Rapper Waka Flocka Flame Chats About The WE tv Show, "Waka & Tammy: What The Flocka"
Hip-hop's iconic sweethearts, Waka Flocka Flame and his fiery wife Tammy Rivera, have been through it all. Now, the WE tv series, "Waka & Tammy: What The Flocka," follows the couple navigating their biggest hurdle yet: marriage. From home renovations and juggling Tammy’s bustling music career to parenting their teenage daughter, Charli, and meddling in-laws, it won't be easy. You can watch "Waka & Tammy: What The Flocka" season 1 on WEtv on demand and on WEtv.com. BUILD is a live interview series like no other—a chance for fans to sit inches away from some of today’s biggest names in entertainment, tech, fashion and business as they share the stories behind their projects and passions. Every conversation yields insights, inspiration and plenty of surprises as moderators and audience members ask questions. It all happens several times a day live and live-streamed on BUILDseries.com. Follow us: TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/BUILDseriesNYC FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BUILDseriesNYC INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/BUILDseriesNYC #BUILDseries #Interview
Video Transcript
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RICKY CAMILLERI: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to "Build at Home." I'm your host Ricky Camilleri coming to you from my home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I'm joined right now by the great, the man himself, Waka Flocka Flame is here to talk to me about his show "Wake and Tammy, What the Flocka." But before we get started, I want to say something that we've been saying at the top of all these interviews, which is that over 700 million school lunches have been missed by students across the country due to school closures because of the Coronavirus.
If you would like to help, if you would like to find out how you can donate. how you can volunteer to get these kids the meals that they need, please go to nokidhungry.org. Waka, good to see you. How are you holding up? Are you quarantined right now?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yes, I'm in my backyard.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah? How has your quarantine life been?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Technically, I've kind of been quarantined for the last 12 months prior to this. I always be in the house all day going through it. So this, it's like a gift and a curse.
RICKY CAMILLERI: It's a gift. And it's a curse for the world. It's a gift because this is what you like to do as is, is stay in the house.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah, I do. Because you know what? This is my first time being 33. And I think we don't pay attention to our age. We just afraid of the numbers. And I actually had the time out to like, if I would say I didn't have any mistakes, I had to reconcile all my business in my life and like who I'm in contact with. And actually, why I'm not talking to people who I truly love, and like riding towards ideas that I really like and those I don't.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Absolutely.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: So I think quarantine actually let me just deep dive into who I was and where I be bullshitting and where I need to like stop going and things I need to stop saying. Like it actually helped a lot. I'm not going to lie.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah. I actually feel the same way. I'm curious, what do you expect from the second time you turn 33?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Right. The second time is the last six months. Yeah.
RICKY CAMILLERI: So talk to me about this episode of "What the Flocka." Your wife, Tammy Rivera, she felt like she was getting sick. She was worried about the virus. It seemed like she was quarantining herself, and she was getting a little run down. Tell me about this.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. And that's why I [INAUDIBLE]. Like with me doing all this looking into myself, the whole time my wife upstairs. I'm like, why is you in the bed? And she's like, baby, I feel kind of sick. I'm like, oh, no you don't.
But she actually has like sinus problems. And I couldn't take it so serious, because they was like, hey, this coronavirus is contagious. And I'm laying next my wife everyday, kissing and holding her. And I'm not sick at all.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: But I had to think. I had to turn to a doctor. I turned into Dr. Flocka, man, and start giving my wife holistic medicine. I started giving her a lot of vitamin C.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Building up her immune room, keeping the humidifier on, and turning the heat up when it needed to be up, the heat down when it needed to be down.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: We fought straight through it, and she's straight.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah. It's strange getting sick right now, because you don't know if it's the Coronavirus or not. You could just have a cold and be worried that you have the virus, you know. You have no idea, unless you can get tested, which very few people can.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. And the pollen level is so high in Georgia. And my wife has allergies. Like so you wouldn't know what it was. She come outside, her eyes swollen from the pollen, or her throat itches. So go ahead.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah. So this is the first season of "What the Flocka," right? What made the two of you want to do a show together?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: To be honest, I think we had a time in our marriage, where it's like, hey, shit, the camera's been on us so long. Fuck it, we might as just keep going with it. Who will be that couple in our generation who help lead with certain examples in times that you go through in your relationship, that you don't know what decision to make. And sometimes, you might make the same decisions we'll make, and look at the outcome, and look how we fought through it, and look are we still stuck together. So we want to show like younger couples, no matter what y'all go through, y'all are together.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Right.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: You know what I'm saying?
RICKY CAMILLERI: Have you ever been worried about showing certain things, like showing the two of you at your worst? Or is that what the show is for?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: No. It is what it is. I guess, you signed up for that, huh?
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: But what's bad? To me, I don't have nothing that's like nothing to hide.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Like I don't have shit to hide. What I smoke cannabis? Hey, I should hide that. Like I'm a legal gun owner, but I don't flaunt that. I don't like cars. I don't like flashy shit. I don't have nothing to hide. To me, I feel like my world is perfect.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Of course, you have people that think you-- they don't agree with you [INAUDIBLE] say. Everybody don't agree with you on every situation. Like for me, I don't give a shit. I got my wife and family. Man, I don't give a damn.
RICKY CAMILLERI: When did you and Tammy meet?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Me and Tammy met, phew, I want to say, 2011.
