Kalenna Opens Up About Her Marriage With Tony & Her Budding Friendship With Joseline

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Kalenna Harper always keeps it one hundred on Love & Hip Hop Atlanta but this season we've seen a more vulnerable side of the singer-songwriter. VH1 caught up with the former member of Diddy-Dirty Money about doing reality TV right after having a baby, balancing her relationship with her husband and manager, and becoming great friends with the Puerto Rican Princess.

What is it like doing a reality show right after having a baby? How challenging is it?

Kalenna: I think your whole story doesn't get told. There are things that I couldn't do. Everybody wants me to go and party at a strip club but my baby was just coming, you know? I wasn't trying to see a whole bunch of naked women and going through body issues. Even talking to Joseline and her saying, "Well you don't come out the house," and I'm like, "Well my kid's five months old! I can't just leave him." It's been crazy, I'm breastfeeding and doing green screens. I'm just trying to show up, keep a smile on my face and treat everybody nice. It's been hectic.

How is the baby? How is it having a newborn again?

You know what I feel so good. I'm 32, I'm young but I'm a little older then I was with Meshach and I feel good. I feel like I'm accomplishing something bigger than what I ever thought I would. I just thought I would do great music and maybe meet a guy and maybe have kids but like I have two with the love of my life and you know it's just dope. The baby's really cool, he's a really cool kid and I feel like I have more patience to teach him so much more at a young age versus Meshach, he had to learn a lot really fast because we were on the go. I get a little bit more quality time.

What's going on with the music and your forthcoming album Black Orchid?

Black Orchid is such a passion project and I felt like I was rushing it. I kept talking about it [last] season and I started talking about it this season, you know it was right after the baby and I seen everybody kind of open there stores and that pressure of feeding my fans. I came up with this idea, I said, "You know what Lord?" let me just take a breather, let me fall back and just be honest with myself and say, "Kalenna, you know you don't want to rush this album. You know you want it to be great, you know you have great people on this album. So let's just slow down on Black Orchid let's just continue to take our time and let's work on an EP for the fans that are really really just waiting and twiddling their thumbs [waiting] for more Kalenna music." So I've been getting to take some [tracks off the album and] just begin to create something around that and it's called "Rose Water" and I figured it's gonna be a a prequel to what Black Orchid will be because sometimes you may think you're a whole different flower, you're watering this rose and, aha, you're a black orchid! I'm watering my seeds and trying to make everything come to fruition and with this I hope that people can get a little taste of what Black Orchid is gonna be and I'm gonna put it out maybe in the next 2 1/2 weeks.

You've mentioned Tony being the love of your life, where are you guys at the moment after you met with Deb Antney?

Outside of making a really large investment on [the club] that's in the middle of us having a baby in the middle of us doing music in the middle of us trying to find our footing on the business aspect, the love life is always good because we know we have each other. But business? Sometimes s--t can get rocky. Sometime when you're trying to figure it out it's just it's a really sticky situation to explain. We're good, we're not gonna like break up or anything. There's no divorce papers but that was a big pill to swallow, him saying, "I'm gonna take this much money" and right now we're grinding from the ground up. I guess the bigger the risk the bigger the return. We're good, we're gonna grind it out, I got his back and I know he has mine, it just gets a cloudy sometimes.

What was up with Joseline performing at the club? Why weren't you performing?

It was one of those things where I see Joseline out here grinding because you remember my views last season when I came on about everything but when you get to know a person and you sit down with them you understand their hustle and their grind you think, I just had a baby. I haven't been on stage in a couple of years and this is somebody who's calling my phone every morning, who's getting up at seven and working out and rehearsing and has a band. [Joseline is] somebody I connected to like just grind wise and I was just like, "Why not give her the chance to come and bust it open" and she did really good believe it or not. She killed it.

So are you and Joseline cool?

There's a friendship there, it's crazy. It's crazy. You know what happened? I guess you know after the reunion, I know you remember my face on that freaking reunion. I was pregnant and I had just talked to Joseline in the bathroom and she was rubbing my belly and was like, "One day I'm gonna have me a baby" and I just see this girl that wants everything that I want and sometimes that can get misinterpreted because of her past and I think that people are so quick to judge because of what you did before and not give you credit for what you doing now. Let's be honest, how many girls come from where she comes from and end up on national TV? [She] does it well and is just trying to blossom into another realm of womanhood and it's hard to do that when you have so many women like hating on what you've done in the past or who you were in the past. I felt empathetic to that and I think she's dope though just as a person. I need people to understand that she's funny and s--t, I'm one that can understand humor and I'm very open-minded about people's personalities. It's no pressure being around her for me.

What do you think about "Stingy with my Kutty Kat"?

It is catchy. You know what? I supported the "Stingy with My Kutty Kat" record because Joseline called me one night at like three or four o'clock in the morning and she was so hyped. If you don't as an artist you don't believe in your music, nobody else will! The way that she called me with so much "this shit is crazy." She was singing every lyric. That's her, it was her, she was passionate about it. So it made me stop and listen and before I knew it I was like [singing], "I'm stingy with My kutty kat." [Laughs] It's like hauntingly good. I think if she really focuses on her Spanish market, she'll kill, she'll murder based on her going all in. Most of us just sit on our a-- and eat hot dogs. Our craft is gonna carry us over but she's going hard and she's working for it.

Keep up with Kalenna, Tony, and the whole Deb situation on an all new Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, Monday at 8/7c.