#and the best girl ever. and then her career shift makes a lot od sense. esp because faustine comes right after and it's also murder related

[hsslilly-blog]

having fun.. this looks cute.....

[queensofrap]

Wonder Woman: How Remy Ma Changed The Game For Female Rappers in 2017

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a bully. I actually bully the bullies"

Remy Ma strolls into MASS APPEAL HQ with a relatively small entourage for a multiplatinum artist who just inked a multimillion-dollar recording contract with Columbia Records. After conferring with her team, she agrees to bless us with a preview of tracks from her forthcoming album, Seven Winters, Six Summers. The album’s title refers to the amount time she spent at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women following a well-publicized shooting incident that interrupted one of the most promising come-ups in hip hop.

The Bronx native—born Reminisce Smith and raised in the Castle Hill projects of the BX before being discovered by the late Big Pun—picked up right where she left off, recording a track with DJ Khaled on her first day home. This past February she dropped Plato o Plomo with her Terror Squad comrade Fat Joe, which included the double-platinum single, “All The Way Up.” But her most talked-about release of the year was “SHEther”.  That song and its aftermath would alter the course of both artists’ careers, proving that Minaj was not untouchable, winning Remy a BET Award for Best Female Rapper, and helping to clear a space in modern hip hop for women like Remy, Cardi B, and many others to shine.

 I remind Remy that I haven’t seen her since September 2014, when she and her husband Papoose invited a small group of family, friends and select media to dine on sirloin and shrimp at Don Pancho’s steakhouse in the Bronx. Remy had just come home from her incarceration and had to skip dessert that night so she could check in with her P.O. She still has a curfew today, although the terms of her parole have been somewhat relaxed. Before cueing up the tracks, Remy heads straight toward the Ms. Pac Man machine and proceeds to catch wreck, clearing the first level and earning bonus lives without getting got by a single ghost. Her new manager, Vincent Herbert (who’s worked with the likes of Aaliyah, Lady Gaga, and, as reality show viewers know well, his ex-wife Tamar Braxton) grabs the joystick, and let’s just say doesn’t fare quite as well. Or, as Remy puts it, he’s on “the struggle bus.”

Remy takes the opportunity to play a few tracks, skipping “Wake Me Up” the first single from the project featuring Lil Kim (She does, however, take a moment to recognize Kim’s tremendous impact on the rap game, and to wonder aloud why, unlike other genres, “in hip hop we throw our legends away.”) Instead, she searches her iPhone and cues up “Melanin (Pretty Brown),” an ode to every shade of skin complexion, featuring an especially gorgeous vocal by Chris Brown. Next up is “Company,” featuring fellow Bronx bomber A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. There’s time for one more track, this one featuring French Montana, before we make our way into the video studio for a wide-ranging interview. Remy spoke about how she’s never backed down from a fight in her life (this weekend’s brief dustup with Azealia Banks went down after our talk), how she got through those seven winters, and why she decided to spend her time on the Summer Jam stage promoting unity among female rappers—with one notable exclusion, of course. Today MASS APPEAL kicks off our year-end coverage with Big Year, Big Talk, a salute to the people who shifted the culture this year.

___

Welcome, Remy. And thanks for bringing the boots!

Thank you for addressing my boots. They’re kinda cute.

Who made those?

Off-White makes these. I like their brand. I’m kinda like a tomboy at heart, so any chance I get to get any type of tomboy swag going on, I’m definitely down for it.

That’s a surprise because my first Remy Ma memory was at the Mix Show Power Summit in the Bahamas. You were performing “I’m Conceited” on stage and you were not giving tomboy at all.

[Laughs] Really?

No, you were definitely giving femme fatale.

“Conceited” was definitely one of my more fun records that I got to be super girly on. That is definitely one of those records that was inspired by certain things that happened to me, certain things that I see, or certain things that people say to me. Ya know, around the time when I made “Conceited,” it was just so much going on in the industry as far as women were concerned and everyone felt like you had to be sexy and ‘you gotta wear your hair like this’ and ‘you have to talk like that’ and you have to walk like…. And I’m like, “First of all, do y’all hear how deep my voice is?” It’s just a lot. I gotta go through a lot. Ya know? It’s a lot going on here!

This is when labels still had artist development and they told you how to answer questions and what to say and what not to say. And I was just like, ‘This is fucking stupid. Why can’t I just be me? Like, I don’t always wanna have on makeup.” I literally did my own makeup today.

Facts.

I would take off my glasses and show y’all my work, but I’m not really sure how it looks in these type of lights, so I’ll wait. But, I don’t wanna ever have to be that girl that I have to turn into Remy Ma. Like, “Oh I gotta go sit with MASS APPEAL. Let me put on my Remy Ma outfit and turn into Remy Ma.” Like [switching to, shall we call it, a “Valley Girl” voice?] “Oh my God! I’m so glad to be here guys! Thank you so much for having me. Yes, I’m so excited.” I don’t ever wanna have to do that shit. Like, that shit wack to me.

Anybody who knows me, they be like, “Rem, you don’t do fake well.” This guy, he works on my team and he says to me, “Rem, your fake is fucking horrible.” And it’s because,I just can’t. Anybody who’s ever seen me or ever met me, whether it was at an interview, at a concert, in a studio, in the fucking supermarket, in the parking lot, they’re always gonna get the same Rem. And you know, back then when they had this artist development, they wanted you to be a certain way, and I’m just like, “Everybody is different!” Everybody has their own thing that’s cool about them. That’s how God made us. You may not be the prettiest person in the world, but maybe you have a nice voice or maybe you have nice handwriting, or maybe you have cute toes or—I don’t know! Everybody has something about them that would be considered desirable to someone else, and I just wished and I wanted people to see that. To realize, “Look, don’t nobody want the same everything all the time.”