RICKY CAMILLERI: How'd the two of you meet?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: South Beach, Miami, I ran into her.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: And it was like, hey, I just knew she was mine. I've never, ever seen no girl in my life that I had to look and be like, yo, I'm going to marry you.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Really.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. And she's like your bull-- she's like, you fucking lying, blah, blah, blah. Like no, I'm dead-ass serious. God told me that you're my wife. I was serious. It's weird too, I really felt like that.
RICKY CAMILLERI: And then, since 2011, there's never been a moment where you've questioned or reconsidered or worried about it, since that moment, since that bolt of lightning, she's always been the one.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: The only time I ever reconsidered was my fault, because I was like, damn I'm not ready, man. She's such a perfect woman. Like I'm bullshitting. Like I want to be young. Like I had this thing, I don't know where this shit come from in America, like I will stay young.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Like that really fucks with you in every aspect of your life. Because if you stay young, you don't want to be having wives and kids, because it makes you feel old.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: So I had to get out of that want to be young mindset and become what I wanted to be when I was a kid. I wanted to be older with a family so I could raise my family.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: And when I got in that mindset, I'm like, oh, now this my woman. Like, hell no, I'm not playing. I was right from the start.
RICKY CAMILLERI: How did you get out of that young mindset?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Just accepting my age, I guess.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: And to me, if people like, man, you need to mature. I told [INAUDIBLE], man, maturing is an ongoing process as you grow in life. You could be 50, 60 years old and still maturing.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Absolutely.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: You know, because you're going through different stages in life. And for me, I feel like, hey, I've never been this age. I've got a 14-year-old daughter. I should be a man now. Like there's no time to stay young, live young. I've got a young daughter.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: That's definitely a lot of it, my daughter, man. My daughter let me realize like, yo, you're somebody's father, you're a superhero, and you're a grown man. Act like it.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Although your daughter says in the episode of the show that I saw that you're basically a big kid. And so, she has a good time playing with you because you're a big kid all the time.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Mm-hmm. You got to be. Because you got to be their friend.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: I told my daughter, I got to be your first friend. Because you need to know what a real friend is. Sometimes, friends don't agree with what you do in life. And she'd go cry and shit, but she'd be like, you're right, dad. Like I love, I got to be that person. Because if I don't, if I be too serious, then I don't want her to be that serious. You get what I'm saying?
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah, I know you mean. Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah.
RICKY CAMILLERI: You want to keep a light touch.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. I just love my daughter though, man, that's my dog.
RICKY CAMILLERI: That's great. That's beautiful.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. I can't wait to have some more kids. Because kids, they fun as shit, man.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Really?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: They fun, man. They fun.
RICKY CAMILLERI: What's your favorite thing to do with your kids?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: My favorite thing to do with my daughter.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Favorite, she loves going to Barnes and Noble [INAUDIBLE]. She loves watching [INAUDIBLE].
RICKY CAMILLERI: No, that's great.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: That's fun. And she loves going to like Dave and Busters and conspiracy theories. My daughter loves conspiracy theories. [INAUDIBLE]. So we'll be chopping it up. But then when she wants her space, she don't want to be bothered. She'll close her door, and wont' talk to you for eight hours because she be on TikTok and all this shit, man. That's the part I got to live with now.
RICKY CAMILLERI: How do you get used to that?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: I honestly I don't. I just catch an attitude and learn how to grow with it. Because, you know, I want my daughter around me, man. I want to wake up like, hey, daddy. You want that typical dad life. But you don't get that.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: You don't. My daughter wake up, she on the phone, don't say nothing to nobody. Hey, uh, back upstairs. It's like, yo, what the fuck.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Right. How is the family handling the lockdown right now, the quarantine? How is everybody doing?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: For the most, we all good I think. Just waking up, doing the same shit becomes a little aggravating.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Yeah, absolutely.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Or it makes you grow into doing other things. But for us, shit, all my little nephews been over. We've been on the game. So we've been quarantined playing Xbox, Playstation, NBA2K, FIFA, Call of Duty, all kind of stuff.
RICKY CAMILLERI: So, you know, production got shut down of the show because of the lockdown, because of the virus. What's next for you and Tammy? What are you two planning?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Well, what we planning next, we actually going into our-- well, my wife doing his. We just basically protecting our assets. We preparing. So we be like, yo, what are we doing, and what are we spending in too much that we need to like slow the fuck down.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Right.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: And I told my wife, for you, you need to stop shopping.
RICKY CAMILLERI: What about you? What do you spend too much money on?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: I spend too much money on people.
RICKY CAMILLERI: People. Like employees?
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: No. No. Just like people in general call, hey, man, I need-- or
RICKY CAMILLERI: Right.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Like just people in general, I'm a sucker sometimes. I can't personally like see people fuck up--
RICKY CAMILLERI: Right.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Or struggling. And I got to stop that shit, man. 30% of my income last year was to helping people. So I got to learn how to help the right people.
RICKY CAMILLERI: So if I asked you to spot me 20, that's a no right now.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah. That's a big no. No, I'm [INAUDIBLE] quarantine, man, I don't know--
RICKY CAMILLERI: Learning. Look at that, you're learning.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Yeah.
RICKY CAMILLERI: It's a pleasure to talk to you. And it's good to see that you're healthy and safe. When can people check out "What the Flocka?"
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: "What the Flocka," man, be coming soon. We'll give people updates when we get updated on when we can start back shooting.
RICKY CAMILLERI: Cool. All right, Waka Flocka Flame, thank you so much for talking to me. It's good to see you.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME: Ricky.
