by Nadine Graham
On Monday, we started our chat with Entrepreneur PreMadonna, best know as the woman who launched the Waist Gang Society, as she offers tons of wisdom, fun and learning from her journey. Check out Part 1 here and read along as we dive into balancing work and family, finding love and Love & Hip Hop Atlanta.
MN: How hectic is your daily schedule? And how are your two boys dealing with it?
PreMadonna: I’m super busy from day to day. My sons are fine. They’ll be the wealthiest men in the world with a mama like me. They like it. It’s cool to them. So as long as they like it, I love it.
I make time for everything that needs to be made time for but I’m also showing them substance. A lot of young men don’t understand that. When we do what we do, they can see ‘Okay, I’ve seen my mom and my stepdad work hard, so that’s what I need to do.’ I think your kids should see the grind. I don’t think you should hold them all day. I don’t think you should take them to the park every single day. You make the time so that when they can go with you they appreciate it more. They appreciate life and everything about life. They can appreciate value and you putting substance in their minds. Like, ‘okay I can’t go to the park today, but when I can go to the park, I’m going to utilize everything! I’m going to get on the monkey bars. The slide. Because I know mama is not going to be here until next week again.’
MN: How do you maintain? Judging from Instagram, it seems like you cook everyday, even with everything you have going on.
PreMadonna: If I can’t find a babysitter, I’m putting them in the car with me. And I have to cook the way I do, because my kids have to eat. You can’t just feed them McDonald’s and Burger King all day. You have to give them their flavors so that they know how food is supposed to taste and they won’t just eat from anybody.
MN: So with Love and Hip Hop Atlanta… They threw you directly into the fire for your first show. How are you dealing with reality TV?
PreMadonna: It’s cool. It’s cool. I did exactly what I was supposed to do and what everyone else should be doing, which is: recognizing the platform and utilizing it. I’m going there to rap, I showed you what I do. Go ahead and broadcast your business… But I think people get confused when I say that because people literally broadcast their business. No, I mean broadcast your business like my waist trainers. Not how me and my husband sleep at night. It’s just a platform.
Whatever level you on mentally I feel that’s how you deal with it.
MN: I’d like to go back to your business. Can you describe your toughest experience while you were on the come-up?
PreMadonna: I remember being hospitalized for dehydration and exhaustion. I was working by myself and I’m not the type of person… When I was doing it before, I had to learn early on that, you know, you do so many things and no one can do it how you want it or up to your standards. I didn’t have the patience to deal with anybody doing something wrong. I had packages that needed to be shipped. I was shipping to Paris, Italy and Rome from my apartment.
I even had my kids helping me at times until they got ready to go to sleep so they knew how to work. And what’s so hard about your children putting a label on a package? So I was packaging a thousand orders, then dropping my kids off to school, and I was going to college at the time so I would be headed to school after that. I had a lot to do. I didn’t sleep much, but I don’t miss those days. I’m sleeping now.
MN: You’re to be married in a few months too, is that right?
PreMadonna: Yup. Waiting on the dress. That’s the most important part you know! [laughs]
MN: How’d you find love while building a business? Your life sounds like it was pretty full already.
PreMadonna: The thing about me and my fiance is that we started off as friends. We never stopped being friends. We’re friends more than we’re lovers actually and I think that’s what’s most important, next to everything else. Because when you’re friends, you can talk about anything. Love is a deep emotional state and sometimes people in love can’t see the benefit for the greater good that their relationship needs. So we never stop being friends. We joke, we laugh and truth be told when we were friends before, I didn’t even like him when I met him. He didn’t like me either. His first words to me were: ‘You so wild. You need to calm down.’ The side that you guys see in me now, this more mature side, he played a big part in me becoming this.
MN: So he didn’t like you and you…
PreMadonna: I didn’t like anything about him. We were two different people. I remember saying that I couldn’t stand his ass. Then one day I called him and we were just talking and I was asking him for advice about my guy friends and everything. We were just talking and talking and I don’t know where the switch came but we just clicked. We were only friends for maybe three months before then, but we were like best friends.
We were on the phone all the time and he would just listen to me and my crazy ideas. It’s really hard to find a man that’s not only going to listen to you, but support you. You have to understand that coming into a relationship as an independent woman is very, very hard. It’s hard to find a man as equally yoked as you mentally. And I’m not talking about financially speaking, you can find a man with more money than you, but they have to be mentally there with you.
MN: Talk about what it means to find a man who isn’t intimidated by your goals. When you two met, you were already raising two sons on your own, working on your music and building onto your business.
PreMadonna: It’s like if you have a car and you have a key, but the key is not the right fit for the car, then the car won’t go. You guys have to click. If you have ambition, you have to find someone else with ambition also. It’s not going to work otherwise. You’re going to drain him or he’s going to drain you. Because if he doesn’t have any ambition then you’re moving too fast for him. Or if you don’t have any ambition then he’s moving too fast for you. Everything has to be mutual.
Someone with ambition is not sane to the average person, so people will really think that there is something wrong with your ass walking around the house saying, ‘I’m going to make this! I’m going to be 500 million dollars richer one day!’ He’ll look at you like ‘What?’ It just wouldn’t work. And it would bring you down.
Check out PreMadonna’s Waist Gang Society products here and spot her on VH1’s Love and Hip Hop on Mondays at 8 pm EST.
