For a lady best known as the "baddest bitch," Miami hip-hop star Trina seems surprisingly demure as she sits down for an interview at the New Times office. Sure, she's a little grumpy at first — her publicist had given her the wrong address and had not informed her of the photo shoot, leaving the rapper in street clothes — but the Liberty City native quickly reasserts her grace, and after pulling out what must be $50,000 worth of diamonds from her Louis Vuitton purse, she's ready to have her picture taken.
Jonathan Postal
Careful: Trina might blind you with that bling
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Throughout, there's little hint of the potty-mouth ex-stripper who became a sensation after a guest spot on Trick Daddy's "Nann Nigga" — a song that found the petite, feminine Trina standing toe-to-toe with the über-masculine thug bravado of Trick Daddy. And there's no indication of the hypersexualized rapper who pondered the dick size of hip-hop luminaries on "Big Ole Dick." Instead, Trina is subdued, thoughtful, and almost reticent. And when she refers to her former persona as the baddest bitch, Trina can't even bring herself to use the word bitch.
"That's still me. I am the baddest chick, I am that person. That's a strong female," Trina comments. "But I can't be the baddest female and still talk about the same things I did in 1998.... It's different being 28 than it was when you were 21. That's a long gap in life, and I've been through so many different things, so many different emotions — from relationships to breakups, from ups and downs to whatever — and to sit about and talk about what I was talking about would be silly."
Although her recently released album Glamorest Life still has enough harsh language and vivid sexual images to make Henry Miller blush, it does convey a more rounded portrait of the singer (and we're not just talking about her behind, guys). But what Trina considers a healthy personal and artistic evolution, one of her oldest friends and collaborators interprets as a betrayal.
"When I first met Trina, she was the baddest bitch, but now she the diamond princess. I ain't too much into the diamond princess thing," Trick Daddy confesses. "She toned it down a bit; she need to tone it up. She got the looks, she got the ass, she got the followers, and she got the know-how. She come from Liberty City — she need to come back to the hood. A lot of women look at her now and think, Ain't no way I can be like that Trina."
This is more than just another all-too-common verbal spat between two hip-hop stars. Trina and Trick have a long history together that predates their rap careers. The two ran in the same circles when they attended Miami Northwestern High School — where Trina was a majorette and was voted "Best Dressed" during her senior year, while Trick was a thug who graduated to prison on a cocaine trafficking charge. But while they had slightly different priorities, both were bound by a love for Derek Harris (a.k.a. Hollywood) — Trick's half-brother and Trina's long-time boyfriend.
That love would turn to sorrow in 1994 when Hollywood was shot as he sat in the front seat of a parked Buick on NW 25th Avenue and 152nd Street in Miami. Trick sadly notes that Hollywood was "a powerful man in this community"; Trina is a little more verbose about her grief: "[Hollywood's death] was depressing. I was young and didn't understand why it had happened. To lose someone so close, you don't want to believe that they're gone. But it made me realize that you shouldn't take anything in life for granted. Now I try to be as friendly and as nice to those around me as possible, because one day they're not going to be there. It was one of the hardest things I've had to deal with. Hollywood was a great guy, and he didn't deserve that."
After Hollywood's death, the teenage Trina bounced around before finally landing a gig as a stripper at Fort Lauderdale's Club Extasy. Still torn up about Hollywood's death and feeling increasingly uncomfortable with her new occupation, Trina picked up pen and paper and began writing rhymes for the first time. "Those things influenced me," she says of Hollywood's death and her stint at the strip club. "And especially on the first and second album, I was still very much in the middle of dealing with those things."
She wouldn't last long at Extasy, and shortly after quitting, she re-established contact with Trick, who had recently made the transition from a back-up rapper in Uncle Luke's booty brigade to a star in his own right.
Trick was preparing his 1998 www.thug.com. Looking for a female counterpart to balance out his own testosterone-laced rhymes, Trick approached Trina about appearing on "Nann Nigga." The two had a chemistry on the single. Over a loud and dirty precrunk club-banger, Trick and Trina shared their credentials: Trick would "Run through yo whole lil' crew" and "Put the gun off in yo mouth/Blow yo motherfucking brains out"; while Trina was willing to "Fuck 'bout five or six best friends" and was "Quick to deep-throat the dick/And let another bitch straight lick the clit."
