But that isn’t to say that her return to the top has been easy, or even financially lucrative — at least not as lucrative as we would assume. From outward appearances, a woman who just three years ago was serving a prison sentence for assault is now enjoying the most fruitful chapter of her life, and in many ways she is. But in a new interview with Complex, the Grammy-nominated MC from the Bronx reminds us that all that glitters ain’t gold.
Remy Ma says that financial constraints have prevented her from making the music she really wants, an experience countless artists can relate to. “I actually have some dope records that are actually about something, I just never get them close to the forefront because it’s not what people be wanting to hear,” she explains. Though she stops short of naming any record in particular that she made out of obligation, she does admit that she often finds herself doing things because she has to. “If I didn’t have bills to pay then I could do any record that I want. I do what I do because it’s fun and I love my craft, but this is a business and this is my job. You can go into your job and do the job that’s expected of you or you can do the job that you want to do. It’s going to affect your paycheck.”
While the financial hurdles in her path do present a very real challenge, her arrival to where she is now, as an artist, is a tremendous feat. As Complex points out, coming back from a prison stint could have very well extinguished her career. “With the exception of Tupac [Shakur], every rapper who served time suffered for it, career-wise, upon release; none found greater success,” Thomas Golianopoulos writes. But almost immediately, Remy Ma took advantage of the tools now at her disposal and launched into her seemingly indefatiguable upswing. “With social media now allowing artists to release music and address fans directly, the MC we know as Remy Ma knew she had to start rapping the moment she touched ground.” At the time, he points out, “she was 34 years old, without state ID or driver’s license, without health insurance. She had to find a school for her then 14-year-old son, who was living out of state at the time. But she had a plan, and she stuck to it: She’d reestablish her music-industry presence before getting her life in order.” A daunting set of circumstances for anyone, they could very well be even more so for someone feeling as though they had something to prove or recapture. After all, she appeared on one of Rap’s biggest hits of all time, 2004’s “Lean Back.”