Da baddest, p.10
Da Baddest, page 10
What was supposed to be one meal turned into us hanging out together for an entire week in NYC while I was hosting events and parties to promote my second album. She hadn’t been living in the city long enough to get settled in. Finding an apartment in Manhattan was stressful and expensive. When we met, she’d found one that she wanted, but she still needed another grand to get it. She wasn’t asking for help, just venting. But I really believed in her and wanted her to be able to keep climbing in her career, so I gave her the money she needed. I’ve never regretted it.
La La is the kind of person who asks how you’re doing and actually wants to know the answer. It doesn’t matter how many months have gone by, with our hectic schedules, since we last spoke—she always asks for a full play-by-play of everything she’s missed. She’s the person you can trust to keep your secrets locked in a vault. We hang out without wigs or makeup and talk about our goals, dreams, and hardships for hours. She is usually one of the first people to reach out and check in when I’m going through something hard. She wants to know how I’m feeling, how she can support me, and she comes through every time. When she was pregnant with her son, I rearranged my schedule so that I could be in New York to take care of her and make sure she was comfortable. That was the only time I’ve known her to be in a bad mood. She was irritable and would cry at the drop of a dime when she was pregnant, but it was a privilege to be there for her during such a special time. I know she would have done the same thing for me.
Building my tribe of women in the industry is one of the best things I could have done for myself. Women have always been a huge part of my life. I’ve always looked up to them. I’ve always trusted and respected them. I could always count on them to pour into me. Women have stood by my side through some of the best and worst moments of my life. I don’t know if I would have kept pushing in this industry if it weren’t for women like Eve, Missy, La La, Monica, and some of my other girls. It’s harder to build genuine relationships in a world that moves primarily online, but I know it’s always worth trying.
Chapter 14
I never liked the idea of being average, so I knew I couldn’t stay in that comfort zone. I had a couple of hit songs and a little bit of success, but I wanted to find my full potential as an artist. I had further to go, and I needed to do something different if I was going to get there. I had my eyes on a bigger prize. I was “going after the big man” symbolically. We followed a simple formula to make “Nann” and Da Baddest Bitch. We used catchy Southern beats and talked about the lifestyle of people from the streets. That kind of music will always resonate because it’s raw and energetic. But there were a lot of hip-hop artists playing with different sounds and styles of music, and I wanted to expand my sound for the second album.
Missy was the first person I asked to send me a record for Diamond Princess. The album that “One Minute Man” was on went platinum a few months after it was released and won two Grammys for best rap solo performance and best female rap solo performance. She was already a legend, known for introducing talented new artists to the world and innovative music videos and tracks. If there was anyone who could help me take my sound to a different space, it was her.
She was working out of the Hit Factory in Miami, where music legends like Gloria Estefan, 2 Live Crew, and Aretha Franklin laid their tracks. She was already in her zone when I got there, tweaking controls and nodding along to the music playing in one of her signature track suits. I heard vocals coming from the speakers that sounded like velvet. She told me it was Tweet laying a song in another booth. Tweet’s voice sounded even smoother without all the music and mixing on top of it, and I loved it. I knew I was right where I needed to be.
“What kind of song you trying to do?” Missy asked. She was a master at work, though, so she was prepared. She played four or five different beats to gauge my reaction to them. Once she had a feel for the kinds of sounds I was drawn to—futuristic, melodic—she pulled up one that she knew I would like. She didn’t miss. I’m not the kind of person who can write in the studio (it’s too cramped and uninspiring), so I took it with me so that I could work on it. I came back to lay the vocals and build the track. The final product ended up being “Rewind That Back.”
Missy is going to be on my album, I thought to myself. I’ve really made it. I was truly honored to have a single with her. We were just about finished when she surprised me with another song she’d been working on, with Tweet singing the hook. I was grinning from ear to ear as Missy went right back into professional mode to make sure it was perfect. Two hours later, “No Panties”—a song about men not being cheap and working for the chance to be with you—was done. It was nasty, but it was bossy, and it didn’t sound like the other records the guys at the label were sending.
I’d already told Slip-N-Slide straight up, “I’m not trying to make another Baddest Bitch.” They didn’t necessarily like the position I was taking, because the Trina brand they wanted had been locked in, and I was exactly where they wanted me to be. They didn’t want me to switch up my style so soon. I could see the confusion and skepticism when I referenced new styles and sounds I wanted to try. Record labels are all about business and making a return on what they invest into artists. If they know one thing works, they want artists to keep producing that thing over and over again, until they find something else. It’s all about a bottom line. I navigated that restriction for the first time working with Missy on Diamond Princess.
Trick was super vocal about me staying true to who I was. He didn’t think my new music would be relatable if it lost too much of the gritty street element. My songs motivated hood chicks to get ahead in life and get everything they could from these dudes in the process. While Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, and Eve had done this for the East Coast, I was the first solo female rapper from the South to step into the spotlight at this level. He thought I had to stick to the same sound to send the same message, but I disagreed.
