I don’t know who could be her role model. They’d probably quit. She’s about to drop an album. Any predictions on how much she’ll sell? I hope that whatever her goal is, she meets it. That way she can start a new profession instead of this professional hating that she’s doing. I’ve never seen anything like it. This bitch is a professional hater. She’s really ill. That’s why I’m not even mad at her. I feel sorry for her. When you were on the VH1 show, it was revealed that you have a baby with T-Pain. What were you thinking messing around with a married man? I didn’t know in the beginning. How could I know? When was the beginning? Years ago. About three and a half years ago. First of all, we were both really young. I wasn’t even thinking about having kids. But I asked him once because he had a tan on his finger which means that there was jewelry [or a wedding ring] there. I asked him [if he was married] and he denied it. I believed it because clearly he was so young. It is what it is. At his house, it was no sign of [a wife]. It was all his stuff in the closet (laughs). I mean, if that was me [as his wife], I woulda left something there. Anything, anywhere. I mean, how was I supposed to know? I didn’t know that he was married and then after I did find out, I was mad. I cursed him out and stopped talking to him. But the feelings were already there. People always ask me, “Did you really like him, or was it just because of his money?” They don’t realize that back then, he didn’t have [money] like he’s got now. This was back when his first record came out? It hadn’t even come out yet. We could go to the store and it wasn’t that big of a deal. It definitely wasn’t because of money. He came to Atlanta and rode in my Impala and stayed on Bankhead with me. It wasn’t ‘bout no money. You just liked his striped dreads? (laughs) They weren’t striped then. They were black. I didn’t like that striped shit when he did it, but, you know, he’s a character. So even when you found out that he was married, you kept messing with him. Yeah, I found out, and in so many words, [he said] that he was so young and made a mistake. We were really good friends. It wasn’t really about him cheating on his wife. The baby thing just happened. We really were friends. That boy is so talented. People always tell me that everything’s out in the open now with her, and they really do live together now. People ask me, “How do you feel? When you hear his songs do you get upset?” No, because at the end of the day if he’s platinum, that means we’re platinum. I could never get mad at that. He’s always been so talented. Even when he didn’t have as much [success] as he has now, just being in the studio with him is inspiring. So it was more of a musical connection between you at first? I think it really was. So is your next single gonna have a T-Pain hook? People always ask me that. He wanted me to be on [his label] Nappy Boy but I thought it would be kinda a conflict of interest. How would that work out? But he did make me a beat that I never used. He always asked me what I did with it. I did do the little bridge for “Church,” the second song on his last album. Was there some drama between you and his wife? There never really was no drama. People always wanna give me advice, like, “If I were you, I’d tell her this and that,” but it’s not even that serious. Me and her never had words. I’m sure she doesn’t know the whole story of what happened between us. It’s just really messed up when somebody on the outside tries to give their opinion of a situation they don’t know anything about. Everybody’s like, “How did you have a baby by him when you knew he was married?” I don’t know anyone who goes around looking for married men [to have babies with]. When I first met him, he wasn’t married to my knowledge. I developed feelings for somebody who [I thought] wasn’t married, so I don’t think I can be at fault for that. The best part of the situation is my son King, and I love him. Shout out to my son Kingston. How old is your son now? He’s thirteen months old. And the thing is, my Streetwise family used to pick on [T-Pain] because of how he looked and dressed, and they picked on me for liking him. But I really felt love when we were together. His friends and family even told me that he really loved me, and that’s why I had my son, because I felt like it was true love. Years had gone by, money had come and gone by, and he never changed. I loved him for that and I felt like he was somebody I could know and love for the rest of my life. That’s why I chose to have Kingston in spite of the circumstances. Is it difficult trying to have a rap career and be a mother at the same time?
