is a worldwide audience for it," he says.
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Founders: Michele Ferrario, Nino Ulsamer and Freddy Lim
Started: established in 2016 and launched in July 2017
Based: Singapore, with offices in the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand
Sector: FinTech, wealth management
Initial investment: $500,000 in seed round 1 in 2016; $2.2m in seed round 2 in 2017; $5m in series A round in 2018; $12m in series B round in 2019; $16m in series C round in 2020 and $25m in series D round in 2021
Current staff: more than 160 employees
Stage: series D
Investors: EightRoads Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Sequoia Capital India
Profile
Co-founders of the company: Vilhelm Hedberg and Ravi Bhusari
Launch year: In 2016 ekar launched and signed an agreement with Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. In January 2017 ekar launched in Dubai in a partnership with the RTA.
Number of employees: Over 50
Financing stage: Series B currently being finalised
Investors: Series A - Audacia Capital
Sector of operation: Transport
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Normcore explained
Something of a fashion anomaly, normcore is essentially a celebration of the unremarkable. The term was first popularised by an article in New York magazine in 2014 and has been dubbed “ugly”, “bland’ and "anti-style" by fashion writers. It’s hallmarks are comfort, a lack of pretentiousness and neutrality – it is a trend for those who would rather not stand out from the crowd. For the most part, the style is unisex, favouring loose silhouettes, thrift-shop threads, baseball caps and boyish trainers. It is important to note that normcore is not synonymous with cheapness or low quality; there are high-fashion brands, including Parisian label Vetements, that specialise in this style. Embraced by fashion-forward street-style stars around the globe, it’s uptake in the UAE has been relatively slow.
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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match info
Chelsea 2
Willian (13'), Ross Barkley (64')
Liverpool 0
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is the most popular virtual currency in the world. It was created in 2009 as a new way of paying for things that would not be subject to central banks that are capable of devaluing currency. A Bitcoin itself is essentially a line of computer code. It's signed digitally when it goes from one owner to another. There are sustainability concerns around the cryptocurrency, which stem from the process of "mining" that is central to its existence.
The "miners" use computers to make complex calculations that verify transactions in Bitcoin. This uses a tremendous amount of energy via computers and server farms all over the world, which has given rise to concerns about the amount of fossil fuel-dependent electricity used to power the computers.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
