#a wake up call for people who think ghost has swag

[wombywoo]

summer ☀️🍦

[rkjeongin-blog]

⭐️triple threat challenge attempt  performing very very very by i.o.i ( 00:00-00:36 // 01:33-02:56 ) april 21st, 2019

the irony of his preparation for the triple threat challenge is that he greatly neglect his school work despite attending an artistic one. he should be just as determined with sopa as he is to blow trc’s mind on the 21st, but the motivation just isn’t the same. he has the opportunity to be signed into k.arma’s company and that’s enough incentive to practice relentlessly until the last minute.

but his mother almost ruins the entire plan by insisting she drops him off to school for his “club activities” which he is indeed supposed to attend but has skipped the past two weeks without telling her. it’s for a good cause after all: if he becomes a trainee she won’t be able to say he’s wasting his time by nurturing his artistic talents. granted, he does waste his time in general but she doesn’t have to know that... she doesn’t get how it is to be a teenager and not wanting to have his nose buried in books all the time. if it were up to her he would be studying from the moment he wakes up right until he goes to sleep... instead he’s never studying at all.

he had a cool outfit prepared but can’t even bring it with him in case it triggers her son’s bullshit detector and she starts asking a million questions he won’t be able to answer to. jeongin can be a good liar if he puts himself to the task but can’t keep it up for very long when under suspicion. that’s how he ends up at the school’s front gate, in his uniform and in panic mode as he fears he won’t be able to make it to the event in time. thankfully his parents give him a pretty generous allowance that he ungratefully spends on things that would make them furious, like right now as he hops into a cab to yongsan district.

he makes in time to sign up, unable to stand still in the line. he looks around and sees talented-looking people, most of them much older than he is. it might mean they’re more experienced, more skilled too, but jeongin is full of determination and spirit. he’s doing it for his girls, for k.arma. will they watch this somehow?

it’s hard to tell how much time passes before his turn arrives. he’s visibly nervous but he doesn’t let it affect his contagious smile when he steps in the center of the stage and greets the crowd. “hello, i’m yang jeongin!” his smile does not falter and shows off his braces. he doesn’t even dare look into the judges eyes because if they’re not smiling back he might just get weak in the knees and run off. it’ll be easier once he gets into the mood of the song.

he chose it for one reason only: he absolutely loves it. it’s cute, upbeat, and has enough vocal, rap and dance components to fill in the requirements. it’s hard to know how people will react to a boy tackling a girl group song, as it’s often done in a comedic manner and if they do it seriously, it’ll also often involve changes to the melody or choreography to make it more ‘masculine’. but jeongin hasn’t made any changes at all. he likes it as it is and, quite frankly, thinks he’s killing it.

he had to cut some parts of the song but believes he did a good job overall keeping most of the good parts. it’s a bummer he has to include the rap, really. he doesn’t think he’d be worth anything as a rapper but listening to some of the others, he might just not be the worst after all. he’s listened to this song so much that it was easy to master it, plus it’s not extremely hard compared to verses he’s heard so far. he’s not foolish enough to choose something that’s above his capacities.

everyone recognizes the famous intro to very very very and jeongin is certain that in just a few seconds a lot of the audience will be singing along with him. he puts on his brightest smileas the chorus hits right after.

날 너무너무너무 너무너무너무 너무너무너무 너무너무너무 너무너무너무 너무 좋아하면 그때 말해줘 내가 자꾸자꾸자꾸 자꾸자꾸자꾸 자꾸자꾸자꾸 자꾸자꾸자꾸 자꾸자꾸자꾸 자꾸 떠오르면 그때 불러줘

his cuteness overflows the stage as he hits the same movements he’s practiced in front of his computer screen so many times before. it’s a strange feeling to be performing out in the open like this. they’re not his schoolmates, or his family. they’re pure strangers who will help decide his fate, which makes the boy want to look at each and every one of them to capture their heart. instead he sets his sights on the ceo of triple crown. he might he known to keep his expression undecipherable to stay as neutral as possible, jeongin can’t conceive that he won’t even get a ghost of a smile. he’ll try his hardest, that’s for sure.