My son changed my whole life. I was reading the old interview I did [in OZONE] and I said, “I don’t even like kids.” I was serious. Even now, I still don’t like kids. I just love mine. I swear he changed my whole life. Before, I’d want to be at the club all the time, just waiting to perform. Now I have to find somebody to keep him. I don’t like him to go places with other people. I want him to be with me all the time. I think I might hinder myself more than he hinders me. I could take him to my mama’s house, but I just don’t want to. Do you think he’ll be a singer one day… with a vocoder? (laughs) Somebody sent me a text message with a link to a baby crying with the [T-Pain vocoder] on it. Ridiculous. But yeah, when we’re in the studio he loves to beat on the piano and try to sing into the microphone. When you did the reality show, was T-Pain worried about the story getting out there to the public? Well, he acted like he wasn’t ever worried about it. Wherever you were at, he was like, “Julia’s gonna take a picture of us [and put it in OZONE]. What are you gonna do?” I was like, “I’m not the one who should be worried.” That was before the baby. So y’all were sneaking around hiding from me? I wasn’t hiding from you. He swore you had so many pictures of us. When he did the interview with you [for his cover story last year], he was like, “She knows.” And I was like, “You better not tell her.” I just didn’t want to be known as “T-Pain’s baby mama.” What kinda shit is that? I was Ms Cherry before I knew him, and that’s who I wanna be known as. I don’t ever want people to start forgetting my name and start calling me “T-Pain’s baby mama.” That was one good thing about the [VH1 show]. People know my name and don’t just know me as “T-Pain’s baby mama.” I know that was gonna come out anyway, though. When you’re on a show like that, they really look up everything. You sign a paper giving them permission, and they look up your [criminal] records, medical records, everything. So the VH1 folks put it out there? No, but during the initial interview, they had a picture of [T-Pain] clipped to the interview sheet with the questions they were gonna ask me when I got to L.A. I was looking at the paper, like, “What the fuck?” They said they didn’t wanna use [that information] in the show, but they asked me if it would be okay. I was like, “Well, it’s not a secret, but I don’t want it to be a big deal. I want people to see me on this show. It ain’t about him. Y’all see him on TV all the time. Can I have this little show? Can this be mine?” If I had made it a big deal on the show [by] talking about him every five minutes, they would’ve put it in. But I didn’t. If one of the girls asked me about it, I told ‘em, but I never made it a big deal. Why do you think the female rap scene in general is so dead right now? That’s a good question. It’d be easy for me to say, “They need me,” or whatever. I think I was supposed to win [the reality show]. When we did the challenge at the shooting range, they saw my [criminal] record and saw that I had been arrested. But they didn’t know that the whole time, I was still going through it. I could possibly go back to Atlanta and go to jail. The whole time we did the show, they were asking us stuff about [female rappers who have had legal troubles] like Remy Ma, Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, and the future of Hip Hop. But I never said anything about [my pending court cases] until it came up. There was some stuff that happened way before I had Kingston, but I was still going to court for it. You know how they’ll drag shit out, just waiting for you to miss a court date so they can lock yo’ ass up? I had three felony charges of aggravated assault with a pistol. Each charge carried 20 years. So even though this was something that happened before I had my son, these things were still hanging over my head. What are your future plans? Do you have any record deals on the table? Yeah. I’m trying to see who I wanna go with. I want it to be a good situation. I think a lot of people take [bad] record deals because of their hunger or need. I’m trying to take my time with it and pick out the right situation. I’ve got a new song called “Thank You.” It’s talking about how I always wanted to be a star when I was younger, and now people wave when they see me in my car. That’s a real crossover song. I’m singing on it. No vocoder? No vocoder, just me. A lot of people are like, “Who is that singing?” They don’t really believe it’s me. The name of my album is called Urban Beauty. I’m working on that. Yo Yo from the show is tryna help me get where I need to be. Shout out to LRG; thanks for the Luxurie clothes. Anything else you want to plug? Thank you to all my fans. I have millions of fans all over the world. I love y’all. They be on my Myspace page really trippin’. I talk to everybody. That’s really me on my Myspace page (myspace.com/therealmscherry). // OZONE MAG // 65