Da baddest, p.17
Da Baddest, page 17
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After losing my first love, then my brother, then my mom, I really didn’t think I could handle another loss. I didn’t think the universe would be cruel enough to test my strength after everything I’d been through, but it did on July 20, 2022. That’s the night my niece, Baby Suga, was shot and killed. Her name and those words, together in the same sentence, will never sit right in my spirit. But that’s what happened.
My niece was only seventeen years old when she died, and she was one of my favorite people. I treated her like my own daughter. When I moved to Denver with Kenyon, she and Laura moved into my place in Miami. When I moved back, I loved spending time with her. She was so gorgeous and bright. Up until her death, she still traveled with me whenever I could bring her along, and I spoiled her all the time. It was the summer before her senior year of high school when she was struck by a stray bullet.
It happened in Liberty City, of all places, right outside the Beans. That made it worse. The place responsible for making me who I am took away the person who was most precious to me. Suga didn’t deserve what happened to her; she didn’t cause what happened to her; she didn’t ask for what happened to her. Suga was just a kid with her whole life ahead of her, and someone took it all away in an instant. What I felt, and what my family felt, was more than just grief. I was angry. What the fuck is going on in the world that something like this could even happen?
If there is anything that can challenge your faith and make you question everything you believe in, it’s death, especially when it’s senseless and unexpected. Depending on your mental and emotional state, death can damn near make you stop believing in anything at all. I’ve had pretty much my entire life to think about it. At first, I accepted that it was part of some cycle of life or plan that was bigger than me, and that’s why I couldn’t understand it. When my mom passed, it was a process that I watched happen over time. It was awful, but it made sense. There was no rhyme or reason for Suga being gunned down in the street. It was completely random and meaningless, and that feels like the real truth of death.
Is there any mystery to it at all? Whether it’s from illness, tragedy, or anything else, what meaning does death have when it can be anyone’s time at any moment? You can be in the club, taking a bath, driving, watching TV, sleeping in your bed, or walking your dog, and boom. When someone dies, we talk about it being their “time,” because the timing is one of the things we can never know. Death scares us, so we avoid thinking about it and keep living until it strikes again. None of us knows when it will be our time, but all of us will have our turn. It’s a card that we were dealt the moment we were born. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. You can be dirt-poor or have all the money in the world. It doesn’t matter how big your house is, what kind of car you drive, how much your jewelry costs, or how many designer labels you wear. You can be big or small, be drop-dead gorgeous, have fake boobs and a BBL, or be all natural. It doesn’t matter if you eat pork or have been vegan for your entire life.
It doesn’t matter how many books I write, how many songs I record, how many stages I perform on, how many awards I win, or how many lives I change. One day it’s going to be me. One day it’s going to be a person who hasn’t done a fraction of what I’ve done. One day it’s going to be someone I can’t stand. One day it’s going to be someone else I love. I’ve gotten to a point where I see nothing divine or special about death. I no longer get caught up in my head trying to figure out how it fits into God’s plan. What is the point when none of us can change it or make sense of it?
To this day, I still haven’t heard a single word that is actually comforting about my niece’s passing. When Suga died, I was so disgusted with the world that I didn’t want to hear from anybody. If anyone thought it was possible to comfort me, they were delusional. I wanted everybody out of my face. A friend of mine is a pastor, and he called to offer prayers and some spiritual counseling. None of it resonated with me. He was reciting words from a book, and they didn’t make sense to me in the face of what I was dealing with. We’re taught to say a lot of things to people who are grieving to be polite, and none of them are useful. If I respond to any of these questions honestly, I’m not being polite:
Are you okay? Of course I’m not.
How do you feel? I feel awful. I’m depressed. I haven’t slept. I have a thousand things to do, and I don’t want to talk about how I feel.
I’m sorry about your loss. You’re not sorrier than I am.
I know people mean well, but that doesn’t make it less cringey. Now imagine navigating those conversations with strangers who don’t always respect your privacy or boundaries. Being a public figure has added an entirely new layer to my grief. I noticed it a lot after my mom passed because I went back to work so soon afterward. It would take so much energy to get up, get dressed, and be present anywhere in decent spirits. Then I would arrive, be in the middle of doing my thing, and someone would approach me with good intentions to congratulate or compliment me. That would make me feel proud that I was still showing up to live my life. Then, right before they’d say their goodbyes, they would add, I’m sorry about your mom. They would bring to the front of my mind the one thing I didn’t want to think about. They would carry on feeling good about themselves while I’d struggle to hold back tears. It would piss me off so bad. No two people are going to feel the same way when they’re grieving, but it felt like I was tending a wound that never stopped hurting. People would throw salt in it even when they didn’t mean to. I had to learn how to mentally detach from those experiences and not take them personally so that it wouldn’t throw me into misery and chaos.
