http://perezhilton.com/2008-06-27-tubbs-is-that-you
swiped from perezhilton.com
Monday, June 30, 2008
Hey LAdy! We don't believe YOu, You need more people!!!
KISS AND TELL
Scenes from a hip-hop marriage
RICK MADONIK / TORONTO STAR
Canadian Alana Wyatt-Smith wrote about her three-day courtship and subsequent marriage to hip-hop artist and actor Mos Def in 2005.
Mississauga former stripper dishes about stormy relationship with rapper/actor Mos Def
Jun 29, 2008 04:30 AM
ASHANTE INFANTRY
POP & JAZZ CRITIC
While kiss-and-tell books have been a staple of rock ’n’roll, it’s early days for the genre in hip hop. Bestowed with the industry nickname Superhead, former music video performer and Virgin Islands native Karrine Steffans got the ball rolling in 2005 with her New York Times bestseller Confessions of a Video Vixen which explicitly detailed dalliances with entertainers, such as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jay-Z and Dr. Dre.
New Yorker Carmen Bryan followed with 2006’s It’s No Secret, which outlined her relationship with her daughter’s father, rapper Nas, whom she two-timed for five years with his rival Jay-Z, and on occasion with basketball star Allan Iverson.
Now a Canadian woman in getting in on the action.
One-time stripper Alana Wyatt-Smith, 29, who has a 7-year-old son with Toronto hip-hop artist Saukrates, has penned Breaking the Code of Silence, a memoir examining her 2005 marriage to American MC-turned-actor-Mos Def, three days after they met, as well as encounters with various professional athletes and celebs.
She also recounts a rough-and-tumble upbringing that included childhood sexual abuse by a relative and being beaten into a coma by a violent boyfriend as a teenager.
Wyatt-Smith would prefer to distance her book from that of Steffans and Bryan, insisting that it’s not an exposé, because she disguises the identities of the bulk of her lovers. (Another key difference is that the Americans’ books were released by reputable publishing houses and consequently don’t suffer the errors in spelling, grammar and coherency that plague her self-published narrative).
“I disagree with putting names of people in there, just out of respect for their wives and children,” said Wyatt-Smith in an interview. “If this was about making money, getting rich, I could have wrote a tell-all book, 10 times better than Karrine Steffens. People want to know about the biggest names in the NBA, who proposed to who, and did what, and this and that; I could have put some stuff in there that would have made it a No. 1 seller within days. I use nicknames, initials, that myself and the gentleman would know; the ones named I got permission from.”
Except, of course, for the biggest fish, Mos Def, legally named Dante Smith. The Star tried unsuccessfully to reach the 34-year-old Brooklyn native for comment through his record label, booking agent and entertainment lawyer.
Highly rated for his socio-political stance and distinctively mumbling flow, Mos Def, who will be in town on the Rock the Bells tour next month, also fronts a hip-hop-jazz big band which played Carnegie Hall last night and is a burgeoning actor who appeared in acclaimed films such as Monster’s Ball and Be Kind Rewind.
In her book, Wyatt-Smith, a Grade 7 dropout who previously supported herself as an exotic dancer, model and video music performer (Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot),” recalls their first public outing, two days after they met in Toronto:
“He had asked me if I would attend a MuchMusic performance featuring Kanye West. Now, that was a little awkward because a year prior I had met Kanye in Vegas and we had a moment! NOT SEXUAL! I REPEAT, KANYE WEST and I NEVER have had sexual relations,” she emphasises in the book. She adds: “Much to my surprise, Mos introduced me as his wife.”
The next day, August 17, 2005, the pair were married at Toronto City Hall. In the wedding photos included in the book they look happy and sober.
“There were stories that we may have been on drugs when we go married.....it was true honest love at first sight; although it took me a while to get to know him, and I think it was more in his heart than it was in mine. I kind of went along with it.”
Within six weeks, the couple had attended Fashion Week in New York, the MTV Video Music Awards in Miami, purchased a $850,000 house in Caledon — and separated.
