Growing Up Hip Hop Grows Into A Second Seasonby Brad Balfour
October 19, 2016
On seeing the Season Two premiere of WE TV’s hit series Growing Up Hip Hop, it came across less like a reality show and more like reality viewed through a fast paced series of snap shots. It reveals real characters with both their ups and downs but not so dramatized as to feel forced or self-conscious.
These personalities have evolved emotionally with a reasonably well grounded sense, offering a positive view of how their parents tried their best — in their own ways — to transform their own rags-to-riches stories into lessons for their kids. And here in this series, audiences get to learn what they’ve learned and how it has transformed them into complex people — not just privleged kids.
So here it is a year later and four of the progeny of famous hip hop stars — Romeo Miller, Kristina Debarge, Egypt Criss and Damon “Boogie” Dash — have sat down a year after the first Blackfilm.com session to discuss what this past year and year to come bodes for them. But what transpired here with this interview is only the beginning. We will have to patiently view further episodes to find what they are going through in the coming year.
You’ve done this show for a year and had cameras trained on you. How does the scrutiny change and/or affect you and your relationship with each other? You have a new sense of how this process works.
Romeo Miller: You definitely have to know what you’re signing up for and that’s with anything in life. If you want to be a doctor you got to be ready to put in hours and hours of study. If you want to be an astronaut you have to be prepared to go to space one day and leave your family.
When you sign up for a reality show you have to know that everybody in your life will be tested. Because… Guess what? Everything becomes public and that can sometimes make or break a friendship or relationship and that’s what you see more of in this season. You see the dynamics of reality television and how being out in the public affects a person.
Boogie Dash: It probably brings us closer. Let’s say we do something last season that wasn’t for the best and we’re about to do it again, someone can spot it out and be like, “Yo, don’t do that because last season that wasn’t a good look, let’s tighten it up a little.”
I’d say we all have each other’s backs for sure. It’s not like Love & Hip Hop where we’re all trying to bash each other, I think we’re just trying to help each other at the end of the day. Even with my real problems I get good advice from everyone here. I got another kinda love for the people here, I respect everyone here on another kind of level. I’m happy this cast is this cast and nobody else.
Egypt Criss: We all have each other’s backs and it’s nice to be here together and learning from one another. There are problems that we need to patch up and it’s a good look at what was left from last season. There were things that were said and feelings that were expressed and it wasn’t the best, but we patched it up. You’ve got to tune in for the rest because I can’t say what happened. But basically we were wiser. We know what to avoid and what we can go through with.
Kristina Debarge: We all have our issues and I feel like one of the people I can relate to the most this season is Someone, we both have a lot of family issues. You’ll see us kind of bonding over that and confiding in one another. I don’t know if I’d say it changed me or anything. I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, now it’s just in the public eye. It’s a little different, but it still feels the same. There are times when I feel it and I’m like “Whoa, I can’t believe this is happening right now” and other times when I’m kinda numb. It just depends on the day.
Ever say, “What the fuck did I get myself Into?”
EC: Yeah.
KD: Definitely, for sure.
BD: Nah. I love it. It’s weird not having cameras on me.
RM: Y’all got to get booked on that show Big Brother, that’s the one where they got cameras on 24/7.
BD: I’m not trying to drive myself into the sand. I’d rather have my freedom and my cellphone. I’m trying to bring out some weird characters. I’m good on that, I like reality television this way.
KD: It is really nice. From last season when I first started — since I’m new at this — when cameras were on me I didn’t show I was nervous, but it’s like trying to catch a ghost. When you have cameras on trying to spot something, they don’t come out, they come when you least expect it. So for me it was hard to open up and unleash, nothing bad, but the real power.
BD: Go “beast mode.”
EC: I had to just learn to open up and become more expressive of my feelings.
Sounds like even though you’re familiar with it, it has changed you in some way.
KD: I think I’ve just become more cautious. I have, not a guard up, but I’m very aware of my surroundings. I’m definitely…. I want to say this as positively as I can… I’m just more cautious and not as trustworthy as I was Egypt’s age, I was a lot more trusting back then and thinking everyone was my friend.
I don’t think of my castmates as [just] friends, they’re like family to me. Just being out in the real world you just never know who’s your friend and who’s not or if they’re just trying to get information because they are actually interested in you and want to help you, or because they just want to talk about you.
Isn’t that always the case? You’ve created a family experience out of this. Have you been able to impart that to your parents?
EC: With my mom sometimes I feel like we switch roles, I’m the mom and she’s the daughter. She’ll be bugging out about something and I say, “Mom, take a deep breath, you got this, God has you.” We help each other.
KD: That’s the beauty of having children and allowing them to be who they are. Not trying to shape them, just allow them to be who they are. I think we surprise our family sometimes and it’s refreshing for them to have us teach them a cool lesson.
RM: It’s a different generation, with us coming into this industry, having that platform already, having that blueprint. We’re a little more advanced in knowing what not to do. It’s like Egypt’s mom says, she says she wished she knew this and I think that’s the cool thing about growing up hip hop, we got to grow with it, we got to see what not to do.
It’s up to us whether we want to make the same mistakes or take it up a notch. That’s the beauty of this show. This show isn’t about cat fights or being negative, it’s about being a family. The thing about being a family though is you don’t always have to agree. Family actually fight more than friends because you’re not afraid to tell them the truth.
BD: And you’re with them more.