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When I was a little girl spending time at my grandma’s house, she used to always tell me, “You are very spoiled. But outside of this gate where you’re safe with me, the world is full of lions and tigers and bears. And when you grow up and get out there, they are going to be ready to eat your ass alive.” I was used to Caribbean mamas, aunties, and grandmas saying the most dramatic things to try to scare kids into acting right. I thought that’s what she was doing because I took it literally. There weren’t any lions, tigers, or bears roaming around Liberty City, so I never paid it any mind. I couldn’t appreciate what she was really trying to tell me about life until I got older. The world is full of scary shit waiting to take your joy, your confidence, or even your life. Sometimes it’s people close to you that betray you. Sometimes you cross paths with complete strangers who turn your world upside down. Sometimes it’s not a person at all. Sometimes your own demons and circumstances can make life harder for you. If you keep living, you are going to experience heartbreak, tragedy, loss, sickness, grief, and darkness. You can’t avoid them. That’s just the reality of life. That’s what my grandmother was talking about, and I’ve accepted that. The lions and tigers and bears never go away, but I know to expect them now. And I definitely know better than to ever lie down and let them eat me alive.
Chapter 27
When Da Baddest Bitch came out, momentum was full force. The label was happy, the critics were watching and excited about it, and the music industry was opening even more doors for me. In a matter of months, I went from doing shows on local and regional stages to national ones. The year 2001 was the first-ever BET Awards ceremony in Las Vegas, and I was nominated for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist. The two things about that day I’ll never forget are how hot it was and how much I hated the spikey flips they put in my hair.
It was similar to Missy’s hair in her “Get Ur Freak On” video, but it looked ridiculous on me. The stylist kept trying to convince me that the hairdo went perfectly with the custom denim outfit I had on. The BET Awards were a major televised event, and it was one of the first times I had worked with a styling team that didn’t include my mom doing my hair. I decided to go along with their creative vision for my look. I was a new artist attending one of my first major award shows. I didn’t want to cause a scene or have people thinking I was hard to work with. When I hit the red carpet hours later, I saw variations of the same hairstyle on several other women. Apparently it was trendy, and that made me hate it even more. But I wasn’t going to let a bad hair day ruin my night.
Once we got inside the Paris hotel, they ushered me to my assigned seat, and it sank in that I was in the same room as Patti LaBelle, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, and Mary J. Blige. Sitting among such greatness was a lot to take in. My life had done a complete one-eighty from giving lap dances three years prior. Somehow it all made sense, though. I’d worked hard on my album, and this wasn’t a bad payoff. Every time I go to an award show, I let myself soak in that gratitude.
I was nominated for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist alongside Lil’ Kim and Da Brat (two women that I had looked up to for years) and Missy and Eve (two women I could honestly call friends). I was in my seat feeling like more of a fan than an artist when they listed out the nominees. The winner was Eve. I hopped out of my seat to clap and cheer just as loud as everybody else. I was so proud and happy for my girl because she deserved it. We partied all night with some of the most talented people in the industry to celebrate.
The next year, 2002, I was nominated in the same category for Diamond Princess. I knew I wasn’t going to win, because Missy was also in the category, and she was on fire. She was the reason I was also a Video-of-the-Year nominee, thanks to “One Minute Man.” I was surprised we didn’t take that one home, but her win of Best Female Hip-Hop Artist was a win for me, too. In 2003, 2006, and 2008, we were both nominated for that award, and Missy won the trophy for both of us every time. I was hopeful about my chances in 2009, when there were only two other nominees and both of them were brand-new to the industry. I didn’t win that year, either, which admittedly stung because I was already four albums and almost a decade in. I addressed it on Amazin’ and kept it moving. When I was nominated in 2010, 2012, and 2015, Nicki took the awards home. She was Wayne’s artist and the breath of fresh air the industry needed. How could I be mad about that?
For years, haters tried to discredit my work and impact by bringing up my lack of awards. But I didn’t get into this game for the accolades. I saw an opportunity to boss up and be successful, and I took it and ran with it. I’ve spent my entire career putting the best parts of my personality, my city, and my attitude on display. I was able to take care of my mom, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, and the rest of my family. I traveled the world. Every time I was nominated, I got to sit in a room with my idols, wearing designer clothes, and feeling like a million bucks in celebration of the records and albums I put out that year. People always clapped at the mention of my name. I was blessed, and I had everything I came into the game to get.
I have a network of people that are brilliant and will always keep it real with me. I came up in this industry and spent the best years of my life with one of the most iconic record labels out of the South. I spent years with one of the greatest rappers alive, and he’s still someone I can call just to chop it up with. My friends are legends and visionaries. Being genuine and keeping genuine people around has unlocked so many doors for me. I couldn’t ask for much more than that.
