Eve is getting real about her journey to success in the music industry.
In her upcoming memoir, Who’s That Girl?, the rapper recalled the odd jobs she took on as she worked to launch her rap career. In addition to being a retail employee, Eve, 45, also took on a second job dancing at a strip club in the Bronx.
“In my head, I was thinking, ‘I need to be grown now, and it’s the quickest way I can get out of the house,’” she told People in an interview published Thursday, September 5. “But I was so bad at it. I was lazy.”
After just two months, Eve quit dancing following an unexpected meeting with the rapper Mase at the club. At the time, he urged Eve to focus more on rapping instead of her odd jobs.
“When Mase became a pastor, I was like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense,’” Eve told the magazine. “He was my prophet that day. I needed that extra push.”
That’s not to say her experience in the music industry suddenly became an easy ride. As detailed in her book, Eve was signed — and then dropped — from Dr. Dre’s label Aftermath in a span of eight months.
She later found her home with the rap crew the Ruff Ryders, where she was able to release massive hits like “Gotta Man” and “Love Is Blind.”
“I think it was a huge blessing in disguise,” she said when reflecting on her experience with Dr. Dre’s label. “I needed to be humbled. I think a lot of the reason why I got dropped by Dre is that I was so, ‘When is it my turn? When are you going to put me on?’ So extra Philly feisty. I needed to be sent back home to be like, ‘OK, well, if you got this opportunity again, who do you want to be? What do you want to show the world?'”
While Eve has also explored acting and hosting thanks to a four-season gig on The Talk from 2017 to 2020, her focus now appears to be enjoying a “soft life” with her husband, Maximillion Cooper, and their son Wilde, 2. (Cooper also has four kids from a previous marriage.)
“I like that I’m able to dip in and dip out [of the industry] because I have struggled with anxiety and stress, at this point in my life, I am very careful about not bringing that into the house with the baby,” Eve explained. “I’m an older mom, so my reserves of energy aren’t the same, and I want to make sure that I’m fully gassed up for Wilde.”
Eve’s memoir, Who’s That Girl?, is available Tuesday, September 17.