Trinidad Valentin is an interesting woman. She has been a model who gained fame thanks to her daughter. Usually, models made their families famous. In this case, her daughter’s career and fame helped Trinidad in her modeling career.
The former model and actress gained huge fame thanks to the success of her daughter, American rapper Saweetie. Nowadays, Trinidad works in music videos, web series, and TV shows.
Her young daughter is a young, talented singer that resonates well with the youthful generation. How much do we know about her mother? Let’s take a look.
Story Stages
Who is her famous daughter?
Before we go to Trinidad, we have to talk about the famous American rapper. Born Diamonte Quiava Valentine Harper in July 1993, she will turn 30 in July 2023. Known professionally as Saweetie, which pronounces “sweetie”, she is an American rapper.
She began her career by releasing her debut single Icy Girl in 2017. After that, she was signed with Max Gousse’s record label Artistry Worldwide, which is a subsidiary of Warner Records.
Born in Santa Clara, California, she is of mixed heritage. Her mother Trinidad, a video vixen, is of Filipino and Chinese heritage, while her father Johnny Harper is an African American.
Diamonte Harper grew up in Sacramento and attended Merrill F. West High School in Tracy. From there, she got her graduation from Monterey Trail High School in Elk Grove.
Saweetie knew she wanted a career in the music industry from a young age. She began writing music at the age of 13. Following her high school graduation, the young girl attended San Diego State University studying communications and business. Yet, she completed her degree at the University of Southern California.
But after graduation, she wanted to focus on her rap career. She began posting short raps on her Instagram page as early as 2012. She was 19 years at the time. One music video featured her rapping over the beat from Khia, a fellow female rapper. That rapping, over My Neck My Back from Khia, eventually became Icy Girl.
The song was initially released on SoundCloud in the summer of 2017. It caught the attention of Max Gousse, a producer and executive in the music industry. He contacted her and became her manager. The video of Icy Girl went viral online, accumulating more than 100 million views.
In the summer of 2017, she also released her freestyle rap, High Maintenance. It featured a short clip of herself rapping a verse to the song. Again, it went viral on Instagram and Twitter.
In February 2018, she was featured in an ad for Rihanna’s company, Fenty Beauty. And then, Saweetie signed with Artistry Worldwide, a subsidiary of Waner Records.
Speaking about it, the young woman said, “I do a lot of covers but this is the first time I am actually doing original content. I leave the studio and I come home wanting to listen to really myself”.
She also launched her own record label, Icy Records. In March 2018, she released her major label debut EP, High Maintenance. It contained nine tracks.
In March 2019, she released her second major label EP album, Icy. The first single, titled My Type, contains a sample of the 2004 song Freek-a-Leek. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at Number 81.
Thanks to her successful music career, Saweetie has ventured into other businesses as well. For example, in September 2019, she collaborated with Pretty Little Thing and launched a 59-piece clothing collection.
According to the female rapper, the theme was “a boujie rich girl enjoying the finer things in life”. She said, “I want to show the boys and girls that if you hustle hard your work will pay off”.
In June 2020, she released the lead single Tap In from the upcoming debut album Pretty Bitch Music. The song peaked at Number 38. That same year, Forbes included her on the 30 Under 30 list.
In March 2021, she also launched her jewelry line, further expanding her business ventures. The next month, she released her extended play Pretty Summer Playlist.
Here is a fun fact. She is the first cousin once-removed of actress Gabrielle Union. And another interesting fact. In one interview, she mentioned she can speak Tagalog, an Austronesian ethnic language spoken by typical Filipinos. Her mother was against that.
Quick Bio
Now let’s talk about Trinidad Valentin, an American music model and mother of the famous rapper Saweetie. She gave birth to the famous musician at the age of 17 and raised her with the help of her extended family.
Born in 1976, Trinidad belongs to Chinese-Filipino descent. She was born into a family with six other siblings. That extended family helped her raise Saweetie when she became a mother at the age of 17.
Her father, Willie Harper, was a former linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers and an American football player. Her nationality is American, yet, she has a Chinese-Filipino ethnicity.
After giving birth to her daughter at the age of 17, she was forced to work various jobs and long hours to provide for her child. She also had to keep the news of her early pregnancy a secret. At the time, Trinidad was working as a model, and nobody wants a pregnant teenage model.
In a 2020 episode of The Icy Life, Saweetie shed light on her mother’s profession. She said her mother was an online model and appeared in music videos like Ride With Me by Nelly and What These Bit*hes Want by DMX.
After her daughter became a rap star in the United States, Trinidad got even more popular. But in Hollywood, that is a normal situation.
Trinidad is an introvert and rarely has contact with other people. In the 1990s, she found success in acting, and that work paid the bills.
In the 1990s, she found a partner in the famous football player Johnny Harper. The love marriage lasts to this day. In July 1993, Trinidad gave birth to their first child, their daughter Saweetie. While she got married at an early age, Valentin managed to make it.
Because she was only 17 when she gave birth, her parents, or Saweetie’s grandparents, helped her in raising her child. Trinidad’s career at the time was a rollercoaster. She wasn’t able to give much time to her daughter, and now she is trying to make up for it.
Her husband Johnny played football for the San Jose State when he was young. His father also played football, for the San Francisco 49ers. Johnny, same as Trinidad, has always been supportive of his daughter’s career.
Johnny even accompanied Saweetie on the red carpet for the 2021 BET Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Trinidad has two more daughters, Maya and Milan. But Saweetie is the most famous member of the family.
Is she on social media?
The entire family is active on social media. For example, Trinidad has an Instagram account under the name “trini_travels”. She has more than 20k followers and often posts pictures of her traveling around the world. Besides traveling, Trinidad posts about books, friends, and family. Her profile is private. So she only accepts requests from people she knows.
Her daughters Maya and Milan also have profiles on social media. Maya has around 15k followers on Instagram, while Milan has close to 6,500 followers.
Yet, as we said before, Saweetie is the most popular member of the family. The female rapper has more than 13 million followers on her Instagram profile.
Net worth
When Trinidad gave birth to Saweetie, she had to work different jobs to put food on the table. She was a Vixen video model and actress. But now, her daughter is the one that provides for the family.
There is no information on the net worth of Trinidad. Yet, her female rapper daughter has a net worth of more than $4 million.
