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nce upon a time in Hip-Hop, there was a King and his Queen who lived happily together, working closely with their family making music and ensuring they continued to provide nourishment for their fans. Then one day a figure from the King’s past began to play two-way games with him, thus enraging the Queen.
So amidst controversy and paternity tests the King and his Queen found themselves in quite a quandary, one that brought them a lot of unnecessary drama and brought the King’s somewhat protected private life out to the masses.
That’s Queen, Ma Barker. She doesn’t hold back in her rhymes or her interview. She gives it up about her nemesis, holding her own in the Five Family Click and how she handles the haters. Twelve years overdo, Ma Barker is stepping away to earn her limelight with a solo album and mixtape this year…
AllHipHop.Com: Going back over your history in the rap game as an MC, how important was The Main Source as your entrance to the game?
Ma Barker: Well, not really because that project really never happened but besides [“Set It Off”] that I did with the Warlox that is now [known as] the Lox at the time my main entrance into the game was when I did my deal with Mighty Entertainment and put out my first single which was “Just Because” which was # 15 on the Billboard chart for like twenty weeks and that was in ‘97, ‘98.
AllHipHop.Com: So what do you have on the table right now?
Ma Barker: I have a few labels looking to do something; it’s not concrete so I won’t say anything. I have a couple of deals on the table that are looking pretty good right now.
AllHipHop.Com: Is this just you as a solo artist?
Ma Barker: Yeah, this is just me, Ma Barker. Also they are looking at the Five Family Click which is with my brother, 40 Cal Hammerz, Nino Bless, Catalyst, Big East and Kool G Rap, of course, who is the main person. Then there is our new member called Shea.
AllHipHop.Com: The Click of Respect album you put out with G Rap and the other members of the 5 Family Click, what did you learn from that?
Ma Barker: You know what, that album was so hot, it was just very independent. It was somebody who came to the table, a guy named Jonah who met G through a mutual friend and he really didn’t have the money to do it. I think it was a hot album I just wish it had gone through a major. You know even Jay-Z was on the radio saying that was one of the hottest albums he heard, that was the only album he was messing with at the time. You know people who did hear it, loved it to death.
AllHipHop.Com: Someone commented about your lyrics on AllHipHop.com’s Ill Community. They said you are the type of woman “who would do you, and leave change on the dresser for you to catch a cab home.” Do you feel as a female in the game you have to come across so hard to get respect?
Ma Barker: No. I am just from the era where a lot of dudes was gutter, the hardcore. I messed with a lot of street dudes, you know as far as my click, my family; I had a lot of people in the streets so I was always raised by that. I know the street life. I didn’t just sit home and go to school and then go to the movies. I had a lot of run ins with the streets and the cops, that was my life and that was what I saw. You know, I can’t stay away from it.
AllHipHop.Com: Yeah, well you are a Mother too.
Ma Barker: Yeah I have to come across ladylike too. But I can’t get away from them, Melanie. [laughing]
AllHipHop.Com: Always chasing you, huh?
Ma Barker: Yeah, every time I get out, they pull me back in.
AllHipHop.Com: When you roll with a crowd of dudes do you feel that you have to keep a certain degree of independence?
Ma Barker: Most definitely. Look at who I am around, I got G Rap, I got my younger brother, they all spit gutter, you know imagine me coming on a track and being the weakest link, I can’t do that. Even in my own click, I have competition and I got to struggle to stay on top. I want to be able to be on a track with G, and they hear me and not people think what is he doing on that track.
AllHipHop.Com: I have yet to read or hear someone say that you didn’t deserve to be on a track with G.
Ma Barker: Well yeah, knock on wood, but you always know you gotta have your haters.
AllHipHop.Com: So how do you deal with your haters?
Ma Barker: I ignore them; I already know what life is. Like 50 said, “I need you to hate.”
AllHipHop.Com: Do you think people are going to be harder on you because of who you are associated with?
