The truth is, in case your television isn’t programmed to remind you to look at any episode of a reality television series, either current or past—your culture card has now been revoked. Seriously, girl, where have you ever been for those who haven’t been glued to the television following each storyline from the entrepreneur extraordinaires and media mavens themselves, Mona Scott-Young, Yandy Smith and reality TV newcomer, Cristyl Kimbrough.

With over a decade in each reality TV game on and off-camera as profession women, Mona, Yandy and Cristyl had much wisdom to share while speaking through the ESSENCE E-Suite experience on the 2022 ESSENCE Festival of Culture shared the actual of reality television and the way the “show” business expands from behind the screen and into partnering with major brands and constructing businesses, all while taking personas and remodeling them into budding stars.

“As a producer, it’s at all times essential for me once I’m talking to talent coming into the [Love & Hip Hop] show that I say to them, know what you wish out of this, since it’s an exchange,” Mona said. “There’s the great and bad of doing reality television, as everyone knows, but I do imagine wholeheartedly that for those who are you clear in what you wish out of it, and you might be clear about what you might be willing to exchange with the audience for that ability to attach with them, there is no such thing as a platform like reality television for constructing your brand, for exposure to an audience and for reference to an audience.”

Cristyl, who’s an actual estate attorney with own firm and currently stars on OWN’s Ladies Who List: Atlanta, says she learned quickly that being authentic by specializing in your skilled goals while navigating the truth space is the one technique to go for her.

“I definitely was not in search of anything within the entertainment industry. Reality TV found me,” she said. “And, once you give attention to yourself and also you feed and nurture yourself, your light will shine. So, that’s what happened with me and my castmates. “I walked into it knowing that this needed to feed into my business, because my dream isn’t to turn into an actress. My dream is to still be the highest real estate attorney employing individuals who appear like me and also you. So, I needed to be careful about what I portrayed and what I didn’t.”

Similarly, Yandy says she had her eyes on the larger prize from the very starting. Relatively than joining the truth TV circuit with the goal of fame like many, she was determined to make use of the platform to do three things: show young hard-working women that they might reach the Hip Hop industry with no need a person to validate their qualifications, grow her then newly-minted EGL lifestyle brand, and generate additional streams of income.

“I feel at first, the goal was for us to point out a lady that got her stripes on her own within the space of Hip Hop and music. Not because she’s connected to a person, not because her man did this or because she’s a component of a gaggle led by men,” she said. “I understand business, I used to be a business major and I grew up within the projects so, I at all times desired to get a bit of little bit of money because I didn’t need to return to the projects. So, what I assumed was, coming on this show, this a industrial. So whatever it’s that I even have to sell besides who I’m and the brand that I’m going to create, I would like a product. Week one I used to be like, ‘Y’all need to shoot me? Okay, cool, I even have a jewellery line.’ My very first scene was me showing my jewelry line. I used to be very clear th,at, if I’m going to return on this show, it’s not because I need to be a famous star. My trajectory at first was, I need to make use of this to catapult my profession and make cash.”

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Try the video above to listen to the conversation in full. For more of every part you missed on the 2022 ESSENCE Festival of Culture, visit our official video content hub HERE.