I like certain things for certain reasons. I don’t want to see you recreate that. I want it from over there. And that was the inspiration behind “Conceited.” So that was like, “OK, y’all want me to be sexy? I’ma be sexy in my own way.” Like, I don’t give a fuck about anything. “I look too good for this. I look too good for that.” I look at myself like this and I feel like that’s OK. I got a little fat, but OK, my man likes it. I feel like even more so now—shit, we need a record like that now because with this social media thing, it has people trying to live up to the most unreasonable, unrealistic expectations. Especially with women! They’re competing. They’ll see a photo and you’re competing with somebody who literally is doctored. Like they went, sat on a table, got whatever done and then they took a picture, and then they doctored the picture, so it’s double doctored! And you’re in your house, starving yourself—you know, waist training, running a mile a day—and you’re trying to understand why you’re not getting these results and you’re beating yourself up. It’s just unreal.

Like I said, that was the wave I was on there. I don’t really remember what I had on at that summit that you saw me at. I know it was the Bahamas because I remember around that time, that was the Mix Show Power Summit. I remember that time period for a lot of psycho reasons. I was a very different Remy Ma back then. but… That was the coolest shit ever. Do they still have those things?

I don’t think so, but that was just a memory sparked by your boots. I was planning to start the interview a whole different way. I was actually gonna start in the Bronx. What does it mean to you as an artist to represent the Bronx?

The Bronx, to me it’s just pretty much where I grew up. What’s crazy, before I went to prison, it was cool to have a gazillion AKAs. It was like Remy Ma, the BX Savior, the Queen of NY, Shezus Christ. I had all these different names and The Queen of NY thing, it came… People say like I have the strongest New York accent ever. I never really realized that until—still never. But people just tell me, so I guess it’s true to some extent. Too many people say it. But also I literally have lived in every single borough. I was born and raised in the Bronx, but I went to high school and some of junior high school in Queens. I went to elementary school in Harlem. I even lived in, believe it or not, Staten Island. I lived on Governor’s Island when I stayed with my aunt. Her and my uncle were in the Coast Guard, so at the time the station was Governor’s Island.

I literally could go to any borough and find cool places to eat or little things that you really wouldn’t know unless you lived there. And people are like, ‘How do you know about this?’ I’m like, “Oh, I used to live here.” My mom was like a black gypsy, shelter-hopping, so I ended up living in a lot of different places in New York. But the Bronx was always my home base. Because that’s where I was born. Most of my friends growing up were from the Bronx. My grandmother always lived in the Bronx and that was the one person that never moved, so it was like we’d live over here, but then I’d go visit my grandmother in the Bronx. Then we’d move here, and I’d go visit my grandmother in the Bronx.

Even now, when I came home, I moved to the Bronx because of my parole stipulations. If I lived in Jersey, I would literally need permission to come into New York every time I came to New York. So I was like, “Alright, I have to find one of the boroughs.” And it just made sense for me to live in the Bronx. Of course, much to the chagrin of my husband, who’s from Brooklyn, moving to the Bronx from Brooklyn is like light years away. He’s like, “This is crazy! I’d rather live in Manhattan.” I’m like, “Nah, I just don’t feel safe there. It’s a bit crazy there.” But the Bronx, that’s just home to me. It’s always gonna be home, no matter where I move, no matter where I go.

Like I said, I lived in all these other places, especially in Queens where I grew up and went to school. They were like, ‘She saying she’s from the Bronx, but she’s really from Queens!’ I’m like, “So, we’re gonna act like y’all didn’t call me The Bitch from the Bronx when I lived out here? Fine. Cool. We’ll act like that never happened. We’ll act like y’all knew me my whole life. Y’all act like I wasn’t a whole teenager when y’all first met me.”

But a lot of my friends are from Queens. My first high school that I went to, before I started getting kicked out and high school hopping, was in Queens. I pretty much go out there a lot. My in-laws live in Queens, so I literally am a native of every borough in some shape, form or fashion.

Why’d you get kicked out of high school?

I didn’t get kicked out of high school. I got kicked out of high schools, with an “s.” I literally went to like seven, eight high schools. I started out at MLK in Manhattan. That was the school that I got accepted to. Then I switched my school to Bryant High School in Queens, because this guy that I liked went to the school and then I got into the school and I realized he wasn’t even the cutest guy in the school, and I started liking some other guy. I was like, “I might as well switch back to the school that I was in.” But then I couldn’t switch back to there because I had already got into like a gazillion fights and my record. I stayed in fights in high school, so then I went to the Bronx. And I went to the Roosevelts and Stevenson and Lehman. I literally almost went to every high school in the Bronx because I would get into fights and get kicked out of school—like literally expelled. The years that I was in high school there was no suspensions. It was like, “No, you got to go, get out of here.”

One time on my first day of school—I swear it was the first day of school—I got jumped on the school bus. My mother would not believe me for shit. I’m like, “I swear to everything I didn’t do anything.” We sat down with the principal. They was like, “You know you probably shouldn’t wear all that jewelry to school.” I was like, “OK, whatever.” And that was the meeting before school. First day of school I go back without my mom and I had a perfect day that day. I’m on the bus and I’m sitting in the back seat of the bus and these rowdy-ass kids on the bus—neighborhood kids! And I just see them violating mad people that’s on the bus and I’m just watching like, ‘Yo, they are crazy. I’m glad nobody saying nothing to me. Let them do what they do. I’m just waiting for my stop.”

I’m watching them just do mad foul shit to people and then the bus takes off from whatever stop we were at. Somebody’s like, ‘Yo somebody hold that door down. Nobody’s getting off the next stop.” I’m like, ‘Wow, they’re stopping people from getting off the bus!” So now I look out the window like, ‘Wait, next stop is my stop!’ So I said, “I’m getting off of this bus! I’m telling you right now!” So they’re like, ‘Who said that? Who said that?’ I’m like, “Me! Next stop is my stop and I’m getting off this bus.”

“Yo! Who Shorty think she is? Let’s get off the bus and fuck her up!” So I’m saying in my head, “Let’s—that’s a contraction for let us—get off the bus and fuck her up.” Oh, so y’all think y’all gonna jump me? Cool.

