Angie Martinez: [Laughs] Miaaami. We lived there for three years.... Hold on for one second, I gotta get on the radio. One second....
AM [On the air]: All right, hotlines are open, takeover's on the way. This is Hot 97, New York's number one station, plays the hip-hop and R&B.
AM: Hello? [Laughs] Hey, sorry.
PB: Now, that's some multi-tasking.
AM: I do what I can.
PB: So, getting back to your wild-child days, what kind of stuff were you getting into that your mom took you down South?
AM: I was hanging out with some of what my mother would consider the wrong kind of kids. With no direction, no motivation. The school called and said, "We're about to expel her, because she's never here." I had been gettin' fake report cards so my mother had no idea. I would hang out in the lunchroom all day, or the handball courts.
PB: Were you any different in Miami?
AM: [Laughs] Not initially, no. But I went to night school and summer school, I made that whole year up and I actually graduated on time. Also, I got a part-time job at the radio station, Power 96. That's when I started to have that little thing in your eye, that glare. I thought maybe this would be something I could do. From there on, I just been a beast, an animal.
PB: Whose posters were on your walls back in those days?
AM: Oh, man, Run-DMC. Rakim. Even back then, Lisa Lisa was somebody that I liked. She was Puerto Rican, and I related to her somewhat. I was a little bit of a fan.
PB: Does it bother you to get lumped in as the next Jennifer Lopez?
AM: I'm not offended by it.... We are both Puerto Rican, we are both from New York, so you might see some similarities just cuz o' that. If there were 40 Puerto Rican girls from New York that were out there right now making music and were visible, then we probably wouldn't get compared.
PB: Did you get nervous to release an album, after being on the other side of the business for so long?
