'Love & Hip-Hop's' Momma Dee on Pimping, Buying Cocaine & Escaping That Life

The new reality TV star holds nothing back about her past

Hip-hop’s most popular mothers tend to have extremely colorful personalities, and Momma Dee is no different.

Momma Dee, who was originally known in the Atlanta area as a notorious pimp, hustler, and now rapper Lil’ Scrappy’s mom, has allowed VH1’s cameras into her world for the wildly popular reality show “Love & Hip-Hop Altanta.”

In part one of our interview we chat with her about her dark past and how her son got her away from the streets. Read Part II here.

Loop 21: A lot of people know that you were a pimp. How did you end up going down that road?

I was raised in a middle class family by my mom and stepfather. Due to a lot of physical abuse by my stepfather, me and my brother left home at an early age. I went to Georgia State School of Nursing and got my Bachelors’ degree in science. I raised two small kids alone. I'm divorced now but the day after I got married, a 17-year-old boy hit my head, crushed my left patella and my left articular. I couldn’t walk for three years, I was on crutches. When I was a nurse, one of my patients had confided in me that she ran a call girl service. I didn’t have the money to start one, but it didn’t take much for me to watch the local pimps in Atlanta and watch how they manipulated. I snatched up two girls at one time and they started working for me on the streets. I ended up with 15 women prostituting for me and opened up dope traps on Cleveland and Southridge in Atlanta. I was in that for 10 years. It was very lucrative. I had bought keys of cocaine from Big Meech himself. 

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Loop 21: What made you stop living that life?

When Scrappy made it and his hit “You Don’t Want No Problems” came out, I was still in the street hustling. He came to me one day and said, 'Ma, the Feds are trying to bust the house in. How much would you make in a day? Because I need you to stop. Please, Mama, stop. Sooner or later, they’re gonna snatch you up and you’re not walking out. Mama, I’ll take care of you if you would leave the streets alone.' I gave the girls and the dope traps one month until closing and that’s what I did.

Loop 21: So Scrappy knew of your lifestyle?