Bus stops. They all get off the bus. I guess it was raining earlier that day or whatever because, for some reason, I had an umbrella. And I probably ended up getting jumped by more people than was absolutely necessary because I just got off the bus and started cracking anybody in my vicinity with the umbrella. Ended up getting jumped. It was a whole big thing. It kept going. It escalated to when I went back to school and I got kicked out of the school too. But I really had it in my mind that I was going to be good in that school. And then eventually I got kicked out of the school and went to another school, and then I met Pun somewhere in those next couple of weeks or months while I was in school and I was like, “Ha ha fuck school! That’s my best friend right now! Fuck you mean, nigga?’

Hold on, were those guys on the bus who jumped you?

It was guys and girls on the bus. It was just really crazy. And I swear until this day, when I tell my mom she’s just like, “I don’t believe it.” And I’m like, “I’m telling you, I swear! I really didn’t do anything.” So I was just supposed to sit there on the bus and just miss my stop because they said they were not letting anybody off the bus? I mean, looking back now, the new and improved me would’ve just been like, “Yo, let me just walk to the front of the bus and maybe I’ll get off in the front”‘ But what the fuck do you mean nobody’s getting off? Like, who the fuck do you think y’all are?

Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a bully. I actually bully the bullies. Like, I would get in trouble in school and I’ll call my mom and they’ll be like, “You know I understand that was her cousin, so she had to protect her cousin.” My mother would be like, “She doesn’t have any cousins. What are you talking about?” But that was like my lie every time. If I seen somebody doing something to somebody I would be like, “No, that’s my cousin. Like, you’re not doing that to my cousin.” Literally just interject myself and make the person my friend. Like, all my friends were just like random people in school that I met and I seen somebody doing something and in my mind like, “I would never let them do that to me.” I was like the bully to the bullies.

You’re like Wonder Woman!

Not Wonder Woman! [Laugs] I just keep the same energy with everybody! Everybody gets the same treatment with me. Unfortunately, I actually get some slack for it. They’re like, “There’s no gray areas with you.” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m either going to treat everybody nice or I’m going to treat everybody like shit.” There is no in between.

Let’s get to Pun. Did you know that you could rap when you met him? Were you already rapping?

Yes, I knew I could rap when I met Pun. It wasn’t something that I did for a living. Kids today are like, “I’m going to be a rapper and I’m going to get this money” and literally don’t get a whole other job because they plan on being a rapper one day. No, I had a regular job and I just knew I could rap. I used to hang out with all the guys in my neighborhood and they will literally take me on different hood tours to battle rap other guys from other projects and get money. So I knew I could rap.

And you were winning?

I didn’t lose. Nah, I was winning.

Beating guys, and were they in their feelings?

Absolutely. Like, “Oh who wrote that for her?” I didn’t even understand that. I don’t think I ever knew that there was such a thing as a ghostwriter until I met Pun. The actual rap that I first said for Pun is the verse that is on “Ms. Martin” on the Yeeeah Baby album.

When I spit it to him he was like, “Oh that’s dope!” Then he was like, “Let me hear something else because that may be the only hot rhyme you got.” No. I said some other shit. And he was like, “That’s dope! Who be writing for you? Like your brother?” I’m like, “What? What do you mean who’s writing for me? Me!” I was so confused. When I found out that people were actually not writing their own lyrics, I was like, “This is fucking cheating!” Singing is a little bit different, I get it. If a singer doesn’t write their own lyrics they still showcase their talent through their vocal abilities. Like, I could write it all day, but I can’t sing it and make it sound like Whitney Houston would make it sound. But rapping? I was like, “This is super cheating!” Because this is based on your lyrics and what you’re saying, so I was so confused as to why he was asking me who was writing my rhymes. But when he told me he was giving me my own song on his Yeeeah Baby album I was like, “Oh, alright, I know what I want to rap about. Let me hear the beat again.”

He’s like, “Nah, nah, nah, I already know what I want you to say.” I’m like, “Oh, you’re not writing my rhyme!” He’s like, “First of all, if I wrote your rhyme it will be the best rap you’ve ever had in your life. But no, I want you to rap the same rap that you spit for me when I met you. I want people to hear what I heard the first time I heard you.” I’m like, “What? Why?” I was devastated. It was like the end of the world to me. I was still in high school. I had raps for days, like books on top of books and a thousand rhymes stored in my head—stuff that I wanna say. This is the first time everyone’s gonna hear me. I wanna say this, I wanna say that. He was like, “Nope, you’re gonna say the rhyme you said when I first met you!”

What did you say?

[rapping] I inhale the deepest, cock back and bust rhymes at ya speakers/ I’m trouble/ Shoot out the air bubbles in ya sneakers…

Ooooh!

That shit, that flow. I wasn’t mad after the fact, but at the time I wanted to kill him. I was like, “Noooo! Why? I wanna say something else.” We’re not even gonna talk about how Pun literally tried to change my name. One day I came into the studio and he was like, “I was thinking of rap names for you.” And I’m like, “What do you mean rap names?” And he was like, “You know how I’m the Punisher? I’m thinking how you’ll be Punish-HER.” I was actually going to name my first album that. But then I was like, “No. I’m not Punish-HER”‘

He’s like, “Alright, what about Colors?” I’m like, “Why can’t I just be Remy? Everyone has called me Remy my entire life. I don’t understand why I have to have some name that no one has ever called me that you just made up.”

It’s crazy because he did that before to Tony Sunshine. Before Tony Sunshine was Tony Sunshine, he was R&B. We all called him R&B, period. It’s so bad that I even call him Tony Sunshine now. But for the first few months that I met him, everybody would call him R&B. And one day he told me his name was going to be Tony Sunshine. I think Pun waited until he had an interview with a big magazine or something, like, “Yeah, and I have my new artist Remy Martin and Tony Sunshine.” And that was his fucking name and he just stuck with Tony Sunshine. Even though Tony Sunshine now is kind of dope, but it’s like, “How do you just change somebody’s name? What’s wrong with you?” Pun was really crazy.

