Rapper Eve on ‘uphill’ struggle to success in late 90s, early 2000s

Eve, the late 90s and early 2000s rap superstar, opened up on the “fights” she had to go through in her career.

The 45-year-old music artist, who later expanded her career by becoming an actress and a media personality, opened up to Page Six on the hurdles she had to face on her way to fame.

“It was very much an uphill fight,” Eve shared with the outlet as she promoted her upcoming memoir, Who's That Girl?, titled after her 2001 hit single.

She further said, “Back then, you had to physically go out and build your audience [by] just going into these rooms, which were very male-dominated, completely male-dominated.”

The Grammy winner recalled, “I think because there weren’t as many female voices, and for us it was the old-school way of going out and having to build your audience one by one, show by show.”

Reflecting on “frustrating” it was getting “a lot of pushback when it came to the boardrooms and to the execs,” despite the support of her peers.

She particularly recalled one time of inconvenience from her 2001 Gwen Stefani collaboration Let Me Blow Ya Mind, from which she got her Grammy.

“I faced an obstacle because I wanted Gwen on that record, and I had a few people say, ‘That’s never gonna work. People are not going to believe this.’ And I was just like, ‘Believe what? We are two artists,’” she explained.

She added, “I was a fan of No Doubt, and we were also label-mates. So I was like, ‘Why can’t this work?’ So I got pushback on that, and thankfully I won that battle.”