She said she filed for divorce in October following what she claimed was a loud argument that got out of control while they were in Brazil, where Mos Def was filming a movie.
“I don’t believe that his intent was to hurt me, I believe that he was trying to prove a point,” she said. “But I had shared and cried with him many nights about my past (abusive) situation and I asked of him not to do that, because it brings back memories; so I found it to be more disrespectful, because he knew what I had been through.”
Wyatt-Smith said she didn’t press charges because she didn’t “want to cause problems” in the hopes that his outburst was “a first and last.”
She said there were several attempts at reconciliation, but that Mos Def, who has six children with four different women, has a demanding though not abusive demeanour that she found difficult to abide. They have not been together since October 2006, but despite a $115,000 financial settlement are not officially divorced.
“He won’t sign the papers,” she said. “He told my lawyer if he can’t have me, nobody else will.”
On the afternoon the Star visited Wyatt-Smith’s mod Mississauga condo, she’s wearing her wedding rings, but gushing about a current boyfriend who in a few weeks will be history.
“To keep the guys away, honestly,” she demurred on the subject of the flashy diamond. She’s sweet and chatty, but just as contradictory on the subject of her, well, husband: on one hand blaming their incompatibility on her inability to be submissive; on the other expressing a desire to reconcile — “Since Mos, I have yet to experience being loved.”
Toronto-born of Italian and Jamaican parentage, Wyatt-Smith reveals a hard knocks start that found her on her own at 13 and sucked into a fast lifestyle for survival. She said she supports herself now with “odd jobs here and there, hosting,” but is taking a writing course in hope of reinventing herself as an author and journalist. She also fancies herself a motivational speaker with a story she believes is tailor-made for Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks and her holy grail — Dr. Phil, despite Internet naysayers who brand her a gold-digger.
“You have the girl out there that’s 35, 36, still carrying around the fact that her uncle molested her when she was 7 years old and hasn’t told nobody. That is a horrible thing to walk around with, I’ve done it.
“Then there’s the woman out there who doesn’t know the difference between `Is he my lover? Is he my pimp?;’ I’ve been there. Or, `I’m dating this NBA player, he flies me to 13 cities straight out of 82 games, I think he’s in love with me, but does he really like me?’ No, I’ve done it. And `Oh, my gosh! I thought he really liked me, we built this huge chemistry up until he came here, then he never called me after we slept together;’ I’ve been there. I saw death; I wound up on a hospital bed for three months because of my first boyfriend.
“If you have a question, I can answer it,” she insists.
“Even sitting around a jail or shelter with abused women, that’s the thrill I’m going to get from this book. I’ve never been a Louis Vuitton shopper type. I’m not fancy, I’m not expensive. In fact, I’ve never owned a Louis Vuitton bag.”
swiped from the star.com
Scenes from a hip-hop marriage
RICK MADONIK / TORONTO STAR
Canadian Alana Wyatt-Smith wrote about her three-day courtship and subsequent marriage to hip-hop artist and actor Mos Def in 2005.
Mississauga former stripper dishes about stormy relationship with rapper/actor Mos Def
Jun 29, 2008 04:30 AM
ASHANTE INFANTRY
POP & JAZZ CRITIC
While kiss-and-tell books have been a staple of rock ’n’roll, it’s early days for the genre in hip hop. Bestowed with the industry nickname Superhead, former music video performer and Virgin Islands native Karrine Steffans got the ball rolling in 2005 with her New York Times bestseller Confessions of a Video Vixen which explicitly detailed dalliances with entertainers, such as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jay-Z and Dr. Dre.
New Yorker Carmen Bryan followed with 2006’s It’s No Secret, which outlined her relationship with her daughter’s father, rapper Nas, whom she two-timed for five years with his rival Jay-Z, and on occasion with basketball star Allan Iverson.
Now a Canadian woman in getting in on the action.
One-time stripper Alana Wyatt-Smith, 29, who has a 7-year-old son with Toronto hip-hop artist Saukrates, has penned Breaking the Code of Silence, a memoir examining her 2005 marriage to American MC-turned-actor-Mos Def, three days after they met, as well as encounters with various professional athletes and celebs.