Pun wrote great raps but horrible rap names!

Nah, he went for like a whole day on that Punish-HER shit! “I’m telling you this shit crazy. I’m the Punisher, Big Pun, and you’re Punish-HER.” I’m like, “No Pun. It’s not gonna work.”

Before Pun, somebody must’ve inspired you to put these rhymes together. Did you have like a rap hero who inspired you to do this?

I’m probably gonna regret this down the line, but I’m gonna say my older brother. Definitely. He was into rap. I was the nerdy kid in school—always in the top class, teacher’s pet. I was the one cleaning the board at the end of the day and collecting the homework. That was me. And I used to do poetry. I entered all the spelling bee contests. I used to be in this thing called a storytelling contest where you have to take a book and literally learn it word for word verbatim and the judges would be sitting there with the book while you’re reading it to them from memory.

I was just like a nerd and I used to write poems and my brother would come in and he’d be rapping “Know the Ledge” and all this different Rakim stuff, and he was on his Pac wave. And I used to be like, “Yo, this is dope.” So that was like the first spark I got. And then one day I was in the Bronx—I was on the stoop because that was the rules, you couldn’t leave the stoop—and they were having a block party on my block. And I heard this music [starts humming “The Show” opening melody] and Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh are performing at the block party on my block!

And I’m just like what the fuck is this? And everyone’s going crazy. Literally to this day, that’s one of my top ten favorite rap songs of all time.

After that I would sneak and take my poems and try to rap them to the beat. I don’t know when the full transition happened, but I kinda stopped writing poems and my poetry book turned into a rhyme book and I just had books of rhymes.

That makes sense! Alright, let’s talk about the making of “Lean Back.” Khaled told me y’all did it in a garage?

Yeah. At the time, DJ Khaled was not the Khaled that you guys know today. We at Khaled’s house, and Joe is in the corner doing his Fat Joe thing, and Khaled was “Beat Novacane.” He’s still saved in my phone as Beat Novacane—like, there’s no DJ Khaled in my phone, just Beat Novacane. And we were working on the Terror Squad album and we all had our solo songs. My song was “Yeah Yeah Yeah,” which originally had just me on it, but Joe got on it. And I’m in the studio and I’m just like “Play the album through and let me hear what it’s sounding like so I can see what I can add to it.” So he just gets to this one song that I didn’t even hear before [starts singing the “Lean Back” beat]. I’m like, “What was that? Play that again!”

I’m listening and it’s Joe and he has three verses on it. So I listen to all three of them and I’m like, “The second one. That’s the weakest one. Take that one out, please! Not just mute it, I want it gone! Never to be seen or heard from ever again. Cue the mic…” And I went and kinda bullied my way onto the record. Like, if he thinks for one fucking second that he’s gonna have this record all by himself, he’s fucking bugging. I don’t even know when they snuck and recorded it. I don’t know when Scott Storch weaseled himself in there and laid down the track. All I know is that I had to be on that record. And not to be cocky or whatever, but I know I’m not wack. They’re not gonna take my verse off once it’s on there.

Everyone came the next day and we’re all listening to it and we get to it and it’s like, “Lean Back, Lean Back.” And then when Joe thought his second verse was gonna come in… “R to the eazy/ M to the wizzi/ My arm stay breezy!” I was in the corner like, “Yup! I’m on there and it’s staying!”

So you know that definitely was a hijack situation. But it was dope. We literally recorded that whole Terror Squad album in Khaled’s crib in about two weeks. We all went down to Miami, the whole Squad, and we just knocked it out. It was a lot of fun and a lot of good music on there.

That verse is in the all time, that and the “Ante Up” remix.

“Ante Up” remix was another hijack situation. I spent the beginning years of my rap career hijacking my way onto songs. First of all, I was super young. I don’t think I had officially signed to Loud Records yet. I used to be hanging out at the office, getting to know everybody, waiting to see M.O.P. or to see anybody from Wu-Tang come through, or dying to run into Mobb Deep. Like the roster on Loud Records was crazy back then. They had Big Pun, Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, and M.O.P. It was just bananas.

So when “Ante Up” came out I was like, “Yo, if they ever do a remix to this, I wish I could be on it.’ Like, I was literally in my house just wishing to be on it. So when the original came out, I wrote a verse as if I was on it. And when I heard that they were actually doing a remix, their A&R of their project, was kind of like my A&R too, eventually…

This was Matty C?

No, this was Sean C was working with them. And I was like, “Yo, if you could get them to hear this verse and they like it, I will love you forever.” And I did the verse and I think they sent it to Premier because the remix ended up being on Funkmaster Flex’s album. And they kept me on it. Like they had a meeting one day—I think they all thought I was a little boy at first—and they had a meeting and I was super pissed because when Premier mixed it, I don’t know what he did when he mixed my voice, but he made it sound squeakier. I was like, “What did he fucking do to my voice?” And they were like, “That’s Premier! You don’t question Premier.” And I’m like, “Fine. Whatever.” But we had this whole big meeting and M.O.P. was there, Busta Rhymes was there, and Prodigy. Prodigy was originally on the “Ante Up” remix too.

Really?

Yup. Prodigy was on the original “Ante Up” remix and he didn’t make the final cut. His verse was dope as fuck, but at the time he was beefing with JAY-Z and he said some line in there that was like a shot. Like, it wasn’t a direct shot, but if you knew what was going on, you knew. And they was like, “Not on this record.” And Prodigy was Prodigy then. Mobb Deep was at their peak. But they were like, “Nah, not on this record. We not doing that,” and I was like, “Welp, as long as my spot is solidified, I’m OK!” And then I had to come after Busta at that! And then we shot the video and Busta broke my Gucci glasses acting all crazy. Like he’s definitely my Gemini brother now, but that whole “Ante Up” video, I had just had my son and was super fat. I felt horribly ugly. I didn’t know anything about hair, makeup, nothing. I spent the whole video getting beat up by Busta Rhymes, cause he was really Busta Rhymes—like he wasn’t the chill, smooth Busta Rhymes that he is now. He was that knock you out by mistake and didn’t even realize it Busta Rhymes. But, one of my most memorable times of my whole career, the “Ante Up” remix.