Ma Barker: Hmm, I don’t know, not really as people respect me off the bat as G Rap’s wife as respect due.
AllHipHop.Com: Okay, now you know I have to take it back to last summer…
Ma Barker: [laughing] Yeah ask away, go ahead.
AllHipHop.Com: Okay, so there was a rumor circulating about a book signing that you ruined, is there any truth in that?
Ma Barker: Yeah, my peoples did. Like I said before, I am a street chick. I couldn’t get there, luckily for her. Let me make a long story short for you. She had got G’s two-way from somebody in the industry and she started hitting him, “Hey Pa, how you doing?” I am not with all of that: you want to talk about the baby that he didn’t know at the time whether was his or not, cool, keep it professional – but that “Pa” s**t, I don’t play games like that. She told me she had no groceries in her house for her and her baby, and even if it was or wasn’t G’s baby, I am the type of person that – if you come to me, and are talking to me civil, I am going to look out for you. There I was, sending this chick money because supposedly Poppa had wiped out her account and left her all messed up. Then I caught wind of the book and it was like crazy. You know she was all cool with G, you know they had their little fights but nothing like the stuff she said. You know all the stuff she said about his Mom, she never met his Mother in her whole entire life. It was like she was saying all this stuff. You know this chick was calling me crying and telling me all the stuff she was going through, like when she got locked up for prostitution, I know a couple of people who know her. G was asking me what I was doing and I told him I felt bad for her and I was sending her money for groceries and then when all this s**t happened, G was like, “I told you,” and then I read the book.
AllHipHop.Com: Yeah because when you were on Hot 97 you hadn’t read the book had you?
Ma Barker: No, I hadn’t read the book.
AllHipHop.Com: So when you did read it what did you think?
Ma Barker: It didn’t mean nothing as I know what type of chick she is, I knew what it was with G. Me and G been together seven years and we never had no problems, nothing. He is no abusive man and he is a good dude, so for her to try and disgrace his character because he didn’t want to f**k with her no more, that was f**ked up to me. Nobody did, just like Bill Maher just dumped the b*tch, who she going to date now, David Letterman? She running out of n***as. I am a rapper I write songs, she wrote her creative book out of her own mind. But the beef with me and her is, when I see her she isn’t safe because when I see her I am going to hurt her. I don’t like the fact that she tried to be cool with me, even though I knew she was up to no good and the way she tried to turn the whole story around. At the end of the day. I feel sorry for that child, if the baby is G’s or not, I would love to adopt that kid.
AllHipHop.Com: Has there been a paternity test then to decide if G is the Father of the child?
Ma Barker: Yeah, there has been a test and he is just waiting for the results. But this was all before she was acting all wild so it probably will turn out to be his, as when he met her she wasn’t doing none of that stuff. He met her in Arizona, before she started wilin’ out and acting like that and trying to get with everybody. It was when she moved to California, supposedly with Ice-T, that was when she started doing what she was doing.
AllHipHop.Com: Did this book and what she was saying put any strain on your relationship with G at any point?
Ma Barker: No, not at all.
AllHipHop.Com: Okay, moving on, you are working on your album, Wife of a Don and when can we expect to see that?
Ma Barker: I am working on that now, and I just did a feature with one of the new members from Dipset, N.O.E and that song came out hot featuring myself, G, and N.O.E and I am working on a few other features right now, so we are looking at the end of May beginning of June. But I am working on a mixtape as we speak. I haven’t decided on a name yet but I was going to call it “Unforgiven Sins.”
AllHipHop.Com: And the reason for that title?
Ma Barker: You know, all the stuff that you do in the streets, you do things are just not meant to be done. I think what home girl did was an unforgiven sin, there is no apologizing for those, there are just certain things that there really is no apologizing for, things ain’t never going to be the same and you going to get yours. You have to watch what you do to other people, God don’t like ugly. It comes back around to you.
