Photo Credit: Kandi Burruss/Youtube
R&B singer Nivea did an interview with Kandi Burruss for her On That Note YouTube series talking about a lot of her background people didn’t knowa about. For those who weren’t sure why about this immensely talented woman hadn’t been out making music over the years, she said she was dating Lil Wayne at the time who convinced her to step away at the height of her career to let him take care of her.
It started with Wayne saying he was impressed with her song Don’t Mess With My Man and contacted her management for the chance to work with her when it was really a way to get a date with her. “He said, ‘Come be with me. I got you,’” which lead her to contacting her label saying she would be walking away from her contract.
She said they moved from the home that he was in when he had the great idea of moving into an apartment saying he never lived in one before. It turns out that he did that for the sake of moving his high school sweetheart Toya Johnson into the home they were living in. He went on to marry Toya in 2004 in a marriage that lasted 2 years.
“I’m just sitting there, like, being a housewife… and you know, Reginae [Carter] was very young,” Nivea recalled of the painful experience. “All of a sudden—this is kind of funny—he was like, ‘I ain’t never stay in an apartment before. Let’s get an apartment.’ So we move out the house and get an apartment but I never realized he did that to move Toya [Johnson] back in the house.”
She began a cycle of a string of relationships with other musicians that she said had their careers come before hers and then when those men were gone, it caused her to begin to feel unsure about her own talents and she became overwhelmed with motherhood causing her to go from chain smoking and drinking to doing cocaine. She said she was afraid her addiction was going to cause her to lose her children at one point.
What is crazy about this is that there has never been any public questioning of her talent. That’s usually something strictly in the heads of some of the most talented people out there. We’re glad she was able to tell her story and hope that she’s able to get past this hump and move on with her life and career.