So let’s get to those Seven Winters and Six Summers. We just heard a song where you were speaking about some real things that happened during that time.

I just played a song called “Company” off of my album, Seven Winters and Six Summers, with A Boogie. And in the record I say I was getting “one visit, two phone calls and three showers a week” and that’s true. That was my life for a long period of time. One visit, two phone calls, and three showers every week—and not necessarily guaranteed. Like, it’s not a guarantee you’re gonna get that one visit, not guaranteed you’re gonna get those two phone calls, and three showers. Like, I stayed in trouble—not as much as some of my friends. And you would literally get three showers a week, three ten-minute showers every seven days. And as a woman, that is horrible. It is very degrading. And you cherish when they give you those ten minutes. Like, you want to get to all of the very important parts and pray that all the soap is out when they cut the water off on you. And for seven winters and six summers that was my reality.

Was this a women’s correctional facility?

Yes this was a women’s facility.

And you were in there with hardcore offenders?

There’s only one maximum-security facility in New York State for women and I stayed there my entire time. Like, it’s crazy because people don’t realize why seven winters and six summers is the name. I could not fathom counting my time in years—definitely wasn’t counting it in months. And where my window was you could only see trees out the window. Let’s say if it was 2012 and the trees were green. I knew I had about four more summers to go—four, maybe five depending on if they gave me good time or not. If it was 2009 and the trees were just branches, I knew I had about six or seven more winters to go.

When it was all said and done, I ended up getting my college degree, and that took a couple of minutes of my time. I did a total of seven winters and six summers. And when I was recording my album, I’d be trying to figure out ways to sneak in tidbits of information, because nobody wants you preaching to them. I can’t even really take myself there. Like certain verses that you guys are going to hear in certain songs, those are lyrics that I actually wrote when I was in prison.

The way it works is when you’re in prison, people are like, “Oh, I know you got mad rhymes, I know you wrote this that and the third.” Like, you are so fucked up in the head and you are so depressed and your life just feels like total shit, your creative juices are stagnant. You get little spurts here and there because I was there for so long, obviously, but you’re not just in there cranking it out. You’re fucking stressed. It’s not a happy time. So it’s hard to put yourself in a different scene, like, “I’m in the club” or “I’m driving this car” or “I’m chilling with my friends just living life and thinking positive thoughts.” It’s hard.

I can’t even front, my life is great right now. Thank God. I have a really good life and I have my health and I have my husband and I have my children and I have money and fame and success—a lot of the things that I thought might not even be possible again. It’s hard to put myself back in that mindstate when everything was so dark and I couldn’t see the light. I don’t even think my brain wants to go back there. My brain is like, “Uh-uh, I don’t want to go there. Nah, we not doing that.” There was a song called “Dreamin'” on the Plato O Plomo album where I said, “I used to be in the cell dreaming that I was home/ And I now I’m home and I’ll be dreaming I’m back in the cell.”

And that shit is so crazy because I would literally be in prison having the most vivid realistic dreams, like I could dream that I have on these boots and I’m doing interviews and the shit would seem real as fuck. And then you wake up and you’re in this fucking little-ass 6′ x 8′ cell with this toilet next to you and a locker. And it’s just fucking horrible and it’s nothing you can do about it.

Now I’ll be home to my big-ass California king bed in my house where it is warm and toasty and my husband is next to me and my son is in the next room sleeping, and I be having nightmares that I’m in prison. Like, I will have on my state greens, my hair is braided. The shit seems just as real as the dreams felt with me being home when I was locked up. The shit is super traumatizing, like it’s crazy. It’s fucking retarded. I can’t even explain it. But seven winters and six summers, it’s like enough time for you to think about a lot of shit.

I spent most of my adult life in prison. When I caught my case, I was 25 going on 26. And when I came home I was starting my thirties. When you’re young and you’re 25, you’re like you’re going to retire at 30 and you’re going to buy this, start a business—and all that shit was thrown out the window. So I’m like, “Where do I start from? What do I have to do?” I’m definitely not going to go get a regular-ass job, like, that’s not happening. I had to figure out what I was going to do.

I spent a lot of my time during those seven winters and six summers researching. I got a subscription to Billboard. I was looking up touring and I was looking at charts. I was looking up who was doing what and who was doing this and what the labels were doing and I came home and literally got straight to work. I came home at 4:30, 8 o’clock that night, I was in the studio with Khaled doing that “They Don’t Love You No More” remix. And I knew that’s what I had to do in order for me to even have a chance of being successful at this music thing again, I had to literally come out and get straight to work. I didn’t have time to chill. I didn’t have time to go get a license or health insurance or go see my mom for all the things I thought I was going to do if I wanted to succeed or have a chance at succeeding. I knew I had to go straight to work.

And you did that and the work is there now for everyone to hear. And we see you went double platinum and you signed a new deal. Congratulations on that BET award, by the way. But I want to ask about that Summer Jam moment you created. What was that about? Why did you want to bring all those women together?

OK, the Summer Jam moment. I love when people ask me about it because that means that my intentions and my goals are being met. At this time, the whole beef thing was still lingering around and everybody was like, “Yo, you gotta go up there and kill shorty! You gotta put her on the screen!” And I’m just like, ‘Everybody did that.’ You could do that, but what I wanna do is something that’s going to be remembered past that—something that, years from now, people are gonna be like, “Yo, remember when Rem did Summer Jam?”

Like, it’s easy for me to break something. It’s easy for me to take a glass and pick it up and shatter it—break it into a million pieces. It’s easy to tear something down. Not everybody can make a glass. Not everybody can take the sand and melt it down and turn it into glass and then form it and make a cup—and now you can drink out of it. It’s harder to build something, and that’s what I wanted to do.

