Masika Kalysha is back with a banger for her fans: “Cappin.” Hailing from the South Side of Chicago, the “Love & Hip Hop” star is one of the realist b##ches you’ll ever meet. With over 2.4 million followers on Instagram alone, Masika can do it all. Whether she’s acting, modeling, creating music, being a mother, running her multiple businesses, being an activist, or simply speaking her mind, she flawlessly does everything with style and grace.
Regardless of what Masika has her hands in, her daughter Khari Barbie is the forefront of everything she does. Her beauty line KBB is named after her 4-year-old, a luxury line of beauty products available at affordable prices. Of course, you may have quickly taken a liking to Masika during her time on VH1’s “Love & Hip Hop,” showcasing a raw, unfiltered personality that remains true to her character. Most recently, she landed a role in a new television series titled “PUMP,” and even made an appearance on HBO’s#### series “Insecure.”
AllHipHop caught up with Masika, who had a lot to say about the current state of the world, while spreading knowledge and information on the importance of financial literacy.
AllHipHop: Are those helicopters? I hear them from downtown LA.
Masika Kalysha: These helicopters have been flying around me all day. Are you trying to protect us or confine us? This is the 17th time this helicopter’s circled around Hollywood. What’s going on? We’re not rioting. The only thing that happened is one of the f##king murderers of George Floyd did a GoFundMe to get a million dollars to be bailed out. That’s the only thing that’s changed, why are you circling around me all day?
AllHipHop: Being a strong black female, how are you with everything happening in the world right now?
Masika Kalysha: I’m not okay, I’m the furthest from okay I’ve ever been in my life. We’ve finally reached a place in society where people are acknowledging the fact that black people are not okay. You’re of Asian descent, I’ve seen so much hatred toward black and Asian people since Coronavirus than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Some ignorant ass governor blamed Coronavirus on nail salons. This is the life we live in where we take black, brown, yellow people and blame them for all of your digression? As minorities if we banded together, we’re actually the majority.
Black people, brown people, Mexican people, yellow people, Asian people, if all the “others” got together for the same cause, we’d literally kick this d###### s##t out. There’s no such a thing as an A#### race. We learned about what Hitler did, but we never learned about what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. History books don’t teach us about that. Yet Donald Trump thinks he can take Juneteenth, Black Independence Day, to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the sight of the #1 massacre of black people. Where Black Wall Street was bombed and thousands of our people were murdered, he’s using our city and our date for his rally and we’re going to let it happen. It’s a joke! They don’t care about us, they only care about who has the wealth. The wealth is held by such a small percentage. If we take the small amount that we have as the big percentage, we could vote them out of everything.
AllHipHop: Just having a daughter, how do you explain to her what’s happening?
Masika Kalysha: It’s the hardest thing I had to do. I used to wonder how did my grandparents deal with this? As free black people, my parents were born into the first era of freedom. You can drink from this water fountain, but there’s still people who don’t want you to. I didn’t get that. I had to explain to my 4-year-old about police brutality, oppression, slavery. I can’t explain to her where we are, I had to explain how we got there.
My daughter and the Game’s daughter are best friends. Our children chose each other organically, we have the same nanny. She’s 9, my daughter’s 4. The way she deals with my daughter, it’s like their blood sisters. It’s so beautiful. They had a playdate scheduled, it had to be changed because on their way over to our house, there’s an update that the curfew changed to 4pm. Mind you, we got the update at 5pm. You had no time to prepare to go home.
My daughter was so looking forward to this playdate. She’s 4, she’s innocent. She’s seen nothing wrong in this world. Everything she’s had has been handed to her on a silver platter. I had to explain to my child why we canceled the playdate. I couldn’t say “there’s riots.” I had to explain to her. As a mother, I had to start from the beginning. I had to go back 400 years.
AllHipHop: You just released your new single, “Cappin.”
Masika Kalysha: With the scheduled release of my record, I paused my promo because of everything going on with the state of the economy and the world. It was too much. I had already paid for certain things, so I decided to let it run but not going to promote it.
AllHipHop: I actually spoke with Supah Mario the other day, I heard his producer tag.
Masika Kalysha: He’s a dope ass producer. Where I am in my music career, I’ve made so many songs that have done very little numbers. I’ve had hit records that never hit, I never understood why until I got the politics behind it all. Once I did that, I stopped putting out music until I’m in a financial position to do what needed to be done. It wasn’t until I got with better producers who can create a sound, who knew how to get my record from a 7 to a 10 that I was ready to put out music.
I wanted to be financially stable to where I needed no man, record label, or anybody to back me. I could do it by myself. When they see you, I’m a bad ass b##ch. But when it comes to these men, you don’t have to be that. As long as you have a v#####, they’re trying to f##k you. They will either f##k you over or try to f##k you. Either way, you’re getting f##ked. I wanted to wait until I was in a position where I could afford my own career. People always ask “oh you took a hiatus?” Yeah, because I didn’t want to be a desperate f##king b##ch. Now that I can fund my own career, you can’t tell me anything. You can’t proposition me for an advertisement, it’s not going to happen.