She also recounts a rough-and-tumble upbringing that included childhood sexual abuse by a relative and being beaten into a coma by a violent boyfriend as a teenager.
Wyatt-Smith would prefer to distance her book from that of Steffans and Bryan, insisting that it’s not an exposé, because she disguises the identities of the bulk of her lovers. (Another key difference is that the Americans’ books were released by reputable publishing houses and consequently don’t suffer the errors in spelling, grammar and coherency that plague her self-published narrative).
“I disagree with putting names of people in there, just out of respect for their wives and children,” said Wyatt-Smith in an interview. “If this was about making money, getting rich, I could have wrote a tell-all book, 10 times better than Karrine Steffens. People want to know about the biggest names in the NBA, who proposed to who, and did what, and this and that; I could have put some stuff in there that would have made it a No. 1 seller within days. I use nicknames, initials, that myself and the gentleman would know; the ones named I got permission from.”
Except, of course, for the biggest fish, Mos Def, legally named Dante Smith. The Star tried unsuccessfully to reach the 34-year-old Brooklyn native for comment through his record label, booking agent and entertainment lawyer.
Highly rated for his socio-political stance and distinctively mumbling flow, Mos Def, who will be in town on the Rock the Bells tour next month, also fronts a hip-hop-jazz big band which played Carnegie Hall last night and is a burgeoning actor who appeared in acclaimed films such as Monster’s Ball and Be Kind Rewind.
In her book, Wyatt-Smith, a Grade 7 dropout who previously supported herself as an exotic dancer, model and video music performer (Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot),” recalls their first public outing, two days after they met in Toronto:
“He had asked me if I would attend a MuchMusic performance featuring Kanye West. Now, that was a little awkward because a year prior I had met Kanye in Vegas and we had a moment! NOT SEXUAL! I REPEAT, KANYE WEST and I NEVER have had sexual relations,” she emphasises in the book. She adds: “Much to my surprise, Mos introduced me as his wife.”
The next day, August 17, 2005, the pair were married at Toronto City Hall. In the wedding photos included in the book they look happy and sober.
“There were stories that we may have been on drugs when we go married.....it was true honest love at first sight; although it took me a while to get to know him, and I think it was more in his heart than it was in mine. I kind of went along with it.”
Within six weeks, the couple had attended Fashion Week in New York, the MTV Video Music Awards in Miami, purchased a $850,000 house in Caledon — and separated.
She said she filed for divorce in October following what she claimed was a loud argument that got out of control while they were in Brazil, where Mos Def was filming a movie.
“I don’t believe that his intent was to hurt me, I believe that he was trying to prove a point,” she said. “But I had shared and cried with him many nights about my past (abusive) situation and I asked of him not to do that, because it brings back memories; so I found it to be more disrespectful, because he knew what I had been through.”
Wyatt-Smith said she didn’t press charges because she didn’t “want to cause problems” in the hopes that his outburst was “a first and last.”
She said there were several attempts at reconciliation, but that Mos Def, who has six children with four different women, has a demanding though not abusive demeanour that she found difficult to abide. They have not been together since October 2006, but despite a $115,000 financial settlement are not officially divorced.
“He won’t sign the papers,” she said. “He told my lawyer if he can’t have me, nobody else will.”
On the afternoon the Star visited Wyatt-Smith’s mod Mississauga condo, she’s wearing her wedding rings, but gushing about a current boyfriend who in a few weeks will be history.
“To keep the guys away, honestly,” she demurred on the subject of the flashy diamond. She’s sweet and chatty, but just as contradictory on the subject of her, well, husband: on one hand blaming their incompatibility on her inability to be submissive; on the other expressing a desire to reconcile — “Since Mos, I have yet to experience being loved.”
