Fantasia Barrino covers Sister 2 Sister in their upcoming issue. Lovin’ the haircut! She speaks about her recent management change, her upcoming album, and about her recent surgery to remove a tumor.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview w/ S2S:

Jamie: How are you feeling, Mommy?
Fantasia: I’m doing good.

Jamie: How’s the baby?
Fantasia: It’s good. She [was] 7 on August 8.

Jamie: How is she 7? You’re only 10.
Fantasia: I know. That’s what I told her. [laughter]

Jamie: Well, you know what? I didn’t know you were a Cancer. I just had my birthday too, in June.
Fantasia:Well, happy birthday, baby.

Jamie:But I’m not like you, where I can have birthday parties all over the United States.
Fantasia: You should have just had your party with me. We could have this party together.

Jamie:Well, honey, I’ve been trying to get you since I saw you at Clive Davis’s party. What has gone on? What happened with 19 Entertain-ment? Let’s just get this straight because I know what they’re like.
Fantasia: Well, you know, I really don’t have anything bad to say about 19. Nineteen has been a blessing in my life since “American Idol” and, you know, taking me back up under their wings when I did branch out one time. All I can say is I’m young, J, and I’m restless and I’m ready to work. And when I feel like I’m not moving as much as I should and could be, then I have to make some changes so that we can keep the party going. … I think sometimes when people know that they’re not doing as much as they could be, or dropping the ball just slightly a little bit, then–they made the first move. So you know, I still thank God for them, I still feel like we have a tight relationship and Simon [Fuller] will always be like a father to me. But like I said, I’m young and I’m restless and I want to do so many things and I felt that I just had to make some changes so that I could do it, J.

Jamie: What are some of the things that you want to do that you haven’t been doing?
Fantasia: Oh, so many things. As you know, I did Color Purple for a year, and after the Color Purple I had to have a surgery. I had a tumor–he said it was a cyst, and before I went under the knife, he came out and told my mother–he said, “The joker was bigger than I thought it was … .” No talking, no singing, but after that six weeks I had so many things that I had so much time to sit and think and I had so many ideas. I’m a dreamer and I have a lot of ideas that come in my head 24/7. I want to go overseas–I have not been overseas yet. I wanted to do more movies. I was like, give me some scripts so that I can read [for] the movies. After playing Celie, I’ve seen that I can do so many different things, right, Jamie? I didn’t think that I could do the Color Purple.

Jamie: You don’t have any endorsements or anything like that?
Fantasia: No endorsements. I wasn’t getting any, but you know what? J, like I said, I’m going after it myself; and so all of that is going to start coming again.
Jamie: You are a helluva performer. That energy on that stage is just unbelievable. So we miss you with that. Now, getting back to the Color Purple. They were saying you had absences. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to work, but because your vocal cords kept shutting down or something? Tell me about that.
Fantasia: The tumor that was on my throat would make me very tired. And you know me, I’m a hard worker. I came out of the box working hard. I kept telling them that I’m getting very tired. It was like I couldn’t get enough sleep. And sometimes onstage, I could taste blood. I had braces on, so [I thought] maybe I’m biting my lip or I’m biting something in my gums or something. But I would taste blood every now and then. And what would happen was they would send me to the hospitals and they would say, “Well, she’s dehydrated; that’s what’s making her tired.” They would put IVs in me. But it just wasn’t enough. I kept saying, “I’m drinking water; it can’t be that, something else must be wrong.” And so after the Color Purple, after doing Clive Davis’s party, I had to do “I’m Here” that night and I remember waking up and I told my manager, I said, “Something is wrong. I’m so tired.” And I’m an Energizer bunny, so I know something ain’t right. I went to one of the best doctors in LA. He checked me out, he says, “Well, first of all, you have the flu and you have a sinus infection.” And he said, “But if you don’t mind, can I put a camera down your throat?” And so I let him look down my throat and I had a cyst, he said at first. He let me see it and I remember busting out crying and crying ’cause my vocal is my everything. I’ve been singing ever since I was a little baby and I’ve never experienced anything like that before. And in The Color Purple I play so many different ages from 14 to 30-something, so I was busting blood vessels. And so my mother came out and we all were just like, okay, we’re going to pray our way through this. I went into surgery and he came out and told my mother it was a tumor. It was a tumor.

Source: S2S