Well it will be if they ever get her album out! Even then, I’m not sure she’s been (and I do recoil when I use this word, honest) ‘marketed’ correctly. All the dope stuff – the mixtapes, the battling, the guest spots, the crazy live show – appear to have been off her own back. So not really sure what, if anything, her label have bought to the table. She deserves a bigger push, but whether she’ll get that now ahead of her February release (how many times has this record been pushed back?) seems unlikely. Regardless, she’s still one of the best battle MCs out right now, and one of my favourite lyricists, fo sho!
Here’s an interview I did with her at the Power Summit, minus bits and pieces where the crappy mike I bought for my iPod basically didn’t work – pure feedback in ear business. Sometimes, a good old fashioned Dictaphone does it best…
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Who are you and what are you doing here?
My name is Remy Ma and I represent the Terror Squad and of course the late great Big Pun. I’m down here promoting my album, There’s Something About Remy that comes out December 6th 2005.
Where are you from?
Bronx, New York.
Age: 24
Occupation?
Emcee
What are you wearing?
I have my Juicy Couture bathing suit on and some Air Force 1s. I have a lot of trainers, like hundreds of pairs. I got my jewellery on too, I thought I’d take it back. A lot of people are on platinum and diamonds but I’m keeping it regular and gold with some hoop earrings, necklace, bracelets.
First off, explain why your verse get taken off the Lean Back remix that Lil Jon did?
I mean they told me that basically the song was too long so they had to take somebody off the song. Course they’re not gonna take Fat Joe off the song because you know, he’s Fat Joe. And they’re not gonna take off Eminem and they’re not gonna take off Ma$e, so truthfully I was the last on the list
What’s up with you and Foxy? There’s rumours of fights outside radio stations and all kinds of crazy stuff?
She doesn’t just have a problem with me; she has a problem with everybody – Jacquie O, Trina, Kim. You ask any female rapper beside myself and I’m pretty sure they got a problem with her. But you should probably ask her, if you could ever get an interview with her. Ask her what’s her problem? I don’t know what’s her problem. Everybody else is cool with me though. Me and her were cool at one point until I started getting more recognition than her and I guess she got jealous or thought that I should bow down to her whenever I see her. She’s crazy.
Talking of Fox – how if at all do you perceive yourself on the ‘femcee’ scale. Are you conscious Jean Grae, b-girl like MC Lyte or all-out Fox/ Kim sex sells style?
I can do those hard lyrics but sometimes I do sexy too, so I think I fit right in that middle section – I’m not like Foxy Brown and I’m not like, say Jean Grae. That’s probably why I get the recognition too cos when I’m sexy it doesn’t seem like I’m trying too hard and when I’m doing the hardcore it doesn’t seem like I’m trying too hard. It’s just me and people see that so…
So who is Remy?
That’s why I feel people should go buy my album. I titled it Something About Remy because people still don’t really know who Remy Ma is. I want people to get this album and feel they’ve learnt something about who I am. That’s why I haven’t gotten too many guests on there. I got Joe on there but only on the chorus cos I feel like all these years I did so many songs with other people on mixtapes, so this time I needed it to be about me. I do have a Pun verse on there that I’ve been saving all these years that no one will have heard. I have a song with Keyshia Cole, she’s singing a chorus on a song. That’s like my best friend. We’re supposed to be doing an album together, we’re working on that right now. So I have her on there on the chorus. But that’s it. Everything else, all 17 tracks is all me.
Well that’s good – we wanna hear a whole album of just Remy, you know?
I think that’s what you need. That’s what everybody waiting for. I look at myself as a fan of hip hop, like I still buy certain albums the day the album comes out and I hate it when you buy an album by a certain artists and it sounds like a mixtape cos it’s flooded with different artist. If I wanted that I would have bought a mixtape. So I tried to give the people what I look for now.
So why has it taken so long?
Well, it was a lot of legal problems. When I first signed my deal that was to Loud records, which went under. When that went under I got caught up in a lot of legal problems with Sony like, ‘where was I gonna go?’ So I didn’t have a deal and I just kept working till I found out where I was gonna go. I had a lot of bidding wars at the time, until I eventually decided on SRC, which is run by Steve Rifkind who used to run Loud. I knew him since I was 17. So I started working on my album, right after the Terror Squad album. My album was supposed to come out in June, however I was on tour. So when I did finish my album it was going to drop in September. But it was just that that’s when Kim was dropping and there was a lot of stuff with her going to jail, so you know I didn’t wanna get caught in that. So I decided I’m just gonna drop in December. A lot of people are worried cos that’s the last quarter when a lot of big people drop, but I’m not worried about that at all. It was hard, me being the artist that I am, waiting to come out. It’s tough to make money as much as anything cos if you don’t have an album out, you can’t get shows. So that’s another reason why I’ve kept myself in the mixtapes so hard.
I just saw you freestyling hard up there onstage. How did you develop that as a discipline, as a skill?
It’s just being around people like Big Pun, I soaked up a lot off of him. In some ways it’s kinda like an exercise, the more you do it the better you get. You think about it before you do it and then, I don’t know…
What do you think has been the key to your success so far?
I take control of a lot of things that I do. Sometimes record labels have these meetings to direct what you do, but it’s like the clothes I wear, I pick out. The music I make is mine. I wear what I want to wear. I do my own style. I say exactly how I feel. I don’t try to be sexy or unsexy, it’s just me, it’s just what comes out. When I first came out I was a lot more tomboyish that I am now, but as you get older your style changes. You don’t always wanna wear jeans. My best friend actually styles me cos we’ve been shopping together since we were 9 years old – sometimes she’s a little crazy with it, but generally if people turn up with clothes to a shoot she knows straight away what I will and won’t wear. I’m sneaker crazy though. I have hundreds. In my old room at my grandmothers house I have so many more that I never packed up. If I like a pair of sneakers, I’ll buy a few pairs cos the first I know I’ll wear to a show and they’ll be messed up before anyone sees them!
What’s your own favourite lyric?
Probably from off of the Ante Up song, “I wish I could bring Pun back.” That’s like the most…the realest thing that I’ve said, that I’ve really meant with all my heart.
What’s your next step?
After the album we’re starting working on the third Terror Squad album. Me, Joe, Tony Sunshine, Prospect, Armageddon, we ‘re gonna all get together and do hopefully another Lean Back.
On an iD tip; Beauty is…
Women. There’s no such thing as an ugly female. Every woman knows how to be sexy when she needs to be. Every woman has something appealing about her that some man, somewhere will be feeling.
Home is…
Peaceful. That’s what it’s supposed to be for me. Like when I go home, I don’t wanna talk about rap, I don’t wanna do interviews, watch videos, nothing.
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Album should be out in Feb apparently. Check remyma.com for updates
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