I’m like, “Yo, this is the most that female rap has been talked about in years. What can I do so that it resonates? And not just for right now, but after Summer Jam. Everybody told me that I couldn’t do it. “Oh, you know how women are. They’re catty. This one don’t like this one and this one I don’t like that one, and they need their hair done and they need makeup and they need wardrobe.” So you know what? I took my whole budget and I started making phone calls. “Where you need me to fly you from? Where is your make up artist? What hotel you want to stay? What airlines you want to fly with?”

A lot of people I got to reconnect with. I hadn’t spoken to people in so many years. Everybody that I called was like, “Rem, I got you. It’s no problem. Yes, this is dope! Oh this is gonna be crazy.” If I would’ve thought of the idea two months ahead as opposed to two weeks ahead, it would’ve been so crazy because there were people like Dej Loaf like, “Yo, I want to be there but I got this concert I got to do.'”Or Trina who was like, “Oh, I’m doing a show in Atlanta”‘ Or Eve, who was stuck overseas in London somewhere. But Monie Love came. Rah Digga came. Young M.A came. Lil Kim came. Cardi B was there, MC Lyte, Lady of Rage. Queen Latifah flew in from Switzerland. Dopest moment hands down. Like top 3 dopest moments in my hip hop career and it was all love. I tell people all the time, “If you could see how we were…” I wish there was footage of our interactions backstage, like everybody just fanning out over each other. Like, ‘Yo, let me get a picture of you. Oh, I love you!’ Nothing but love. Amazing moment. Loved it.

Is there a queen of hip hop?

One? Just one person? Is there a king of hip hop?

That’s a fair question.

People ask if there’s a queen of hip hop. Is there one person that’s the king of hip hop, that he’s over hip hop? People going to debate it all day. Some people are gonna say B.I.G., some are gonna say JAY-Z, some people gonna say Eminem, somebody gonna say Pac. I feel like everybody has their thing. And what I did, I don’t care who tried to take credit for it, who tries to erase it, because you know people try to change history once things start happening. I feel like since I came home in 2014, that end of the summer to right now, female hip hop is in a totally different space. Total different space.

I feel like what I do, I encourage people. I encourage women to feel like, “Yo, she came from nothing and she was able—with no record deal, no big management, just her husband and her brothers—to get gold records and double platinum records and Grammy nominations and win the BET Best Female Rapper of the year. That hasn’t been won by anybody else in the last seven winters and six summers that I’ve been gone.

She’s been able to do it and she’s been able to do it being herself, not trying to be like anybody else, not trying to rap like anybody else, not trying to sound like anybody else. And that’s not to discredit anybody else, but that’s just what I did. That’s just the facts. I feel like I encourage women.

Do you feel like you might’ve cleared a space for Cardi B to go through?

I feel like not just Cardi, but for so many women. I don’t want anybody to ever feel like I made anybody. I didn’t make anybody. It’s nothing for you to help somebody. I could’ve been like, ‘Hey, I’m doing a Summer Jam. I got 22 minutes. I’m gonna do “Feels So Good.” I’ma do “Whatever.” I’ma see if Swizz will come out with me. I’ma do “Conceited.” Then I’ma do ‘All the way Up.’ Then I’ma do ‘Money Showers.'”

Nah. I’ma take my 22 minutes and share it with everybody. Cardi, come out, do ya “Foreva” shit. I wish “Bodak Yellow” was out at that time! Young M.A, come out, do ya “OOOUUU” shit. Kim, come do ya shit. Queen, come in here on that “U.N.I.T.Y.” shit. People could say whatever they wanna say. Nobody else was doing that.

I could’ve been like, “I got two Grammy nominations. I got the female rapper of the year award. I’m sitting on daytime TV hosting with them. I’m on one of the most popular reality shows that people actually go on now. Now people are like, ‘Hey you can actually be a relevant artist that’s still doing something and doing TV shows.’ I’m in! Close the door! That’s it! Everybody else stay out.” That’s corny to me.

I always said if I ever get in the position, I’ma open the door and I’m going to put a door stopper in it. Anybody want to come in, they can come in. I don’t feel like anybody’s taking my spot. I don’t feel like anybody’s taking anything from me. Now everybody could say what they wanna say about how they always felt, but nobody was acting on it. People weren’t even taking pictures together, much less doing records together. We [female rappers] don’t work together. It’s going to always seem like we got beef with each other, because every time I say something, you or somebody else is gonna feel like it’s directed towards this person. They ain’t gonna ever say I’m saying something about Cardi, “Why would she say that? She brought Cardi out with her at Summer Jam. She ain’t talking about Kim, regardless of how much it may fit. Nah, she just did a record with Kim. She not talking about La, she not talking about Young M.A.” That’s cool and I think it’s dope, because we can do it! It’s some dope-ass females out here and we all contributed. Every last one of us, even the ones that I don’t like, everybody contributed their own shit. Everybody’s a queen in their own right.

Why is it so often that female rappers are presented in the industry as warring with each other?

I don’t know. I don’t know why. But I think it’s females in general, in any field. You go to a police department, I’m pretty sure the female officers are gonna tell you the same thing. You go to a hospital, the female doctors will tell you the same thing. The fact that our genders are always put before our occupation might be the beginning of the problem. Female doctor. Female cop. Female lawyer. Female rapper. What the fuck is that? So how does it feel being a female rapper? Do you ever sit and here and be like, “Yo, how’s it feel being a male rapper?” No one asks anybody that. So I think it begins with the fact that our gender is being placed before our occupation.

When we had Joe in here, he said you were the most positive role model that he could imagine coming home from where you were coming from, having a solid marriage, making big hit records and doing all of the things you did. Then he said, “zshe got into that beef, so I guess that’s hip hop.” Was “SHEther” just hip hop, or was it a personal situation?

