Kelly Price: From ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ To Reality TV Fame

Kelly Price was always the one behind the scenes of the R&B world, writing songs and singing hooks for Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

But that changed in 1997, when rapper Biggie Smalls reached out and asked Kelly to take a front-and-center role in his song “Mo Money Mo Problems.”

The song would go on to become one of the decade’s biggest hip-hop songs, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and its title becoming a pop culture reference that remains relevant today.

Price said she had no idea the song could reach such levels.

“When I was asked to do ‘Mo Money Mo Problems,’ I was already a Biggie fan, Ma$e was the new guy and I was the writer doing all the songs,” Price recalled in an interview with BET.com.

“I actually miss those days,” she added. “Back then, we would all just come together, it was all about the music and how many times we could see our names on the Billboard charts. We broke a lot of records… there were three and four times where I got to see my name in line in the same Top 10 charts.”

Now Kelly Price is trying to reach those heights again, this time on her own.

Price has released a new R&B single, “It’s My Time,” one that draws heavy influence from the hip-hop music that set her career aloft.

“I really embrace and love and miss what I call the ‘glory days of R&B,'” Price said. “To me R&B and hip hop were one… Literally you could take the same song that a guy or girl sang on and give it to a hip hop artist and they could literally, they could co-exist in the same space and never miss a beat.”

Kelly Price is taking center stage in other ways. While she’s planning for the June 3 release of her seventh studio album, Sing Pray Love, Vol. 1: Sing, Price is also putting together her own reality, Too Fat for Fame.

Price said the show is taken from her own life story and the difficulties she faced with the conventional standards of beauty, which she admits she did not meet.

The show’s description notes:

Created, Written and Produced by Grammy Award Winner Kelly Price, ‘Too Fat for Fame’ will follow the lives of several individuals who are struggling to make their dreams come true in Hollywood. They are big on talent, big on drive and in the eyes of many… too BIG to make it in the world of entertainment.

Kelly Price may work behind the scenes on Too Fat for Fame, but she has shown her star-potential on screen as well, appearing on the reality show R&B Divas: LA.