I stood firm on my position, too. Before I got in the studio with Missy, I did “Told Y’all” with Ross. But I didn’t love it, because it felt too similar to stuff I’d done on the first album. Ice Cube was working on a new movie, All About the Benjamins, set in Miami and wanted me to send him a song for the official soundtrack to give it some hometown spice. I gave him “Told Y’all,” thinking it was more fitting for a motion picture than my new album.
My label really held my hand and guided me through the process of making my first album and going on tour, but I became adamant about leading the direction of Diamond Princess. When I heard the “How We Do?” beat from Just Blaze, I knew that I wanted a rapper with East Coast swagger on it. Fabolous’s voice has a soothing quality on any track he’s on. He was popping on the charts, so my team was just as excited to get a verse from him. Ludacris returned the favor from “What’s Your Fantasy?” with a feature on “B R Right.” The same producer who did “B R Right” also did the beat for “Do You Want Me?” I fell in love with the heavy violins and the warped samples that combined old-school vibes with something fresh. It was that signature sound that took Kanye West from new producer on Roc-A-Fella records to megastar. It was perfect for what I was trying to do with this project.
If it had been up to me, every song on Diamond Princess would have been part of the new music wave I was on. But working with labels is give-and-take. This means collaborating with people in their network and using their creative ideas, even if that’s not always in line with what you want to do. When I first started, I naïvely thought that artists could just choose who they wanted to make songs with, call them up on the phone, and get it done. Occasionally it really was that simple, which is how I got to work with Missy. But most of the time, you have to compromise.
In this case, that meant Diamond Princess would still have songs that were considered more “on brand” for me. Cool & Dre were the hottest new producers out of Miami. They’d just worked on two of Fat Joe’s albums and gave my album a dynamic street edge. Signature did what he does best and added that Miami flair to “Hustling.” They also put “Told Y’all” on the album and billed it as the first single, since All About the Benjamins was killing it at the box office and helping to push the song. Diamond Princess finally got the green light, and it dropped in August 2002.
* * *
With a bigger budget, I hired Misa Hylton—the stylist who was helping bridge the gap between hip-hop and fashion with artists like Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige before I ever thought about rapping—to do creative direction and styling for the Diamond Princess cover. She picked this white fur bikini and accessorized it with dainty diamond jewelry. My hair was pressed and slightly windblown. Everything about that cover was soft and feminine, but still sensual. It was perfect.
The singles from Diamond Princess were doing well, and I knew I had to keep that energy with the visuals and the show when I took it on the road. Because I was the only woman on my label, it was hard for the men to accept how much more it cost to execute full-glam moments. I couldn’t just put on a T-shirt or jersey and a chain to sell the version of Trina that we had built up. I needed more money for hair, makeup, wardrobe, and even dancers. I was flaunting a life of luxury and expensive taste that women aspired to, so I had to look the part.
In 2002, it took a lot of work to promote an album. Radio spots, live and televised performances, talk shows, magazine interviews, and cross promotion on popular shows and box-office movies. I was doing it all. Press was always tricky because I’d done interviews before where my words were misconstrued, taken out of context, or just used incorrectly. When I was still promoting “Nann” with Trick, so many outlets wanted to play up sexual chemistry between us, which was the biggest joke since he was like a brother to me. This time around, the fixation was on my body. Photographers only wanted to dress me in skimpy outfits or bikinis—something so many female artists have to deal with—and pose me from behind.
I’ve always been intentional about the way I carry myself. I want to be regarded as someone deserving of respect, because I am. How I present myself is part of that. I’ve never been ashamed of my body or being seen as a sex symbol, but I have certain boundaries. Even when I worked at the strip club, I made it clear that I wasn’t desperate and had morals. If I could evolve my sounds, I could also work to shift my narrative. I started putting my foot down on certain shoots. I would refuse to pose from the back, I declined certain wardrobe pulls, and I learned how to respond to questions that felt too sexual or irrelevant. But more than anything, I learned to take all the media hype with a grain of salt.
We ended up shooting the video for “Told Y’all” with help from the movie’s production company, but Atlantic cut a check for the lead singles “No Panties” and “B R Right.” I flew out to LA to film “No Panties” with Tweet. After Missy connected us, we stayed in touch and I was happy to offer advice about being a brand-new artist in the industry. When we were in the studio with Missy, it was a serious work environment. We got to let loose and be silly on the video set, which involved us dissing very sexy men in favor of diamonds and shopping. It was flashy and over the top, which I loved. Ludacris flew to Miami to shoot “B R Right” at the brand-new Diplomat Resort in Hollywood, Florida. The premise was that we took over the hotel, terrorizing the bougie guests, who looked down on us as young people with money and energy to match. My favorite scene is the one with me laid out on the penthouse terrace in a robe and head towel, getting a manicure. The video was a perfect mix of my opulent vibes and Luda’s silly side, with my city as the backdrop.
* * *
When I finished working on Diamond Princess, a producer approached me about starring in a movie. It was about a group of women coming together to withhold sex from their gangbanging men to stop violence in Liberty City. He thought I would be perfect for the lead role. I didn’t have any acting experience and wasn’t sure I had the chops for it. But playing the lead in my first-ever movie was too good of an opportunity to not at least try. When the script was sent to me, I was so overwhelmed thinking about how I would memorize all my lines that I almost quit on the spot. It felt tedious and awkward to me, but I’d already committed and couldn’t back out. I kept the script with me and read through it every chance I got until it was time to film. I still didn’t have my lines completely down.
