Remy Ma is flying the flag for hip-hop during its milestone moment. And she’s doing it at a time when women rappers are winning — and collaborating — more than ever.
When hip-hop turns 50 on Aug. 11, the rapper born Reminisce Smith — who appeared on the cover of FN’s July issue — will be a mainstay for the culture’s biggest celebrations. First, she will hit the stage alongside Fat Joe and Busta Rhymes at Rumsey Playfield in NYC’s Central Park as part of the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series. That night, she will be one of many hip-hop legends performing at Yankee Stadium for the star-studded Hip-Hop 50 concert.
For the latter, the “All the Way Up” hitmaker will take part in the “Queens of Hip-Hop Set,” which will also feature Eve, Lil Kim and Trina.
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This particular performance is special, as Remy — a product of the Bronx, New York, hip-hop’s founding borough — remembered a time when support from her predecessors wasn’t there.
“There were a few people before me that supported, like Queen Latifah, [MC] Lyte and Monie [Love], but they weren’t right before me. The ones in position right before me, there was no communication. There was a very quiet but loud undertone like, ‘We don’t mess with the ones that are coming after us,’” Remy Ma explained. “I don’t think it was any fault of the artists, that’s just how the industry was. You don’t help the person that might be your replacement.”
Instead of repeating history, Remy tries to show support to those on the rise. Recently, she has shouted out several of the moment’s brightest stars, such as Latto, Lola Brooke, Kaliii and Coi Leray.
“Today, it’s more of a mesh and people understand that everybody has their lane and there’s room for everybody. It’s dope when you get different generations and different eras and different genres and regions to mix together,” she said.
Remy Ma is also using this moment to give her longtime fans something to be excited about: new music. “I definitely have to put that out this year,” the rapper said, referring to her long-awaited sophomore project.
Although she has delivered several hits since her arrival on the scene more than 20 years ago, her lone solo album, “There’s Something About Remy: Based on a True Story,” released in 2008.
Remy said there were plans to release her follow-up project sooner, however those were delayed by COVID-19 and, more importantly, motherhood. The rapper said she didn’t want to miss any firsts with her young daughter, Reminisce MacKenzie, who was born on Dec. 14, 2018.
“I wanted to be hands-on with her the way that I wasn’t able to be when I was a teen mom trying to chase my music career,” said Remy. “One day it just hit me — I was like, ‘I’m going to do the same thing that I did with my son, running from show to show, interview to interview, this country or that country and she’s with the nanny or my mom and I just missed four important things, like the first steps and the first words because I’m working.”
Aside from the pandemic and her hectic mom life, the rapper said the delay in music was also due to discovering new professional passions, including voiceover work (she was the narrator of the VH1 series “My True Crime Story”) and hosting the Revolt talk show “State of the Union” alongside fellow rapper Joe Budden.
“I enjoyed doing something other than music just as much as I enjoyed music,” she said. “Music kind of got put in the background. I have a studio in my house. I record all the time, I do freestyles all the time, but I never put it out. But this year, with me being so active with the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, I’m like, ‘This would be a great time to put out that project.’ I haven’t set an exact date, but we’re not leaving 2023 without a Remy Ma project.”
The album, which will be titled “Reminisce,” will be more in-depth, Remy Ma explained, and will feature production from Cool & Dre, Hitmaka, The Heatmakerz and J. White. In terms of features, it will likely only include Fat Joe. “It’s been so long since I’ve had a solo project out that I don’t want the fans to feel cheated, like, ‘We made it this long and it’s still a collab,’” she said.
Embracing Her Creativity
Although music has defined much of the first phase of her career, the next phase will include an array of professional endeavors.
“I love music. It changed my life. It changed my family’s life. I’m going to be 60 years old still writing music because it’s in me, but as artists, as creatives, it’s great when you can venture down other avenues and do other things that you wanted to do,” Remy explained.
