Despite her current custody battle with Usher, Tameka Raymond seems to be keeping it moving.  As a single mom, she cares for her kids Usher V (aka Cinco), 4, and Naviyd, 3, and Ryan 12, and Kile, 10, (children with her first husband, music exec Ryan Glover) and her oldest, Darrin, 21, while running two businesses: Estella, a clothing and home-decor boutique in Roswell, Ga., and KangaZoom, an indoor children’s play facility in Alpharetta, Ga.  And she’s a well-known stylist, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Institute of Atlanta.

In a new interview with UPTOWN Mag, Tameka reveals a softer side. Here are the highlights:

On hard work:

“I was taught to work.  Ironically, my father’s mother and my aunt were also retailers, and I worked at both places from about age 7. I learned tons about fashion and how to make money all by age 10.”

On her custody battle with Usher:

“He is a man very accustomed to having his way.  This has nothing to do with how I parent. Trust me, I never will have a desire to keep a man away from his kids. I am not June Cleaver or head of the PTA, but I know I am a good mother.”

On love:

“I am dating.  It’s refreshing. I have not been single in a while. I got divorced and married in the same year. It was a run-on relationship.  But a lot of guys like to play games. I like a man that’s a boss. I am not the dominant one. But a lot of the ones with the right mind-set wear OshKosh overalls. And if they are not fly, I don’t like them.”

On introducing dates to her kids:

“I don’t bring men around my children. They have never met an ‘Uncle Tony.’ The two that I did bring around, I married.”

On her accomplishments:

“Being raised in Oakland, and having been able to see and enjoy five of seven continents, and working in such a highly competitive field, makes me very proud.  “I never imagined some of these things to be obtainable. And my sons teach me the meaning of true, unbiased love.”