Toronto-born of Italian and Jamaican parentage, Wyatt-Smith reveals a hard knocks start that found her on her own at 13 and sucked into a fast lifestyle for survival. She said she supports herself now with “odd jobs here and there, hosting,” but is taking a writing course in hope of reinventing herself as an author and journalist. She also fancies herself a motivational speaker with a story she believes is tailor-made for Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks and her holy grail — Dr. Phil, despite Internet naysayers who brand her a gold-digger.
“You have the girl out there that’s 35, 36, still carrying around the fact that her uncle molested her when she was 7 years old and hasn’t told nobody. That is a horrible thing to walk around with, I’ve done it.
“Then there’s the woman out there who doesn’t know the difference between `Is he my lover? Is he my pimp?;’ I’ve been there. Or, `I’m dating this NBA player, he flies me to 13 cities straight out of 82 games, I think he’s in love with me, but does he really like me?’ No, I’ve done it. And `Oh, my gosh! I thought he really liked me, we built this huge chemistry up until he came here, then he never called me after we slept together;’ I’ve been there. I saw death; I wound up on a hospital bed for three months because of my first boyfriend.
“If you have a question, I can answer it,” she insists.
“Even sitting around a jail or shelter with abused women, that’s the thrill I’m going to get from this book. I’ve never been a Louis Vuitton shopper type. I’m not fancy, I’m not expensive. In fact, I’ve never owned a Louis Vuitton bag.”
swiped from the star.com
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Introducing The PistolCam
In today’s post-Sean Bell society, somebody needs to keep a close eye on where these trigger-happy officers are firing. Some New York cops seem to have recently found a solution in the PistolCam, a gadget that records video of your gun’s point of view.
With one of these bad boys mounted on the barrel, we’ll have clear evidence of what really happened in those controversial few moments when the bullets start flying. The camera, which can record up to an hour of MPEG4 audio and video, is automatically turned on when the gun is removed from its holster. The company claims that video documentation exonerates police officers in 93% of cases where they’re accused of brutality. Now we just have to keep an eye on that remaining 7% to make sure they don’t “lose” the tape. Watch some PistolCam footage after the jump.
swiped from www.complex.com
Dee Says: Hmmmm?
With one of these bad boys mounted on the barrel, we’ll have clear evidence of what really happened in those controversial few moments when the bullets start flying. The camera, which can record up to an hour of MPEG4 audio and video, is automatically turned on when the gun is removed from its holster. The company claims that video documentation exonerates police officers in 93% of cases where they’re accused of brutality. Now we just have to keep an eye on that remaining 7% to make sure they don’t “lose” the tape. Watch some PistolCam footage after the jump.
swiped from www.complex.com
Dee Says: Hmmmm?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
J Davey Is Kicking Ass And Taking Names...
Dee Says: I have a major internet crush on the guy Mel.().
A Brother's Point of View
This show seeks to have an engaging, educational and entertaining discussion of all things that intersect with our lives. Our discussion is frank, impassioned and truthful. No topic will go unexplored. Politics, culture, religion, entertainment, media and relationships will all be fair game for our hosts! And all topics will be discussed, from A Brother's Point of View. We're bringing the barbershop, to the world wide web! **Wednesday nights at 9:00pm***
Check it out
Check it out
Cutie of the Day!!! Trey Songz
Dee Says: The New Shy Boy #1(smiling thinking of Edgar)He looks 10 years younger with new doo? I loveeeee it!!
How Bout You?
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Po Baby!
Dee Says: feeling more and more secure about her stuff already.Dee also Says: Damnnnn, sonnnn! Gives new meaning to the phrase"get your wig pushed back".
A Says: You are too funny for that one D!
A Says: You are too funny for that one D!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Guess Who's Being Modest?
Dee Says: My new favorite tee shirt!! pic swiped from theybf.com
A Says: Chris Brown is a grown ass man these days!
Do you know what June 19th is?
Dee says: A, which juneteenth festival are you hitting up this weekend?
I'll probably stay local. sad face cause I know oakland and the city is both crackin'!