Stop 넌 뒤집은 베개처럼 신선한 느낌 하지만 꼭 참아야 해 이제부터 긴 확인의 시간을 반드시 거쳐야 해 뱀인지 아담인지 정체 드러나게 남자라 쓰고 늑대라 읽으랬어 도대체 남자들 그동안 여자에게 왜 그랬어 너무나 많은 여자들 마음을 울린 죄 때문에 그러니 내게 좀 더 널 보여줄래?

he tries his best to dis play the ‘swag’ that rappers have, as they call it, but doesn’t overdue it because it would look out of place in this song anyway. it’s not hip hop, not even close but it’s fun to try and act just a little cooler than he usually does.

이런 날 이해해주길 속상하고 답답해도 조금만 더 기다려주길 내 마음이 열리고 나면 아껴왔던 내 마음을 아낌없이 너에게 줄게

he holds his ground until the bridge, where he dances less intensely to be able to belt out the higher notes. his stamina isn’t all that just yet but at least he’s been trying to do all three at once. it would be no use doing the dance on its own: he hopes his vocal skills will distract them from his flaws in other areas. bringing attention to one at a time would only bring attention to details he’d rather keep under wraps. he’s not an ace like some of the others, sadly.

to end the song he does the first half of the chorus one last time, but instead of just closing his fists to do the movement he makes finger hearts instead, and ends the song like that while looking at the judges.

[thewildheroine]

Meet Me In Between |Part Three| An Infinity War Spoiler Story

Warnings: Language, underage use of drugs and alcohol, vomiting, death, major spoiler, anxiety, nightmares, angst

Word Count: 3.3k

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: Honestly I'm super surprised by how many notes this series has received as well as the number of people asking to be tagged in it!!! Thank you so much loves and I hope you enjoy part three!❤️💛💙❤️💛💙

|Masterlist|

|Part One| |Part Two| |Part Four|

People surround me, attempting to get a few words in with the adventurer at Lily’s end of the world party. It is in no way the end of the world though. In fact, it’s like everyone has returned to their normal everyday life, or they’re trying to. That’s the reason Lily is even throwing a party tonight. She believes it’s better to cope while drunk on your parents' whiskey rather than actually understanding what is going on. Maybe I would be doing the same thing as her if things like drugs and alcohol didn’t affect my abilities so much. Hang on some random junior from the Academy and pass around a joint. God. I wish I could get lost in it all.

The cup of beer in my hand is still full though and I haven’t laid a finger on any sort of drug since the incident two years ago. I intend to make sure I never do again. Suddenly, I swat a hand away from me but it isn’t an in-betweener’s. In front of me is a sophomore boy, drunk off his ass with a smug look on his face. He says something but I can’t be bothered to listen. Deciding I don’t feel like dealing with him I swerve past the lowerclassman and begin making my way towards where Lily is. Clouds of vape burst across my vision and I cough, bothered by the saccharine smells.

“Baby!” Lily hiccups as soon as she sees me through the crowd of our peers. Just as I thought she has slung her body over a juniors lap who seems especially happy about the situation. I smile and roll my eyes, still finding it in me to adore my best friend in a bubbly state such as this. Moving past high teens I make my way across the room and to the couch where she sits mimicking the posture of some sort of goddess.

“Hey beautiful,” I wink at her jokingly, throwing her into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “I think I’d better get home.” As soon as the words leave my mouth Lily’s giggling is replaced with a frown and she stares up at me with wide green puppy-dog eyes.

“But, Y/N,” she laments while pulling herself off the boy’s lap, “I’ve barely gotten a chance to talk to you. Also, you haven’t even finished your drink yet.” Lily points down at my red cup to make a point.

“You know I can’t drink. Not with my gift,” I remind. Lily watches me sadly for a moment, sobering up so she can sympathize with me. Abruptly she pulls me into a hug that is tight enough to make my spine crack. I chuckle and tuck my nose into her warm brown skin that smells like honey. She pulls away abruptly and makes direct and unnerving eye contact with me.

“Text me the moment you get home,” she asserts and I feel myself shrink a bit under her harsh gaze.

