Masika Kalysha has a pretty storied history, although her name isn’t quite a household name, she’s looking to change that. Masika is a talented actress, reality television personality, singer, businesswoman and even a rapper. With nearly a million IG followers, she’s taking her fame from VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood, to the top. Originally hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Tucker’s rise has not been a one withoout turbulance. In 2015, she revealed her pregnancy with rapper Fetty Wap and welcomed her first daughter into the world in 2016. Last year, the blessings of motherhood struck again and she also revealed that she would be departing the world of reality TV. With a lot in stirring in the pot, she talks to AllHipHop’s Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur about why she’s back and how she’s coming in 2023.
AllHipHop: How you doing?
Masika Kalysha: Blessed and highly favored. Hallelujah. I’ve been in the music entertainment industry for about 12 years now. I took a little break to have my baby and be a mom and all that good stuff and now I’m back. I’m back outside. So I’m just excited to touch bases again, about to drop some music and a couple projects. So I’m here.
AllHipHop: I was saying you really outside with the music.
AllHipHop: Talk to me about that. What made you jump into that?
Masika Kalysha: Well, I actually started music before anything else. A very long time ago. I was in a pop group many, many, many years ago and then just had some challenges. And as a woman in entertainment industry, I feel like a lot of women are speaking up more about the things that we’ve gone through. But as a female, if you are struggling, if you’re not established, if you don’t have a bag, you’re a target.
AllHipHop: Yeah.
Masika Kalysha: You look like a sheep to these wolves out here. So there was a time where I was like, if I can’t pay for my own studio sessions, there’s a manager or somebody and I’ve had instances where I’m in the studio, then all of a sudden someone comes up behind you and starts massaging your… You’re doing great. And all that weird s###.
And for me, I didn’t want to be the struggling artist that had to go through all of this weird things with these men that abuse their power.
AllHipHop: Right.
Masika Kalysha: So I decided, you know what? I’m going to take a step back and I’m going to get my bag so that I can pay for my own sessions. I can pay for my own mixes. I can pay for my own videos, until we get to that point where I have someone backing me with the budget. So my journey is taking a little longer, but I’ll come through with my integrity.
AllHipHop: Yeah, definitely. Did you ever think about exposing these men for what they’ve done?
Masika Kalysha: Honestly, I haven’t ’cause what’s the point? But hey, never say never.
AllHipHop: Because it’s still Me Too out here.
Masika Kalysha: Listen, the stories that I could tell and I know I’m not… It’s not special to me, it’s a lot of women. And I’m an attractive woman, but it don’t matter if you got a boot and a shoe on, you could be hobbling down the street and they still going to try you.
AllHipHop: Yeah.
Masika Kalysha: And people make a joke of it now. I don’t personally know Irv Gotti, but he’s doing these interviews about Ashanti and it’s like, these are things that men used to hide and deny. Now, it’s like it’s okay to speak of it and no one bats an eye.
AllHipHop: Yeah.
Masika Kalysha: You know what I’m saying? So no, I’ve never thought of really exposing anybody, but I don’t know. If there’s a time and a place where saying something that happened to me can help somebody else, maybe I will.
AllHipHop: By the way, we don’t even… We (men) talk about that too, and we like, yo, that’s really corny. For real.
Masika Kalysha: No, the corniest s### is when you see these people posting people’s DMs, look who said something to me. Girl. Girl, please stop. Because they DM’ing 20 million people too.
But it is a difference between just trying to get some clout and if something traumatic happened to you, there’s a big difference between that too. So I don’t want to take away from women who have actually experienced traumatic things, but the clout chase.
AllHipHop: Well, I actually was speaking on the men.
Masika Kalysha: Okay. Yeah. That’s big corn.
AllHipHop: What Dame Dash calls them – Chatty Patty’s.
Masika Kalysha: That’s my favorite thing to say. “You’re a Chatty Patty.” That is my favorite word for a man that runs his lips like a woman.
AllHipHop: So what do you want to do in Hip-Hop?
Masika Kalysha: A lot. So I’m a singer and a rapper. I prefer to sing, but Kadife over there makes me rap. And I’m actually pretty good at it. I actually used to battle rap. No one knows that.
AllHipHop: What? Give me some bars. Come on.
Masika Kalysha: I don’t know no more. But let me tell you why.
AllHipHop: Give me just… Come on.
Masika Kalysha: I haven’t done it in so long. I used to battle rap when I was a teenager and I used to win competitions. I stopped because I was in such a dark place and that was my release. Once I got older and got into a happier place, I just didn’t want to do it anymore.
AllHipHop: Right.
Masika Kalysha: So now I do cute rap, you know what I’m saying? Cutesy. I got one or two songs that might be like, [inaudible], but I sing and I rap.
AllHipHop: Right. So you won’t give me any bars at all?
