Miami’s Diamond Princess Trina sat down with AllHipHop.com for a candid talk about acting, female competitors, men and her new CD, The Glamourest Life. No need to waste time – you know her.
AllHipHop.com: Talk about The Glamourest Life. What kind of album are we going to hear this time?
Trina: The album is really great, it is very versatile. It’s different. It’s actually like the upgraded version of [Da Baddest B*tch]. With [Diamond Princess], I got a little twisted with worrying about what people kind of expect and want to see a certain side of you and see this and see that. But really they don’t care they want you to just be who you are. Either they going to like it, love it, or they not going to listen to it at all. That’s basically my whole agenda and persona about it. I got a classy side and I also got that extra crunchy raw sexual side as well. You can have to different classes of people. Everybody don’t understand Chanel, Roberto Cavalli and [people who] still can only afford Nike and Reebok. A lot of my fans is like, “You know what, you really kind of left us so far behind because you elevated so fast.” I wanted to make it equal for everybody. You got the classy sophisticated girls but you still got the ghetto girls that’s going to come to the shows and be real wild and stuff.
AllHipHop.Com: What about people that are coming up after you. Do you feel those people will take away from what you’re doing because you really are kind of leading the patent these days? Lil’ Kim is falling to the wayside according to a lot of her fans. Foxy is working, but hasn’t splashed down anywhere…
Trina: I just think that people that’s coming up after I don’t think that [they] could ever take away from you. I think it’s what you make of it. You have to stay up on your game. The whole industry is competitive. Everything is based on competition and then comparing you to this person. Me myself personally I don’t mind being compared to somebody if they’re a classic, if it’s somebody that has a good rep to follow. Like Kim to me, I think she paved the way for a lot of female rappers to come in and feel free to say whatever they want to say and not really hold back. As far as people that’s coming up behind me, I send love or wish them the best. I just think you have to have the originality about yourself and how you do it.
AllHipHop.Com: Why do people seem to want to keep beef going on between the females because I had heard you and Miami newcomer Jacki-O?
Trina: Actually, I’ve been in this business for 6 years and I’ve never had beef with anybody and I think anybody new comes into the game they always compare them to somebody else. I think there’s going to be beef. [We] are from the same city. They want to compare [us] which is cool. I don’t care and I don’t get involved in that. That’s really not my repertoire and I’m too fly for that. I don’t have time to do that.
AllHipHop.Com: What about you on the business side, I know you wanna get more into acting?
Trina: I’m working on a sitcom right now, its called “With Friends” like, it’s basically a comedy. It’s like a beauty salon and it’s just about the day in a life of a girl, like what a girl goes through as far as just sitting up hanging around her girls – the drama, the gossip, girl’s man sleeping with other girls. It’s like a whole bunch of girly life but it’s really funny and it’s really interesting and that’s something that we’re working on. I have some movie offers that just came in. I didn’t really have time to sit down and go over the scripts yet. I’ll grab on something that I really, really like. I did this one DVD movie down in Miami, and it’s out now in Blockbuster. I was the lead person in the movie but it was a small movie and I did it just to gain the experience of it and to see what it would be like. It’s a lot of things that I’m doing now that I’m looking forward to coming up within this year and the future.
AllHipHop.Com: Now I know this is sensitive subject with a lady, but we heard that you have a new diet and fitness regiment, a lot of people want to know, “Why?”
Trina: For myself, it wasn’t more so what people was saying oh she gained weight. I had to really say you know what, I want to wear this when I perform. I want to look like this. I know I can walk on the stage and have my whole stomach and body out because I did it before and know if you get on stage and you feel kind of uncomfortable you don’t want to do that. I definitely would not walk on the stage if you got a stomach that’s hanging over some low jeans, that’s very not sexy so you definitely need to cover that up. I just think about self-confidence and just taking time to just getting into yourself and loving yourself and devoting yourself to eating healthy. My body feels better to not eat beef. You might as well say it’s a diet but it’s also really like a nutritional program. Basically, I just eat baked chicken, baked fish, vegetables, and drink a lot of water and cranberry juice. I eat special K for breakfast and that’s basically it. That’s a daily routine for me everyday. I may have a cheat day if I want to eat something different but I’m so used to doing the same things now for these past two months to where my body has become addicted to it.
AllHipHop.Com: Now you wont be losing any of your assets will you?
Trina: Well my assets is all good I think they just really are in a perfect more perfect form right now, and they are very much toned out sexy to where people are going to be like, “Wow!”
AllHipHop.Com: I remember the last time we spoke, about maybe a year or so ago you had a nice big ring on your finger from a “friend” you had said. What’s your status these days? Are you attached?
Trina: Actually, I’m not going to say that. I’m going to just say that I’m happy right now. You can’t really speak out on relationships because people like to take it and do so many things with it. If I said I got a man everybody gonna go crazy and they want to know who, and I don’t really want to say that’s the case. I just think I’m very happy, I’m very confident with myself, I’m very dedicated to my work right now and I don’t think that I want to date. The person that I want to be involved with is somebody I want to become a relationship type of person. When I’m with that person, I want to stay with that person and just make it happy. I have a friend [now], but it’s just that.
AllHipHop.Com: Does a guy have to have money to be with you?
Trina: Well you know I just like a successful person. I like a man that’s very intelligent with a good personality, [who’s] very funny. Everybody likes somebody to have something because you do like to get nice gifts. You want somebody that can take you out, treat you real nice, spoil you, and make you feel very special. I don’t really look for that because I have my own money so it doesn’t really matter. [But], I don’t want no bum or nobody that’s just laying back and just capitalizing off of me.
AllHipHop.Com: Is it true that 50 Cent’s spot on “Magic Stick” was for you originally?
Trina: That’s what I was told. I don’t really know what happened with that. I think it was something between labels, with my label and his people. I [was] originally suppose to do that record, that’s what I was told. And then when I did get a chance to meet him, we talked about this big record. But [after], I don’t know what happened with the label and it just never happened.
AllHipHop.Com: Speaking of 50 Cent with this new single, “I’m Leavin’ You,” did he come to mind because I know that he had kind of a call out name song back in the day with that song “How To Rob,” and it caused a lot of controversy?
Trina: I think back in the day when he did that, I think it’s all about humor and that’s what it is. The industry is about humor; you have to have a personality. Don’t take everything so serious. It’s not the end of the world; nobody is not putting a gun to your head trying to kill you because they mentioned your name. The song for me kind of brings back memories when Biggie did [“Dreams of F*cking an R&B B**ch"]. I didn’t diss nobody. If you ask me, I think every male rapper that I [named], I think they should be smiling real big, because its kind of like bigging them up. “I ain’t sleep with you so I don’t really know if you got a big ole’ [penis] or what but I just gave you props because I felt like your a pioneer in this game.” That’s how I looked at it. Its really funny, With the song back in the day with 50 I think a lot of people took it kind of personal because it was like a lot of small like disses to some people. Sometimes people will take that offensive. It’s totally just a record about how I feel and just about who’s running the game right now.
Pick up Trina’s third album, The Glamourest Life available May 11th.