“Of course,” I promise and hug her again. She sighs, her breath somehow not filled with the scent of the strong liquor she was drinking only moments earlier. “I always do.” Finally, I pull away from her body and grin to comfort her. In Lily’s eyes, I can tell she knows somethings up. For as long as we’ve known each other she’s been able to read me like a goddamn book. I think that may just be her superpower. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” Lily responds sadly. As I’m backing away I shoot a glare at the boy who tugs my best friend back into his lap. He meets my eyes in a moment and looks down fearfully, not wanting to incur the wrath of the ghost girl. I smirk to myself when I turn away and begin walking towards the door. People call out my name so that they can talk to me even for a moment but I ignore each and everyone, just desiring to get home at this point.

Finally, I push past the double doors and enter the night. The pale moon shines a light on every single blade of dewy grass, creating an ocean of pure white. I giggle and move down Lily’s front walk and towards my car. Even outside I can hear the hollering of the students enjoying the part. A piece of me hates them for that. That they all can go about and do what they please without nearly dying. At least most of the time.

An image of hospital lights flash overhead and I have to lean against my car to keep from falling at the sight of them. Like a bird swooping in and out of view, the vision is fleeting, and as soon as it has disappeared from my mind I walk around my car and get inside. The dashboard automatically lights up and drive away.

As I’m driving home I find that the streets are empty for the most part. The only exception being the very few people driving home from their late shifts. I find comfort in the unusually quiet streets. Seeing that no one is behind me and my mother hadn’t texted me a specific curfew besides be home by the time I wake up tomorrow I take my time driving home so that I can enjoy the way the light emitted by the intersections look in the thick mist that has settled upon Greenwich suddenly. Slowly, I come to a halt at the last stop light before I reach my neighborhood. Enjoying the feeling of the cold, wet air when I roll down my window down, I drop my head against the back of my seat.

All of the sudden, pain bolts through my chest though and I gasp for air. Lurching forward, my hand hits the wheel and causes a long drawn out horn to break the silent air. I cry out and clench my jaw. My body stays paralyzed for a good five minutes, adjusting to the pain and pure anxiety I just experienced. The light had gone through a full cycle three times until the emotion disappeared enough for me to move again. Hesitantly, I look down and at my chest where the pain rooted from. My heart stops when I see the dark purple bruise branching up from my sternum and over my collarbone. I touch the bruise and wince.

“What the fuck?” I question. Looking around wildly, I try searching for an in-betweener who may have inflicted the injury upon me. All I find is a completely empty car though. I lift a hand to my face and run it through my hair, pulling at half of the strands that were pulled into a bun.

“HEY!” someone shouts at me. I look in my rearview mirror and see a car waiting for me to move behind my own Audi. Gulping down my fear I press down on my pedal and move to the right side of the road. As the person passes they lift their middle finger at me and speed away. I groan and rub aimlessly at my chest, wondering how in the hell a giant bruise like that just appeared.

The moment I see my house I’m relieved which is definitely a first. Haphazardly, I park my car in the garage and walk towards the front door. I pray that when I come in Max doesn't bark at all. Knowing my mom won’t be angry if he does though I swing open the door fearlessly only to be met with the Australian Shepherd who is lazily stretched out on the wooden tiles. He offers me a dopey smile which I return as I kneel down to his level and scratch his ear.

“Hey big boy,” I whisper. “How come you’re still up?” Max stands with me and shakes his thick brown, black, and white coat. We wander down to my room together, ignoring the overhead lights as they turn on when they sense our presence so that we don’t trip over each other. At the end of the hall, I can see my mother and father’s bedroom door that is barely cracked open enough for me to see the light of someone’s phone. For some reason, I feel the need to look away in shame.

I push my door open and Max immediately rushes in and jumps on my bed with a wagging tail, making me giggle. Lazily I toss my keys onto my desk and drop my jacket on the floor. Max watches curiously as I pull off my shirt and look into the mirror.

I'm shocked when I see my reflection. Only ten minutes ago there was a giant bruise covering the entirety of my chest up to my collarbone. Now, I am only met with my chest that has no purple, yellow or green marks on it. I run my fingers over my ribs to see if I can feel any pain from the contact. There's nothing though. Just the feeling of skin lightly brushing against skin, a touch that I never really appreciated until this moment. I press my hand against my sternum and sigh.

