R&B singer Keyshia Cole graces the cover of Essence Magazine’s October issue.
The singer opens up about love,pain,fame,and life.
Cole talks bout her relationships with a drug-addicted prostitute mother, Tupac Shakur and Mary J Blige.
On Tupac:
ESSENCE: Early in your career you went to Los Angeles and met legendary music producer Suge Knight and Tupac Shakur. What was that like?
COLE: My brother was close with Pac, he got records with Pac and everything. And Pac’s mother is really cool with my brother and me. So to me, Pac was just like a big brother. That time was like one of the biggest moments in history, and I saw everything. I was with them in Malibu and Vegas and I stayed in the “big house” by myself. I knew the world, the whole industry, everything. I was only fourteen.
On Mary J Blige:
ESSENCE: How do you feel about constantly being compared to Mary J. Blige?
COLE: I feel like we are very similar based on everything we’ve been through in our personal lives. It’s helped make us sing the way we sing. Because she didn’t have a vocal coach, and neither did I. And when I met her I told her, “You winning all those Grammy’s—congratulations—it gives me inspiration to this day that maybe I can do the same thing.” You know, it’s just a real big life circle. I think there are a lot of things that she could tell me that’d help me. I’m not trying to take nobody’s place or nothing like that. But I’m just saying, as a woman—as a young Black woman—if she knows some of the answers, Give ’em to me!” (Laughing.) But she said that I could call her anytime. I just haven’t done it yet.
In other Keyshia News ,her BET reality show ”The Way It Is” premieres October 30.
