The Hip Hop community felt a break in its beat as the Confessions of a Video Vixen, a first major tell-all book from Karrine “Superhead” Steffans first released in 2005. The book provides insight into Steffans’ tortured past while outlining her escapades, trials and tribulations as a video girl in the overly-misogynistic and competitively materialistic world of commercial Hip Hop. A year later, the mother of Nas’s child and Jay-Z’s former lover, Carmen Bryan, released her own literary exhibition, It’s No Secret. Despite the negative and one-sided labels attached to both Steffans and Bryan, one fact remains: they have exposed the vulnerability, and inadequacy of some of the best of the best in industry while challenging the validity of their character and even, appeal. The books forced the media to take a look at the commercial aspects of the Hip Hop industry as it firmly stands in its comfortable nest of greed and misogyny. A year later, the eagle strikes again.

This time it comes by way of an intriguing Canadian whose resume includes the bullets of a writer, a video model (who can forget Snoop and Pharrell’s “Drop it Like it’s Hot?”), a real estate agent and a mother of a seven-year old son whom she shares with Canadian rapper Saukrates. Alana Wyatt-Smith, also known as “Mrs. Mos Def” in her recent memoir, Breaking the Code of Silence, describes various relationships she has had with NBA players (including Antawn Jamison and Jermaine O’Neal) as well as abuse allegations against her husband, rapper/actor Mos Def. The book expands to outline Mrs. Wyatt-Smith’s childhood and teen years including sexual and physical abuse, as well as objectified roles in which she was starring various leads including stripper and one night stand, as well as girlfriend and wife. HipHopDX catches up with Mrs. Mos Def to decipher her intentions for the book, the harsh double-standard in the entertainment industry and the night with the traveling man that led her to filing for divorce.

HipHopDX: Why did you write the book?
Alana Wyatt-Smith: It’s a message that I’m trying to send out – helping women in similar situations that choose to feel like by being with these men and hanging close to these men…it’s a matter of yourself feeling important for that split second that you tend to gravitate to these people. And I want to let these women know that the lifestyle of glitz and glamor is not what it’s cut out to be and that everything you’re looking for in these men you can find within yourself.

DX: “These men.” Who are you referring to?
AWS: NBA players, musicians. And I can only speak from personal experience in terms of men I’ve actually been with. And I have to say my husband being an artist, and my son’s father being an artist - at least those two in reference to musicians - but the rest, I’ve only really talked to NBA players.

DX: What made you gravitate toward entertainers in the first place?
AWS: I feel like it’s something – and I’ve learned this after soul searching and looking within myself – that a lot of it is because of low self-esteem. Coming from a situation where you don’t feel worthy and for just 15 minutes, by being on one of these players’ arms, you feel worthy, you feel like you’re noticed; you feel important. And this is what it used to do for me personally. And I know that [for] a lot of the girlfriends that I have in the circle that do the same thing, for them, it does the same thing. It’s almost like a drive; it’s an adrenalin rush to be chosen, to be hanging around these types of men.

DX: I’ve mention to a couple of my close friends who are rappers that we’re doing an interview, and their immediate response was “another Superhead”, which is a similar response many other people have after hearing about your book. You stated that your publication is different from Karrine Steffans’ and from Carmen Bryan’s – how?
AWS: A lot of names that are mentioned in their books are similar ones that are mentioned in mine but the difference between us is that I’m not whipping the sheets off of my high-profile affairs. The only reason that names in this book that are there are because this is a self-help book. It’s supposed to be a motivational book with some juicy gossip details. A lot of the purpose behind it that makes the difference is that out of respect first and foremost for these men and their wives and their children – I wouldn’t put their business out there and I wouldn’t want it to affect their families. Secondly, I don’t find [myself] even telling so much as my best friends about my sexual relations with even my boyfriend, whether he’s famous or not, so I don’t think that 30 million people need to know that. Again, it separates it because I’m not telling you what you want to hear, what you’re looking for. I’m telling you what I did – which Karrine and Carmen do to a certain extent – but I’m also telling you how I came out of that and how I was able to realize that that wasn’t a worthy lifestyle and it wasn’t permitting; especially being a mother, which we all our to children, myself, Karrine and Carmen, and they have their own opinions and I have my opinion firsthand. Continued on page 2 »