A Miami Tail is a hood comedy that didn’t have a big budget. I had to shoot all my scenes in a few days. I was so relieved that Sommore was my costar. She’s a hilarious comedian who I’d featured on my album, and she had more acting experience than I did. She gave me a few tricks on set to teach me how to improvise when I needed to get through a scene. Some other people I knew from Miami—like my friend and fellow rapper Mr. Cheeks and silly-ass comedian Benji Brown—had also been cast in it, and they kept me laughing and in good spirits the entire time. I left the set feeling more confident about acting and wanting to be in front of the camera more.
* * *
“That whole front row look like a gay club!” That’s what Missy told me after watching one of my shows from backstage. She wasn’t wrong. After Diamond Princess came out, the LGBTQ presence at my shows and events was noticeably bigger. They were in the crowds singing the words the hardest, wearing custom shirts with my face on it, and gassing me up to the fullest. For years I was one of the only hip-hop artists at my level happily booking performances at different Pride celebrations, festivals, and gay clubs. I’ve never done one of those gigs and not had a good-ass time.
Before I ever entered the industry, some of my closest friends and family members were gay, and we always had nothing but mutual respect for each other. My uncle Perry, the one who taught me how to twirl the baton and did hair at my mom’s shop, played a formative role in my life. He encouraged all my sass and extra-ness. He wanted me to be strong and think I was the shit. I loved listening to B’s stories at the nail shop. Some of the folks who work for me today are on the queer spectrum. There’s a huge gay scene in Miami, where sensuality and pleasure on your own terms are nothing to be ashamed of. There are the hood gays, the Latin gays, the rich South Beach gays, and everybody in between. My exposure to and comfort with the LGBTQ community aren’t things I have in common with a lot of my hip-hop peers from the South, especially men. I know firsthand that a lot of the homophobia in the industry comes from a place of ignorance. Some of the guys in my generation went from not knowing a single gay person to making their money in an industry where there are people from different backgrounds and orientations. It sucks when they can’t overlook people’s personal choices to really appreciate the creativity and influence of that community.
I’m always tapped into the rainbow. Not only has the queer community been a loyal fan base, but they have top-tier taste. There isn’t a single great female artist that doesn’t have a substantial LGBTQ audience, and there’s a reason for that. My sex appeal is a selling point for men and queer women. My confident approach on how to deal with men is a selling point for women. My unapologetic attitude, especially when it comes to sex, got the attention of gay men. When I tapped into my Diamond Princess era, where I was serving feminine glitz and glam, they locked in. I knew I was doing what I was supposed to do when I had their support. I wanted to give them even more.
Chapter 15
Cash Money Records really did take over the ’99 and the 2000. Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, Big Tymers, and Lil Wayne—their youngest artist—had the whole industry in a choke hold. You couldn’t be a touring rapper in the early 2000s without running into them. They had the same pull in New Orleans that Slip-N-Slide had in Miami, so whenever I was in the Big Easy, they were the friends I would hit up. That’s how I originally met Wayne.
In 2005, I heard he was in Miami before I actually heard from him. Not only was he one of the infamous Hot Boys, but he was also a solo artist growing in popularity after the release of Tha Carter. People spotted him around the city, and word spread that “Tha Carter” was calling Miami home. When he texted me, it was completely random.
I’m in your city, let’s go out.
The message sat unanswered until a few weeks later. I was scheduled to host an event at a club called B.E.D. and knew it would be his speed. It was an upscale venue with grown and sexy vibes. The VIP sections had literal beds in them, and we would take our shoes off and pile onto the mattresses. It was a hell of a workout trying to dance on them, but it made the experience unique. I hadn’t seen Wayne in a while and wanted to be as hospitable to him in my city as Cash Money was to me when I was in New Orleans. The least I could do was make sure he had a good time.
A few hours into the event, he showed up with Mack Maine and another friend. They headed straight toward my section. I watched the crowd part as security ushered them through, and when he made it to me, we hugged tightly, like the old friends we were. I had to walk around and take pictures to fulfill my obligations for the event, but I made sure we were able to catch up. He was still the chill, thoughtful guy I remembered. He wasn’t forward or flirty, but at the end of the night when our crews left, he told me I could hit him up any time. There was a sincerity I hadn’t noticed earlier. We went to separate vehicles, and before I could even pull off with my friends, my phone pinged with a message:
You got in the wrong car.
I craned my neck around to see if he was still in the area. He was sitting in a big-ass Rolls-Royce behind us. I definitely got in the wrong damn car, I thought to myself. But all I said was:
LOL
Wayne wasn’t going to let me off the hook because I sent three little letters. He is supersmart, articulate, and he has a way with words that is poetic. I’ve recycled some of the stuff he’s said to me and let my friends use it to bag guys they wanted. His game is that damn good.
