“These were favors we did this project together. “To me, it’s more about everybody that I had on the album-my features,” she says. I t was a very emotional process because for me, from an artist’s perspective, I was emotionally attached to the album,” she reflects, “but when I have a label and these people are looking at me as the boss, then I had to make a different decision-a strategic decision-of less emotions, more business.”īeyond the heartbreak of having the project she worked so hard on be taken away from fans, Trina was more disappointed in letting down the collaborators she invited to take part in the album. “I lost the love for wanting to put it back up. Despite the calls from fans reassuring her that they wanted to listen to The One again, Trina was discouraged that it had even gotten to that point in the first place. Still, it was a long road for Trina to get to this point-not just legally and professionally, but personally. She’s since regained total control of the album, which will be back in all its glory on March 30th a deluxe edition with a few new tracks arrives that following Friday, April 4th. Two months after its release, however, the album was pulled from streaming services over what Trina calls “bad business” with a former partner.
“I put a lot of effort and energy and time into it, and I actually executive produced it myself, so it meant the most to me because I’ve grown to that phase of my career and I became the person in charge, the CEO, the brand, the person who had to oversee everything else.” “It’s personal to me I worked on it for six years,” Trina recounts. Cameras have been documenting much of her life in the years since: her and Trick’s disagreements over their shelved joint project, her various business ventures, and the loss of her mother last September, to name a few.Īfter a nine-year break, Trina released her sixth studio album The One in June of 2019 with all all-star list of guest appearances ranging from Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne to Kelly Price and Rico Love. VH1 announced her as a leading cast member of Love & Hip Hop: Miami alongside Trick Daddy, and she released the candid confessional single “ Overnight” in the lead-up to the show’s premiere. Rockstarr Music Group was born, and Trina’s transformation from entertainment figure to business mogul had officially begun.īy late 2017, Trina was prepared for her long-awaited return to the hip hop conversation. In March of 2015, nearly 15 years to the day after the release of Da Baddest B***h, Trina signed a deal with hip-hop label Penalty Entertainment to create her own imprint.
In the years after the release of her fifth album Amazin’ in 2010, Trina began to lay low and independently release mixtapes and EPs while making scattered TV appearances.
Critics praised her for being “as nasty as Lil’ Kim used to be” and crowned her “the new queen of randy hip-hop tales in which sex is a contact sport played by rival genders.” Da Baddest B***h was certified Gold by that November, and maintained a strong Billboard chart presence for nearly a year after its release. “Rap divadom has a new challenger,” Billboard declared. Her debut album Da Baddest B***h hit store shelves that following March, and immediately put the whole music industry on notice: a new girl rapper had arrived, and she was coming for her rightful spot at the top of the heap. In spite of the hectic work schedule, Trina looks back fondly on the recording process, calling it her “most vulnerable and most raw moment.
“It was a lot of pressure because it was all on a short time frame, and I was going back and forth with different sounds with my voice and just trying to get things done that I wanted to actually make the album,” she recalls. “I didn’t have that much time to actually do it we were just working on the road as we go, and we just went day by day.” She would often pass up on partying after shows to hole up in her hotel room and focus on writing and finishing the album. “Once came out, from there we were on tour for a year in the midst of the tour, that whole year of 1999 I was creating this album,” Trina remembers.