Beyonce’s dad and former manager, Matthew Knowles, has just announced a new business venture that will propel him into the legal cannabis industry. With the move, Knowles is now the latest high profile figure to pivot into the industry.
Interestingly—and apparently by pure coincidence—news of Knowles’ entry into cannabis comes on the heels of the announcement that his son-in-law, Jay-Z, has also entered a partnership with a leading marijuana company.
Matthew Knowles Joins Bangi Inc.
According to a report from the New York Post’s Page Six, Knowles recently became chief marketing officer for Bangi, Inc.
The company focuses on the real estate side of the industry. Specifically, it leases space to cannabis growers and dispensaries.
According to Knowles, his past experience as a music manager will be a key asset. Specifically, he sees himself as a professional with a huge network who has successfully put himself at the cutting edge of important cultural developments.
“I’m a marketing guy,” he told Page Six. “I like to think outside of the box. I like to be on the beginning of a trend and not at the end of it.” He also said that he will be “leveraging my extensive network” in his work with Bangi.
As for his relationship with cannabis, Knowles said he does consume marijuana for medical purposes. But he also said that’s not necessarily why he chose to enter the cannabis space.
In fact, Bangi does not actually handle or deal with the plant. Instead, the company buys real estate assets and then leases them to various marijuana companies.
“We are buying land,” Knowles explained. “We’ll lease it back to the growers, the dispensaries, the extraction companies.”
In this way, Bangi is one of the numerous companies that service the legal marijuana industry without ever touching any actual product. Along with real estate, other non-weed industries that are tangentially related to legal marijuana include things like financial services, security, media, farming and agricultural services, and more.
High Profile Names Moving Into the Marijuana Industry
Knowles, who first made his name as a music manager for such high-profile acts as Destiny’s Child and his daughters Beyonce and Solange, is the latest example of well known people entering the cannabis space.
Earlier this month, Knowles’ son-in-law and rap mogul Jay-Z announced a similar move. Specifically, Jay-Z revealed that he will become chief brand strategist for cannabis company Caliva.
In this role, Jay-Z will spearhead initiatives to build Caliva’s brand. And one of his biggest projects will reportedly be to leverage his position to advance social equity in the industry. Specifically, he will be developing programs to help formerly incarcerated individuals gain access to the marijuana industry.
While Jay-Z and Knowles both announced their entry into the industry in the same month, it appears that they did not plan it that way. In fact, Knowles told Page Six he didn’t even know about Jay-Z’s partnership with Caliva.
“I found out the way you found out,” Knowles said. ” ‘How ironic.’ I called my people ‘Damn, I wish mine would have come out first.’ The same week is cool. Neither one of us knew what the other was doing.”