Masika Kalysha: I mean…
AllHipHop: You can even just sing.
Masika Kalysha: I don’t freestyle.
AllHipHop: No. What you’ve already written.
Masika Kalysha: But they cute raps.
AllHipHop: Whatever.
Masika Kalysha: First class b#tch, I need first class sh#t, money on my mind, only rich b#tch sh#t. He settled for that ’cause he can’t get with this. But that ni##a know who lying to the hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See it’s cute.
AllHipHop: See that’s… Yeah, it’s all right.
Masika Kalysha: You know what I’m saying, we not trying to kill people no more.
AllHipHop: Yeah. Talk about that. We need to stop killing people.
Masika Kalysha: Man.
AllHipHop: Come on.
Masika Kalysha: We’ve lost so many people in music and Hip-Hop, young people. Every day you pick up your phone, turn on the radio, turn the news, it’s like Takeoff. MO3. It’s just unbelievable. And then it’s these young… Pop Smoke, it’s these young artists, you know what I’m saying? And sometimes they’re killing them and sometimes they’re killing themselves. The drugs and the things like that. Juice WRLD. And at the end of the day, we as a culture, we have to do better.
AllHipHop: So let’s do #DoBetterInHipHop.
Masika Kalysha: #DoBetterInHipHop please. Like rock-n-roll, they do it all the time. They just don’t get the negative light that we get. But we’re losing our young, talented people left and right, and I just really hope it changes.
AllHipHop: Yeah. So you were on Love & Hip Hop for a while. Talk about your experience with that and what made you leave?
Masika Kalysha: It was interesting. It was nothing that I expected when I first started. I honestly thought I was going to have a camera crew following me in my life.
I didn’t know that everything was going to be produced, contrived, controlled to the point where you can only film with their people. I wasn’t even filming with my real friends. Now granted, once you start filming, a lot of us had alliances. We knew each other, but we weren’t hanging out like that. But after 10 months of filming, these become the people that are your friends. So it was just… Like I would have my real life and then my TV life and then the two don’t mix together. So it was a lot to deal with.
I was totally fine with it initially because it is what it is. I don’t care what you think of me, it’s a platform and I’m going to use it. But then once I had my daughter, I’m like, you are not about to use my daughter as clickbait. You’re not about to use my family to get some views and it’s something that she can Google later.
AllHipHop: Right.
Masika Kalysha: You know what I’m saying? So honestly, after having my daughter and realizing they had no respect for me as a mother and my boundaries, that’s when I quit.
AllHipHop: Got you.
Masika Kalysha: I’m willing to do a lot of things, you know what I’m saying? I do what I got to do to get the bag, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my peace and my kids.
AllHipHop: Right.
Masika Kalysha: So it was time to mother fu##ing go.
AllHipHop: Yeah. And when you got to go, you got to go.
Masika Kalysha: You got to go.
AllHipHop: One more question. Can you give us your top five dead or alive?
Masika Kalysha: Top five dead or alive?
AllHipHop: Rappers.
Masika Kalysha: Rappers. Woo. Well, Tupac, we got to start there. Lil Wayne.
AllHipHop: Okay.
Masika Kalysha: This is hard. I’m going to have to go with…I’m going to have to go with Future.
AllHipHop: Okay. Okay.
Masika Kalysha: Ooh, I got to say my good sis, Nicki.
AllHipHop: Nicki Minaj.
Masika Kalysha: I got to put her in that motherfu##er. She has to be there. Damn, five.
AllHipHop: You got one more. One more.
Masika Kalysha: Ooh, Jay-Z.
AllHipHop: Jay-Z? All right. Boom. Good stuff. What’s next with you?
Masika Kalysha: So I have three singles I’m dropping very soon. One’s a rap, one’s a ballad, one’s a R&B mid-tempo. “Narcissist” is the ballad. Done Now is the R&B. “First Class” is the little snippet y’all just got. Little rap, you know what I’m saying? ‘Cause I’m a first class b#tch. We have the visuals coming, the EP coming. I have three shows that I wrote and produced in the reality space. And then I have my very first movie that I wrote and produced and I’m starring in.
AllHipHop: Nice.
Masika Kalysha: So I’m very excited about that. Kharibarbiebeauty.com, my cosmetic line, we have great products right now, but we are expanding. We’re going to be a full makeup line this year. So I’m super excited about that. My “Stock Market Tips from a Bad B#tch” workbook is still trending, guys. Black Friday, we are dropping “Option Tips From a Bad B####” for options trading. And also “Stock Market Tips For Good Kids,” ’cause we got to get these kids right with financial literacy. So guys, my page got deleted for seven months. I got a new page, but I got my name back, so new page, same name. So make sure you follow me @masikakalysha, guys for all of the updates.
AllHipHop: I appreciate you.
Masika Kalysha: Thank you.