RM: That’s the cool thing about me and my pops. Our relationship is like we’re business partners. Even when I was a kid he’d make sacrifices for me and I’d make sacrifices for him. I remember when I did my show on Nickelodeon, The Romeo Show, I was like “pops, I want you to be the other star on this show, but Nickelodeon wants you to take out your gold teeth!”
You got to look at the big picture, Pops, you could be the next Denzel after this. He took out his gold teeth he was known for for four years and starred in my show. We always had that back and forth since I was a little kid.
BD: I’m the same way as Rome. My dad and me, I remember one day I told him to get rid of [something] and the next day it was gone because it wasn’t that hot anymore, I was getting tired of it, and I was like 12. My dad is smart. He listens to kids no matter what because the kids know what’s cool and as you get older you get less cool [laughs].
RM: Not in his case, man!
BD: You must have some good kids then!
With my daughter I go back and forth and she worries about me and calls.
KD: They want to make sure you’re going to the doctor.
Or she wants to talk about a bad boyfriend and I be an anchor. This is a pretty political season. You put a camera on Trump and he doesn’t shut up. How does having a camera on you change how you look and speak or how you act or speak to a crowd?
RM: This season I feel like we opened up more. It’s like in a relationship, the longer you know somebody the longer you’re in it…
You feel more comfortable.
RM: Yeah, you’re more comfortable. The camera was like a piece of our family so there are a lot of awkward moments because we’re out living life right in front of the camera. That’s why this season is pretty juicy; it’s fun TV. There’s a lot of real life moments in there because I just forgot about the camera sometimes. I’m excited to see this season myself.
BD: This year we had a great production team. Why have I been so comfortable with this production team? Because I actually still talk to them to this day. I still play ball with them or just hit them up to hang out. They’re the main reason why I’m more comfortable now because everyone here is my friend. It’s not like I’m just working with random people. Last season they were a different group.
KD: They made you feel like they cared about you.
BD: OG, and Julio, and Jaffe and all those guys. Mark was cool too. They just treated you like they were your friend and not “I’m just here for business, you need to do this and that.” Nah, be you so we can get the best TV possible.
KD: And they respected when we said no.
EC: With me I love making music but I want to be an actress one day and it’s definitely helpful with cameras around. It’s reality, but what I want to do would be scripted, so it’d help me get in tune with my character even if my character is myself.
It is different when you look at yourself through the eyes of other people especially when you’re on camera.
RM: I hate looking at myself, not gonna lie.
KD: When I have other people looking at myself with me, then I get like, “Oh my god, you guys are looking at me”.
Are there things you’ve learned this season that you could use to advise the politicians? There’s now the Museum of African American Culture in Washington, DC — imagine you might end up in there. Have any of you thought about that?
BD: I’d love to be in a museum.
EC: What an honor.
BD: Especially the African American one. I was just in DC for the Black Caucus event and Black Money Matters. They want me to run for something. They want me to become an intern and learn political things and all this other stuff.
It’s funny because I’m there in ripped jeans, but they still want me to run because they believe I have a powerful voice and I believe I do too. I agree with the things they’re saying, we gotta keep it in the culture for right now until we’re as big as any other culture and we got our mind set right.
RM: On the politics level I’m very private sometimes when it comes to what I believe in and certain worldly situations because we live in a generation where everybody has an opinion. With social media you can say something that may be correct, but it isn’t correct in somebody else’s mind, so you’re always going to be arguing. I’m not the kind of person where I want to be arguing back and forth. I just want to give my point of view then go with it.
After watching the debate I wish I could have told those two up there to just be honest. We got a lot of discrimination in the world with blacks and whites and it’s obvious, look. We got a black President, that’s cool. But even a black President isn’t enough to run it so there’s a lot of questions for the black community. It gets a little awkward when those are asked because they’re trying so hard to please that black community so well. You’ve got to be truthful.
I saw Donald Trump get asked a question about him being racist towards letting African Americans live in his places back in the day and he got sued over that. I think we’re all a little bit racist in a way because guess what, we don’t understand each other.
If these people were more honest, if he stood up and was like, “Maybe I was like that back in the day.” But he’s privileged, white, and a billionaire, that’s life. He doesn’t understand me, I don’t understand him, that’s life.
Even with Hillary, if you’re open and honest you’d be surprised who you can touch. My advice would be to just be honest. That can take you even further than what you think. Another thing on that topic, we don’t all have to understand each other. The common goal should be living in peace, that’s it.
Everybody’s not going to understand Romeo, I’m not gonna understand Peter from Mississippi, I’m not gonna understand Jason from Compton, or whoever from Japan, France, we’re all different and that’s the beauty of life and that’s what we have to learn as a country if we want to truly be great again. If we truly want to follow with her, I’m with her, we gotta understand that we’re all different and live in peace.
KD: I agree with Romeo. I watch a little of the politics going on and I watched the last debate with Hillary and Trump and I gotta say it’s quite funny. It’s pretty funny seeing two adults bicker and fight. Sometimes I think,”What example are we setting for the next generation?” I try not to get too caught up in it, but I did vote this year, I voted for Obama when I was 18 and I’m excited for Hillary to become President.
EC: I definitely agree with what Romeo was saying. I feel like we just don’t understand each other, and if we did, things would go better and people would have their minds more open. If I was gonna vote this year I’d probably go with Hillary.
KD: Girl Power all the way.
If you had one word to say about what is hip hop, what is it to you?
KD: Family.
BD: Inspiring.
RM: Life.
EC: Unity.
