D'wayne Wiggins From Tony! Toni! Toné! Talks About Developing Destiny's Child

Q: What was your role in developing Destiny’s Child?

A: I met Beyoncé when she was 9 years old. A friend of mine knew them. That’s when they had a huge group, six of them dancing and the whole thing. I ended up signing them in Oakland. I put them up in a six-bedroom house.

For me it was really different. That’s when I learned, if you’re going to do this business, you have to learn to do the business. That damn Beyoncé is a real focused individual. You hear it in her music and you see it in her attitude.

I remember me and Mathew (Knowles, Beyoncé’s father and former manager) had a falling out. It was so crazy. I was just a producer. I took it personal. He was running business and I was doing music. I learned a lot from that, and once they hit, we saw each other at one of the Essence festivals. He said “Aren’t you glad I smashed on you like that back then?” I was like “Yeah, I’m glad. You took me out of my zone and took me to be a business man in the industry.”