“SHEther” was just what it was. I don’t care. I don’t care. I really don’t. You ask anybody, for the next couple of interviews ask them, “Where were you when you first heard ‘SHEther’?” Whenever I say that to somebody, they tell me exactly where they were and what they were doing, so it was definitely a moment. But I feel like everything plays a part.

It’s the same thing with “Ether.” You know, “Ether” was what it was. Does that change who Nas is? Does that change who JAY-Z is? But did it change hip hop? Absolutely.

So I feel like that may have been just another piece of the puzzle that has people talking about women in hip hop again, and has women feeling inspired. When I go across my timeline, or I just type in female rappers on Google, I see all these different women from different places and they’re really rapping though. They’re really rapping! I love it! [x]

[pokalkalasreko]

Top 50 Singles of 2017

Hello and welcome to the third annual edition of my top singles list (2016, 2015)

I really like writing these lists and 2017 is all about doing more of the things you like and less of the things you don’t. 

Hair Down by Mollie King would have been my top song of the year, except that ultimately it just wasn’t any good. 

This year, because I’m feeling extra festive, I have made the list into an apple music playlist. 

50

Allie X – Casanova

And we’re off. This chorus has one of the best hooks of the year. 

49

Jax Jones - Breathe ft. Ina Wroldsen

Ina Wroldsen has one of my favourite voices in music. You can hear her singing backing on a lot of early songs by The Saturdays, given that she wrote most of them. First of two Jax Jones entries on the list. 

48

Yaeji - Raingurl

Yaeji is cooler than me, you, anyone you have ever met, and anyone you will ever meet. 

47

Lost Kings - Quit You ft. Tinashe

In which Tinashe controversially claims she is addicted to a Coldplay song.

46

Katy Perry - Bon Appétit ft. Migos

In 2013, Katy Perry was the biggest popstar on the planet, and I couldn’t understand why. In 2017, she releases a string of actual bops and her career is in nosedive. I’m ready to stan. 

45

Josefine Myrberg - Head over Heels

Josefine Myrberg came third in Swedish Idol back in 2014. Nobody seems to be listening to her music much these days, but Head Over Heels (7.5k views at time of writing) is a genuinely beautiful song worthy of a lot more recognition. 

44

Kehlani - Already Won

The first time I heard this I was like ‘yaaas’ all the way through. Kehlani’s autobiographical ode to her own successes is a reminder to all of us to recognise that sometimes, we have already won.

43

Sigrid Bernson - This Summer

A pop song by a Swedish woman about enjoying summer. There is nothing better. 

42

Sage the Gemini - Now & Later

Released in 2016, but reached its chart peak in 2017 so it’s allowed. Now & Later was almost my most played song of Q1 so there’s that. 

41

Gabrielle Aplin - Waking Up Slow

I’ve just discovered that a PIANO version of this song has 3x as many views on YouTube. That is criminal. This song is full of synths and it bops because of it. 

40

Stockholm Noir - Hopeless Dreams

The “Take me to the south of France, I’ll feel poor again” bit is excellent.  

39

Anitta - Paradinha

A very good friend of mine who happens to be multi-lingual informed me that this song doesn’t make any sense in about 3 different languages. Which is as ridiculous as it is iconic. 

38

Dagny - Wearing Nothing

I love the choreography in this video. Dagny is a brilliant popstar. 

37

Shania Twain - Poor Me

I wasn’t mad about the other singles Shania released as part of her comeback this year, but this hit me for real. Shania voice has changed in tone so much, and now it suits the melancholic Poor Me perfectly. 

36

Danny L Harle - 1UL

What a song. I wish the singer was credited so I could look into her other work because I think she has a very listenable voice. 

35

SOFI TUKKER - Best Friend feat. NERVO, The Knocks & Alisa Ueno

That bassline. Features galore. Nonsense lyrics. A kitchen sink bop. 

34

Dinah Nah - One More Night

Dinah Nah is an international treasure, making banger after banger for anyone who will listen. As part of the excellent Spotify for Artists year-end thing, she proudly shared that she has 894k fans in 60 countries, which is quite remarkable and warms my heart. 

33

Shakira - Coconut Tree

I liked Malibu by Miley Cyrus but I preferred Coconut Tree by Shakira. This song is truly meditative, and takes me straight to the beach. 

32

Tove Styrke - Say My Name

Ironic because I still can’t pronounce Tove’s surname. 

31

The Chainsmokers - Paris

I know it’s the Chainsmokers, but I think this song is actually very good. That final instrumental goes off. 

30

PVRIS - Winter

From Paris to PVRIS, this song has one of the biggest choruses of the year. I also love that they have called the video a “visualette” - so extra. 

29

Wiktoria - As I Lay Me Down 

Wiktoria puts in a solid effort here, pretty much yelling her way through the entire song without taking a breath and it is incredible. Bonus points for a liberal use of “HEY” noises throughout. 

28

Niall Horan - Too Much To Ask

Don’t @ me. I am the last person who would have expected to see Niall Horan anywhere near my top thousand songs of the year, but here we are. The only thing constant in life is change. 

27

Lorde - Green Light

The final chorus of Green Light was one of my defining moments of Glastonbury 2017 - genuinely euphoric. I read somewhere that Lorde uses significantly more nouns than other songwriters and that’s what makes her songs so memorable. That could be true. I haven’t counted the nouns in Green Light though but it feels like there’s a fair few.

26

Charli XCX - Out Of My Head ft. Tove Lo and ALMA

Charli XCX’s POP 2 is an absolute triumph and my album of the year. Every song has about 12 different hooks and sounds so fresh. Tove Lo and ALMA are a dream collaboration on Out Of My Head.

25

KStewart - Sex 4 Breakfast

KStewart is my favourite new artist this year, and this is the first of two singles on this list. Somebody played a ‘prank’ on me at Brighton Pride this summer, and told me KStewart was playing on the mainstage at 4pm. I was so excited and squeezed my way to the front. However, at 4pm KStewart was nowhere to be seen and, to my surprise, out walks Louisa Johnson. Good stuff. 

