Beyonce and Solange's graveyard

2 March 2018

Beyonce and Solange Knowles' family own a graveyard.

Solange

Solange has regularly visited the burial site in New Iberia, Louisiana, and admitted the cemetery's "energy" gets her creative juices flowing so much she has penned several tracks on the plot of land.

She said: "Our family actually owns a graveyard in New Iberia, to this day. I would visit. Just being on the land told me way more than any kind of background research could have.

"I felt that energy, and I felt that guidance, creating and writing there."

The 'Cranes in the Sky' hitmaker wrote most her latest album 'A Seat at the Table' in the US parish because she wanted to "connect" with her mother Tina Knowles' side of the family.

She said: "I really wanted to connect with my mother's lineage. Her family is from New Iberia, which is about two hours away from here. My dad's family is from Alabama.

"I was really curious about what having my ancestors in that type of proximity would do for me spiritually and artistically and, also, as a mother. I also wanted to live in a black city.

"Houston and Brooklyn and Los Angeles are very diverse cities, but they are not where the majority of the population is black. I think it has been phenomenal just seeing black women occupy every realm of space here in New Orleans.

"I wrote most of 'A Seat at the Table' in New Iberia. I was there, off and on, for about three months. I would go up on Monday through Friday, come home on the weekends, or vice versa, depending on my son's school schedule."

Solange started to understand her father Matthew Knowles "so much more" after recording his and Tina for the skits on 'A Seat at the Table'.

She added to Billboard: "Obviously, my parents are divorced, and getting the two of them in a room together was a powerful moment in time. They really led the conversation. I felt that because of my yearning to know, they were honest with me.

"I understood my father so much more. To sort out my adolescent and young adult years, there was still so much I needed to know because our relationship was not always very good."