389 Years
On Tuesday, June 3, 2008 Barack Obama became the Presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party running for the Presidency of the United States of America. 389 years earlier, the first slaves arrived on these shores. Congratulations Mr. Obama, and America for reaching this historic moment.This event marks a milestone that many thought would never come. The implications of which many others will ignore, or deny even exist. But just because you say it isn't so, doesn't mean it isn't so. We are moving into a new era... An era of equality. Equality not just concerning race, but concerning gender, and monitory status as well. History will remember this day as the beginning of our journey towards creating a world without hate, and without war. A world united against hunger, and poverty. A world committed to standing together to save this planet from ourselves. This is the day that we, America, stops saying to the rest of the world, "Respect us because we say so, because we are better than you.", but instead declare, "Respect us because we are a part of you. You are a part of us. Because we are, once again, leading the way in the quest for what is best in all of us. Respect us, because we respect you."
This is a moment in time that demands that we take pause, and ponder it's meaning. But, this is not Barack Obama's moment. It is our moment - America's moment - The world's moment. We must seize this moment, and proudly forge onward, together, into a future filled with freedom, and hope for all people.
The Dallas Cowboys cut 5 players yesterday. One of which was Justin Phinisee who was a featured player on HBO's Hard Knocks last year with Kansas City. Check out the article
A says: "Being cut this early gives the players time to get signed with another team, on the other hand the Dallas Cowboys can kick rocks!"
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Original Showtime...
Dee Says: Let's Go Lakers!!!! 2009
A Says: Hi short shorts (w/ a wink and a gun)
Milk in My Coffee pt. 2
dee says:
not hating, just saying
http://www.aroundthewaygirls.net/
exhibit A: they chose these gals to be with them...
not hating, just saying
http://www.aroundthewaygirls.net/
exhibit A: they chose these gals to be with them...
Dee Says: Yeah A, I like that swim suit joint... too bad you'll have to peel it off seeing as how it is leather and all yikes!!!!!!
p.s. to answer your question from "milk in my coffee" post, yes black men are excluding black women (on purpose) when choosing mates... Remember friend we tell the truth round these parts!!
p.s. to answer your question from "milk in my coffee" post, yes black men are excluding black women (on purpose) when choosing mates... Remember friend we tell the truth round these parts!!
Leather in the Summer
I LOVE this bathing suite by Monif C! What you think D? Is Puerto Rico ready for me in this? LOL.
If there are any "Country Thick" women out there looking for fly clothes check out Monif C. Plus Sizes
Oh yeah...Go Lakers!
Milk in my Coffee
Interracial couples have been a topic for years. Esp. in CA where it has been a social norm for years. At times I could care less when my uncles, cousins and friends date and marry Asian, Latin and white women. It is almost expected. While other times it honestly turns my stomach. Mind you heaven forbid I come home with a guy who is not from the diaspora (we can touch upon this on a later post). Now, I know that at the root of being a human being we are sexual animals. People will be attracted to someone no matter their race or culture. Some call it being open minded, some sell outs, others true love. I like to say true love and hope that black men are not purposely excluding their own women.
I think everyone has a picture of what will make them happy. For many it is a strong relationship with God, good education, great job, spouse, kids and home ownership. For many years within the Black community insert black spouse (LOL). There are a thousand reasons why this was/is so. One reason would be the understanding that only a person of the same race can provide. LOL. Imagine if James Evans from Good Times came home to lean on Suzy Smith for support instead of Flo? When did we become so open minded as a community/country that it seems that there are more interracial relationships than same race relationships. (Fact: the majority of Black men are married to black women- where that happens I don't know).
This led me to a small experiment. Name as many alive and seemingly happy public black on black marriages. I'll start ( to keep this Lakers Related, LOL, Kobe is not on the list)...
- Denzel Washington and Pauletta
- Obama and Michelle
- UrshMeka
- Mariah and Nick Cannon
- Nas and Kelis
- Colin and Alma Powell
- Samuel Jackson & Latanya Richardson
- Grant Hill & Tamia
- Rev. Run & Justine Simmons
- Will & Jada Pinkett Smith
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
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