Rapper Foxy Brown spoke to MTV News last week an hour after being released from New York's Rikers Island, where she served eight months of her year-long sentence for probation violations.

The 29 year old MC was given three years probation after an attack on two Manhattan nail salon stylists in 2004 and jailed last September when she was accused of hitting a woman with a mobile phone.

Calling from a white Bentley, Foxy, aka Inga Marchand, told us: "Oh man, it feels effin' incredible... I have a whole newfound respect for my freedom.

Even though 76 days of her sentence was spent in solitary confinement, Foxy said that the hardest part of being in prison was overcoming perceptions about her, even her own: "While I was incarcerated It was just me. I had no nails on. It was just literally me in the flesh. I guess that was the hardest part, just even with Foxy trying to find Inga."

Brown said she was feeling positive and had learned from her mistakes "I feel really good about my growth, and I feel change is the essence of maturation," she said. "I feel that I went through an enormous change, and I'm really excited."

Her prison exit on Saturday was filmed by VH1 for a new reality TV show.

Initial reports by By Gil Kaufman