24

Tinashe - Flame

The nicest thing I have ever done for myself is to buy myself VIP tickets to meet Tinashe and see her perform at Koko in Camden. Here I am like a competition winner:

It feels now like she’s never going to break through into the top tier of popstars which is a shame, because I really think she has it all. 

23

IMRI – I Feel Alive

The best pop song Eurovision has had in years. Unfortunately slightly strangled by the 3 minute rule, I would take another 1 or 2 choruses at the end for good measure. Imri seems like he’s having the time of his life and that’s great to see. 

22

Loreen - Body

It took a couple of listens, but now I am completely addicted to Body, and it is pretty much on repeat whenever I am commuting. Perfect for drowning out the real world. 

21

Loop - As if

I follow Loop on Instagram and she seems great. This year she has released a bunch of breezy, refreshing electro-pop including As If. I’m hoping that 2018 is her year. 

20

Poppy - My Style (feat. Charlotte)

My Style would be right at home on Robyn’s Body Talk, which is one of the greatest albums ever. As Robyn appears to be taking some time out, I am thrilled that Poppy has stepped in with her own brand of robo-pop. 

19

Liv Lovelle - Won’t Say Too Much

For the first minute of this song I’m always like “where is this going”, and then that drop happens and it all makes sense. 

18

CNCO, Little Mix - Reggaetón Lento (Remix)

17

Kim Petras - I Don't Want It At All

More like Kim Petr-SASS 💁  I Don’t Want it At All is the ultimate ode to materialism and an absolute stomper.

16

Nicki Minaj - Regret In Your Tears

I feel like Nicki Minaj is too often overlooked as a popstar who sings. Regret In Your Tears is an understated jam, and she sounds great.  

15

Astrid S - Breathe

Exactly what a pop song should sound like. I had a flatmate this year and we had nothing at all in common, apart from the we both listened to Astrid S. The power of pop music to build bridges.

14

Kelela - LMK

Kelela was one artist who made me genuinely excited about music this year. Her album Take Me Apart is exquisite, sounding both fresh and nostalgic at the same time. LMK is one of the best.

13

KStewart - Hands feat. Yungen

If there were any justice, this would have been huge for KStewart. But there isn’t and here it sits with less than 50k(!) views on YouTube. Hands is completely radio-ready, and could be lifted off any Ariana album.

12

Rita Ora - Anywhere

Rita Ora has had an incredible year. I love that she hosted America’s Next Top Model, then sacked it in and had 3 huge top 10s, which is probably more than your fave. Anywhere was instant for me, and her best by a long way. The nonsense post-chorus is reminiscent of those early 00s garage classics. Rita herself has said that it has no meaning, and I hope that in 2018 we are able to enjoy more songs with no meaning whatsoever. 

11

Dua Lipa - New Rules

Well this one took off didn’t it. Dua’s meteoric rise has been so exciting to watch, and it was New Rules that really took it there. She just seems like a great person too, and I’m sure 2018 will belong to Dua. Another lesson in the power of a good music video to rocket launch a song’s success. 

10

Aly & AJ - I Know

This song is just so perfect. The return of Aly & AJ has been the most welcome surprise. I Know is cool, lazy, atmospheric, synth-pop and a major shift from their 2007 Disney days.

9

Tove Lo - Disco Tits

I said this when I wrote about Cool Girl last year, but it’s worth repeating that Tove Lo makes it seem so effortless. Disco Tits is amazing and I wouldn’t be surprised if she wrote it in her sleep. 

8

Little Mix - Power ft. Stormzy

Little Mix are just unstoppable. Every year I think they have reached their zenith and then they take it to another level. Power is single number four from their fourth album and it’s this good. By now, Jesy Nelson (the best one) knows her way around an iconic second verse, so I think it’s neat that this time her verse starts with “my turn”. Also - what a video. Well done everyone. 

7

Jax Jones - Instruction ft. Demi Lovato, Stefflon Don

"All my ladies” was THE call to action this summer. What a song. 

6

Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling

Carly Rae Jepsen has mastered the ability to make happy sounding music which suddenly hits you as heartbreaking once you get stuck into the lyrics. Cut To The Feeling was released about a week after the Manchester attacks, and for me, the line “I want to play where you play with the angels, I want to wake up with you in tangles” stuck out as truly devastating among the euphoric, soaring synths. 

5

Blessed - See Through All The Colours 

I’m obsessed with Blessed. See Through All The Colours is so huge and I really thought would have been their breakthrough. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, but I think watch this space. Very excited to see what they bring in 2018. 

4

Nadine Coyle - Go To Work

One of the best things about 2017 has been seeing the true joy that Nadine Coyle, gets from being a popstar, and equally, the true joy she took from the really quite lukewarm reception of Go To Work. Earlier in the year, Nadine made a surprise appearance at a popular London club night to sing a couple of choruses of Go To Work (she didn’t even stay long enough to take her coat off). I was living in those few minutes. 

3

Mirela - Contigo

This song was the runner up in the Spanish pre-selection show for Eurovision, and won the televote by a landslide, but was struck down by some bizarre jury voting rules. It’s basically incredible. It’s ridiculous, it’s trashy, it’s fun. Bai-la-la-la-UH. 

2

Katy Perry - Swish Swish ft. Nicki Minaj

I know. A basic bop if ever there was one, but no song this year has bopped as hard as Swish Swish. I spent my entire time at Glastobury telling anyone who would listen that I only came to watch Katy Perry do Swish Swish. Everyone thought I was joking. I’m still undecided on that music video, and that dance, but the song is brilliant.

1

Steps - Scared Of The Dark

Let’s be honest, Steps in 2017 could have been shit but instead they were amazing. The moment when this sat at number 1 on iTunes ahead of chart villain Ed Sheeran was a sweet piece of pop justice. Scared of the Dark is a banger, incredibly good pop music, and my top single of the year.