“Okay,” I mumble. “We're okay.” After I peek in the mirror again I waddle over to my bed and fall onto the soft mattress. Right away I snuggle into my comforters and close my eyes, willing sleep to envelope me before the nightly event begins.

I'm younger here. A sophomore with hope coiled inside of me like a child's slinky before trying to make it leap down the stairs. Lily sits across from me at the lunch table. I scroll through my Instagram feed, seeing what people have been posting about the Avengers most recent battle.

“Y/N.” I lift my eyes when I hear Lily calls me only to be met with her skinny juul. I stare blankly at it and raise an eyebrow.

“What?” I wonder with furrowed brows, not sure what she wants me to do. Lily rolls her eyes and pushes the item close to me.

“You should try it,” she encourages. I just scoff and look back down at my phone.

“Thanks but no,” I mumble and double click my home button to switch to Twitter. “You know I don't do anything like that.” When I glance at Lily through my hair I see her rolling her eyes while taking another hit. She leans in towards me and blows the steam right into my face. I choke on the faux smell of peaches and turn away.

“Dude,” I cough.

“Come on Y/N,” she moans and offers it to me again. “It's gonna happen sooner or later. Might as well get used to it.” I nod sarcastically and swag it away from me.

“You can't know that,” I hiss. Lily's stubborn though, and the little black thing stays right next to my lips.

“You go to a hippy liberal school in New York,” she informs me. “It's gonna happen.” I spare the juul another look hesitantly. I know better. I know that doing anything unusual may disrupt my connection with the in-between, but the begging look in Lily's eyes is enough to make me take the item from her. She smirks victoriously as I turn the mouthpiece towards my dry lips and take a shaky breath.

“One hit,” I reaffirm. Hesitantly, I put it in my mouth. The moment the drug hits my tongue I feel repulsed by the feeling and pull it out of my mouth. Coughing out loud I toss Lily's juul back to her. She laughs sweetly as the steam sputters out of my throat.

“Like it?” she chuckles. I roll my eyes and flip her off while grabbing my phone again.

“God no,” I tell her while gritting my teeth, the peachy taste still stuck in my throat. She pats my shoulder hand softly. The moment her skin meets mine I'm jolted forward through the day until I'm in my sixth-period class. I tap my finger paranoidly on my desk and glance around.

Hundreds if not thousands of hands run around my body by I can't make out any in-betweeners. I flash in and out of this world uncontrollably despite how hard I cling. Beads of sweat drip from my face and my teacher stares at me blankly.

“Y/N sweetheart, are you okay?” The moment she asks it I stand from my seat and shake my head. My chair falls backward and onto the linoleum with a loud thud. I stare down at my hands which fade in and out of sight and I nearly faint when I realize that they remind of the warped space when in-betweeners are around.

“No,” I mumble, suddenly feeling sick beyond belief. Hurriedly I sprint over to the trash can and vomit into it. I cling to the bag as I continue hurling into it, feeling weaker and weaker as more is released from me.

The dream doesn't continue as it should though. Abruptly, I'm taken from my dream and placed on an entirely different planet. The ground beneath me is course and the color of rust. My fingers dig into the rough sand and I lift it to my face. I study the material as it falls through my nimble fingers and hits the planet’s crust.

“Something's happening,” a woman announces. I twist around wildly to face her and demand some sort of answer about where I am. When I meet her wide eyes that stare straight into mine though I'm shocked. Whoever she is, she is absolutely not human. I step closer to her, taking in her pale skin, pure black eyes and skinny antennas. The moment I open my mouth to question her she begins turning to ash.

I watch in horror as what remains of the woman brushes past my face as though it is one last scared attempt to cling to life. My vision flickers away for a moment. When it returns there is yet another alien figure in front of me, only this one has grey and red skin with broad shoulders. He stares right through me, obviously not realizing I'm here with him.

“Quill?” he mumbles before fading into ash as well. I turn slowly to where he was looking and find myself face to face with a man who I believe to be human. He, just like the other, doesn't notice me as he looks down at his hands that begin turning to ash.

