Full of life, love, and the determination to be more than anyone’s side kick the super sweet southern belle had a few moments from her busy schedule to chat with me about her past, present and future ventures. Though things may have come to an end since the last time we saw Antonia Carter in the season two finale of The Tiny & Toya Show, she seems to not have skipped a beat becoming an entrepreneur, author and maybe even a rapper?
Parlé Magazine: Since the second season finale of Tiny & Toya I feel like I haven’t seen much of you, but I understand you’ve been busy landing another show. Can you tell us a bit more about it?
Toya Carter: Ok, It’s Called Toya Carter: Family Affair and it’s a spin off from Tiny & Toya based on my family and our upbringing. You know, we had a pretty rough upbringing with my dad being married and in his own life and my mother on drugs for so long, so you get to see a lot of anger and pain between us and us coming together and trying to build a better life for the future.
Parlé Magazine: I didn’t know it was a spin off that’s great to hear but what made you want to be a part of another show?
Toya Carter:It was really all the positive feedback we got from the fans, all the fans writing on twitter and face book and things like that made me want to keep it going.
Parlé Magazine: Cool, I understand that other than the show’s you’ve also been busy with other ventures. One being your new book Priceless Inspirations and the other a non-profit organization, can you tell us more about the book and how the concept came about?
Toya Carter: Well Priceless Inspirations was really based on my journal, as I said I had a rough childhood and really been through a lot and wrote about the things I went through in my journal as a way of expressing myself. One day I was just looking through it and reading over things and decided to turn it into a book. I named it Priceless Inspirations because my name Antonia means priceless and through a lot of the bad came good and its really very inspirational and hopefully can inspire others.
Parlé Magazine: Sounds like the definite must read, speaking of helping others, can you tell me a little more about the non-profit organization? What is your mission?
Toya Carter: I mean, it was really for disadvantaged young women, I wanted to help them to understand their self worth. With all the experiences I’ve had I just thought it was important for me to give back. Through the organization ‘Visual Beauty’ we sponsored a little girl to go to prom by taking care of her clothing, hair, make-up and we want to continue doing things like that. You know, I feel like I’m blessed and I want to help others.
Parlé Magazine: That’s great to hear, people giving back and helping others is always great. With that being said I noticed while watching your show you helps your family through a lot, mainly your mom and issues with siblings. Will the show be centered more around them?
Toya Carter:Yeah, it’s mainly about us growing and developing as a family and really trying to come together.
Parlé Magazine: Also on the show I saw that you may be building another family of your own. We all know that your currently engaged/dating A&R music exec MeMpHiTz, but what a lot of us don’t know is how you two met. How did the love birds hook up?
Toya Carter: (Laughs) I actually met Memphitz a couple years ago at the release party for T.I.’s second album and we exchanged info and became friends and overtime one thing led to another and here we are.
Parlé Magazine: And now that your going strong can we expect any future collaboration’s from the two of you? Perhaps children?
Toya Carter: (LOL) MAAAYBBEE??
Parlé Magazine: (LOL) Keeping with the trend of the show, I have one personal question. I saw you rap and after some research found out that you were featured on a song with Kandi and Rasheeda. Does this mean there’s another Carter entering the music industry?
Toya Carter: NO! (laughs), no disrespect to anyone, it’s just something that I’ve always wanted to try and Kandi and Rasheeda are friends of mine and after mentioning it to them we collaborating on a track but it was all in fun.
Parlé Magazine: (Laughs) Well I’m glad I had the chance to talk to you today and can’t wait to see more. By the way where can your fans catch you now a days?
Toya Carter: Well, they can catch me every Tuesday for the next 16 weeks at 9pm Central Standard Time (laughs) but I’ll also be starting my book tour in the next two months and will be traveling around the country.
Parlé Magazine: Great, can’t wait to see more or you and your family and lastly before you go you’ve already accomplished so much what with your clothing store GARB in New Orleans and becoming an author among other things, but what is something, a quote maybe that keeps you striving for more?
Toya Carter: It would have to be “Nothing beats a failure but a try.”
Parlé Magazine: I like that, if you don’t try how will you know? Thanks for chatting with me again I’ve enjoyed getting to know Toya Carter.
Toya Carter: Thank you I enjoyed it as well.
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