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I found out that the BET Hip Hop Awards was bestowing me with their highest honor—the I Am Hip Hop Award—in 2022. I hadn’t dropped any projects and was dealing with so much personal grief that I could barely absorb what was happening. I accepted the award in Atlanta surrounded by my team and my Slip-N-Slide family. I cried because my brother, my mom, and my niece weren’t there to see it. It still meant the world to me, though. After years of leaving the main awards empty-handed, I was given my flowers—not for a song or an album, but for all of it: for two decades of hard work and experimentation, for being a blueprint for so many other women.
It was a reminder that I can keep going at my own pace. I know that I’ve done enough. I’ve given enough of myself to deserve the accolades and the respect. That’s what I stand on and sleep well at night knowing. I’ve made six studio hip-hop albums. The only other female rapper with that many is Missy. I am so proud of that. I don’t have anything left to prove, because I know I’ve done my job. I leave it to the critics and the fans to put the pieces together about what my career has meant for the industry and other women in hip-hop, because that’s their job.
Truth be told, when people ask me about my legacy or impact in the industry, I’m sometimes at a loss for words. I don’t always know when the debates are happening about who has the best catalog or influence. I sometimes don’t even know when I’m trending on Twitter. When I think about my career, I know I’m successful because it’s been twenty-five years, and I can still get a crowd active. When girls come up to me and tell me how my music inspired them, I know I did exactly what I set out to do when I first started.
One of the things the music and entertainment industries have in common with the streets is how easy it is to get caught up in a toxic cycle. There is always another check, another award, another milestone dangled in front of you, and you’re supposed to chase them no matter the cost. You’re expected to change your sound, your appearance, your schedule, your location, your accent, and even your opinions every time the trends change. You have these phones that are constantly reinforcing what everybody else thinks of you, what you should be doing, and what you did wrong. You end up on this hamster wheel that never stops, and if you run for long enough, you’ll forget what you were chasing in the first place. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors, and you can definitely get lost in it.
When I look back on my life and think about all the ways it might have turned out—I could have been in the car with Hollywood that night; I could have sold that house to that family and become a real estate mogul; I could have gotten caught up in the life at the strip club and lost myself; I could have stayed with Atlantic Records and sold 100 million more records than I did—there are a lot of couldas and shouldas. But I fully believe I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
The same year I won the I Am Hip Hop Award, I held my first Trina Day in Liberty City. It was a community-based event for kids and families to come together, have fun, and get free backpacks and school supplies. I couldn’t let what happened to my niece turn me away from giving back to the community that gave so much to me. The mayor of Miami showed up to decree May 14 “Trina Day” and present me with a key to the city. I know that my grandparents, who left their island to literally build a life in Miami, would have been so proud.
In 2022, I renewed my real estate license for the first time in years. I’ve been investing in real estate since the moment I made enough money to. What I love more than the passive income is the process of deciding remodel details, choosing the décor for the staging, and the entrepreneurial mind it forces me to use. The little girl who wanted to be an architect is still in there somewhere. I also want to be a resource to others aspiring to break into the market and level up. Creating even more events and experiences in Miami, on land I own, is always a goal for me. The achievements of my lifetime are far from over.
Epilogue
In 2023, I hosted my first-ever Rockstarr Music Festival, and I made sure the lineup was full of mostly female artists. I still think women are the most interesting entertainers in this game. They always come in with a bang, dropping that record everybody loves. You hear it in the club, and the whole room goes up. Their presence is stronger than everybody else’s and they possess that “thing” that makes you want to pay attention to them. There is so much versatility and range from the girls now. They all have different sounds and styles, and I firmly believe there is a lane for everybody—for the girls that like to sing as much as they rap, for the girls that make songs about their favorite cartoon characters, for the girls that twerk on the headlights and have their homegirls from the hood in every single video. I have heard some songs that are so ratchet that I can’t help but burst out laughing. I’ve heard others where I couldn’t believe the person I saw on IG was the same girl in the booth. We went from years of having one or two girls out at a time to me not even being able to keep up with all the girls rapping. They’re taking hip-hop to its new heights.
I see myself in so many of these girls today, and it’s not because they’re talking nasty and calling themselves bad bitches. It’s because I remember being young in this industry and knowing that I had to make choices that were going to decide my whole future. There was so much on the line, and the opportunity was so big. I had to either sink or swim. I had goals to hit, and the stakes were real. I know there are girls trying to rap who have to make it work or they’re going back to clocking in at somebody’s nine-to-five or trying to make their hair business or boutique pop off. They have to make it work or they’re back to being bottle girls, bartenders, or dancers. They have to make it work or they’re going to be stuck in an abusive, toxic relationship. They have to make it work or they’ll be lost.