“Oh man.” Just like the others, he disappears, his ashes whispering along my skin as I begin to cry. I begin hugging my body desperately to try and quiet the whimpers that escape my already raw throat. My eyes shut, not wanting to see any more death.

“Tony…” another voice begins but I keep my eyes closed, unwilling to watch as another person dies. “There was no other way.”

“Mr. Stark?” For some strange reason, this is the voice that completely breaks me. My head snaps up and I look at a young man, dressed in a metal Spider-Man suit who hugs himself like I'm doing. He looks up and I understand that each of us knows what is going to happen next.

I stand on my weak legs, staring right at the boy who can't even see me. My stomach is in hurtful knots when I realize he's the boy Ned promised I would meet one day. God, I don't want to meet him like this.

“I don't feel so good,” he slurs his words. With a choked gasp I begin backing away. I can't find any sort of courage in me to watch him of all people disappear and stain my body with ash. All of the sudden he falls forward and into my arms. A sob escapes my scratchy throats as he wraps his arms around me and begins to cry as well. Despite the voice in my head telling me not to I wrap my arms around his torso and pull him closer to me.

“I don't want to go,” he bawls into my chest. “Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go,” he repeats. I bow my head and look down, finding that not only is the boy I'm holding turning to ash but so am I. I hide my face in his chestnut curls and cry out, scared beyond belief.

“I’ll go with you,” I promise, hoping he may just hear. “We’ll go together. We’ll go together.” Suddenly, the boy falls back and I go down with him.  He stares tto his right as my body begins to disintegrate more and more. I find that my vision becomes blotchy with dark spots and soon enough the only thing I can see is his calming brown eyes as he turns back towards me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. I place a hand on his face as I begin fading away with him.

“Me too.”

I shoot up from my comforters that have become damp with sweat. My hands cling to my sides as I make sure I’m still pieced together. Much to my relief I haven’t turned to ash or disappeared but that doesn’t make what I just experienced any less real. Searching for solace after such a terrible nightmare I look to my hands. I only find more horror etched into my skin though. Tucked into the creases of my palms are flakes of ash. A silent scream escapes my throat as I glare down at them.

Because of my sudden outburst, hundreds if not thousands of in-betweeners come to me. Despite my efforts all of their own fear and pain and suffering bleeds into my head, making what I’m going through a million times worse. I hyperventilate while holding my hands far away from me. Just like sophomore year, hands begin stroking my exposed skin. I grind my teeth to trap the sob that bursts through my throat.

“Please go away,” I mumble. “I can’t do anything for you. Go away.” The hands and emotions stay persistent though. “I can’t help any of you. I can’t save your souls. Please, please, please go away. Please-” my head lulls to the side slowly when my breathing becomes too short. Achingly I fall backward and onto my bed when my breathing stops completely from having such a severe panic attack, allowing me to fall back asleep.

Hours later I wake to the shining sun bouncing into my room. I have to squint my eyes because of such an extremely bright sunrise. After I few minute of adjusting to the light I yawn and stretch out on the bed, running my hands through my tangled hair and across my messy comforter. Something weighs down on the mattress next to me but I just figure it’s Max. Smiling to myself I turn around on my bed and run and drop my arms around him, finding comfort in the fact that he stayed throughout the night.

“Max,” I begin to wearily open my eyes, “you’re such a good-” my words get caught in my throat when I find myself staring right at a sleeping boy who had covered himself in my sheets. My mouth drops open and I stare at him blankly for a moment, unsure of what I do in a scenario such as this. My heart skips a beat when his eyes crack open, forcing me to realize this is actually happening. He stares at me tiredly, obviously still unable to differentiate reality from his dream. My heartbeat picks up again and I can’t help the frightened shriek of horror I let out right next to his ear.

And god, if he wasn’t awake before then he is now.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed and as always if you’d like to be tagged in series please send an ask to me or leave a comment! Requests are open! ❤️💛💙❤️💛💙

Tag List

| @isabella212 | @holyhumorliteraturelight | @hamiltrin | @why-am-I-here-again-shitheads | @tom-holland-imagines-are-us | @ohdamnerons |

[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]