Specifically, the rapper said she enjoyed hosting a talk show, and said one of her own is “definitely happening” in the future. She described her ideal program as “real talk with Remy,” and will differ greatly from the gossip programming people consume today.
“Since I was young, that’s something that I wanted to do. If you asked me what I was going to be, I didn’t think I was going to be a rapper. I grew up cutting school watching Ricki Lake and Jenny Jones and Richard Bey, Jerry Springer. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to have a talk show like Oprah,’” she said with a laugh. “I remember Tyra having a show, and when Queen Latifah had one, I was like, ‘Rappers could get talk shows? That’s lit.’”
She also cited one of TV’s best-known personalities as a source of inspiration: fellow FN cover star Martha Stewart.
“My friends call me Remy Martha because Martha Stewart is one of my favorite people on the planet,” she said with a laugh. “I’m the party planner, I’m the interior decorator, I’m the one that tells them to cancel the carpenter when the kids put a hole in the wall because I can come over and I can fix it.”
Remy continued, “One time I was in L.A., I was hosting ‘The Real,’ and [Martha] and Snoop had a show. It was filming on the same lot. The producer got me tickets to sit in the audience. I was fan-girling the whole time. Post Malone was a guest — who I love, by the way — and he was still early in his fame. She was flaming him, she was spicy. She’s really gangster. It was a dope experience to watch her.”
Like Stewart, Remy Ma also has an affinity for fashion — although it’s not nearly as much a priority to her as it is to some of her peers in rap.
“Sometimes I wish I had more of a relationship with brands so I could stop spending so much money and they could send it to me for free,” Remy Ma said with a laugh. “I don’t really go to fashion shows. I’ve done a few, but I don’t really care. I don’t get the fashion-forward credit. There are certain artists where that’s what they’re known for, but I don’t feel any type of way.”
Still, her style — which she has largely created on her own — is impeccable. “Even when we did the shoot, you were like, ‘Who’s the stylist?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of dress myself. Can y’all just tell me the direction you’re going?’” she said, referring to her cover shoot with FN in July. “I’m in there with my little suitcases full of stuff.”
In terms of footwear, her collection — which includes Reebok and Nike sneakers, Timberlands and thigh-high boots, including Bottega Veneta’s coveted Intrecciato — is remarkable.
The rapper said she’d be open to designing shoes, specifically boots, but it’s not a priority.
“I like shopping. To me, that’s the joy of fashion,” she said. “When you’re like, ‘Oh my God, look at this amazing shoe,’ or ‘Did you see the new such and such?’ and I mentally scan through my closet to see what’s going to match with it. I am a shopper. I love shopping.
That love of shopping led her in 2017 to open a store of her own: Conceited, a clothing boutique in Raleigh, N.C., named after her first solo hit. (It is now closed.)
“Having a store was the equivalent of going shopping for the whole neighborhood,” she explained. “I’m in the warehouses among these different brands and I’m ordering in bulk. You have to literally think for every customer. You’re like, ‘This is what I like, but what does somebody 10 years younger or 10 years older than me like? Or two sizes bigger or smaller than me? Or just a totally different style?’
She continued, “You’re shopping for the unknown, and that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Sometimes I’d buy stuff and it’d be gone the same day, every size. I’d be like, ‘S–t, I should have ordered more of that.’ And then you buy other stuff and no one’s buying it and you’re like, ‘I thought that was really cute. Why is nobody buying it?’ It was a larger scale of shopping for me.”
Remy said COVID-19 restrictions and complications forced her to close the store, but retail is something she plans on revisiting. “I loved having my store, I loved doing inventory, I loved dressing people and putting things together and having them in front of the mirror — it’s like doing mini makeovers,” she said. “It was such a great feeling.”
This feeling could also materialize in another professional endeavor.
“That’s definitely going to be one of the segments on my talk show,” she said. “We’re going to have a mini store or [another space] with different people and give them makeovers like a back-in-the-days talk show.”
