Come May, you should be able to walk into a bookstore and pick up a Mr. Marcus book. St. Martins Press, the publishing house, clearly was enamored with the man who has had sex on camera for a living for more than a decade. For pay, at that.
Within Hip Hop, of course, Mr. Marcus is known for other exploits. Namely, his scenes with author and pseudo-celebrity Karrine Steffans – back when she was an adult newcomer, Honey – were watched widely and even repackaged and resold on DVD.
As a porn star, Mr. Marcus’ identity is often pigeonholed to what he does on camera. The truth is, however, that he has a deeply spiritual personality, reads a lot, and he is also a shrewd observer of both pop and Hip Hop culture.
In this recent conversation with HipHopDX for our third annual Porn Week, Mr. Marcus returns to discusses his book, 2Pac bring Rap and porn together, and the recession.
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HipHopDX: What’s the status on your upcoming book?
Mr. Marcus: The book is done. I’ve had some issues with the illustrations. At first, they wanted me to do these photos and I was all down to do them, but to be honest with you, the Superhead book [Confessions of A Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans] came out, right? She got a lot of attention because of the illustrations. The [readers] were discussing those illustrations because the illustrations were explicit. I went to my publisher and I said, “Yo, why don’t we do illustrations for this book?” They loved the idea. To find the right artist, it was a headache. When we did find the right artist, the guy wanted way too much money and he was being really difficult. But we finally got somebody now. As far as the illustrations, they look pretty good. But now they’re saying the [illustrations] are too explicit. [Laughs] Now we gotta go back in there and change them, water it down a little bit.
DX: Interesting. So St. Martin’s is the publisher, but is the name of the book going to change?
Mr. Marcus: The Porn Star’s Guide To High Performance Sex by Mr. Marcus.
DX: So it’s a manual in some ways, like the Kama Sutra?
Mr. Marcus: Yeah…but I don’t think there’s ever been one written by a brother. Really, like a credible one. I don’t want to stereotype, but the only ones I’ve seen when I’ve gone to the bookstore are written by doctors or by women. Luckily, I talk in really down-to-earth terms, from “blowjobs” to “three-ways” to what your woman might be thinkin’, know what I mean? [This is] shit that I’ve seen over the past fuckin’ 15 years in porn, where I try it out in the street – out in the real world and it’s techniques and shit that I’ve done, or seen done in the industry that can work for people outside the business as well. If they really want to put it down and have really great sex off-camera, this book is gonna be the way to do that.
DX: Let’s talk about about books for a second. You’re an avid reader, which is not something that people would typically associate with a porn star. What are some of your favorites or more recent reads?
Mr. Marcus: You know what I just finished reading? The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. That was pretty good. It talks about how our history, our legacy, our family history, our environment plays a part in our success. Things that become repetitious. The big thing in there is that 25,000 hours is what it takes to be considered a professional, or an expert at something. So I was reading the book and I was thinking, “Shit, I think I’ve got about 25,000 hours of fuckin’ in, at least.” It adds up after a while. If I had to apply that type of thinking to what I was doing, you look at Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, all the cats that spend a large amount of time doing one specific thing, over and over again, yeah. That’s what I got out of it. I like biographies [and autobiographies]. Sidney Poitier’s The Measure Of A Man, I liked that. That was pretty good. I read about Virgin Airlines [founder] Richard Branson. He describes how he became more of a free spirit. I read a book about P. Diddy, but it wasn’t written by him, it was written about him. It wasn’t well-written, but it gave you a little insight. It was biased; I don’t like anything that’s written with a slant. I don’t want anyone’s opinions coming out in the book, I just want the facts.
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DX: Were you always a reader, or did the habit increase when you started making money?
Mr. Marcus: Nah, I was always a reader. You know, I just read the newspaper yesterday, and I hadn’t read the newspaper in a while, ’cause I read everything online. Reading the newspaper, it was [sighing], every single story I found interesting. Even if they were world news – which a lot of us skip over – it grabbed my attention. The world at large. The theory is that these stories help you apply things to your life, your story, your environment. But yeah, I’ve always been a reader since I was a kid. Newspapers, that’s where it started.
DX: Given the recession, how is the state of the adult industry, given how things have been?
Mr. Marcus: I walked into a video store the other day. There’s just so much shit; I can’t put myself in the head of a consumer, only can I assume that they’re still consuming it. [Laughs] What they’re consuming is porn, but how they’re getting it has probably changed – the method. Buying a DVD and watching it is changing. Mainstream movies have the luxury of a theatrical run, which really covers the cost of the production and they make their money back. By the time it goes to DVD, that’s cream. That’s extra, bonus money. If they’re not in the black by the time it goes to DVD, they [soon] will be. To contrast that, with porn, it’s a commodity that doesn’t have the luxury of running in a theater, it’s like music. It’s really tangible, easy to move around. And you don’t need to watch an entire porn movie to get out of it what you’re watching it for. But a movie, the dialogue, the characters, you’re forced to sit there for an hour and a half, two hours. You have a vested interest in the storytelling. It’s an investment of your time and your money. With porn, it’s just an investment of your time. The minute your time [is up], you don’t need as much anymore. It doesn’t mean they make entire porn movies, now they just make it so you can watch bits and pieces. It’s mix-and-match now. The people that are gonna survive and are surviving in the industry, create niche porn. They create porn that just caters to that short attention span. You go onto a website, they give you a clip. It’s the YouTube factor. I was trying to figure out what’s the amount of time people will spend on a clip? Seven-to-eight minutes at a minimum. With porn, most clips run eight-to-12 minutes. A full clip is 20-to-23 minutes; I guarantee you mothafuckas ain’t gonna watch it all unless it’s interesting from the first minute to the last. DVD sales dropped considerably because people are going on the Internet and just watching the scenes that they want to see. People are getting a lot more specific about what they do want to watch. I know I am. If you give me 30 girls, I’ma pick out five that I want to see, and I’m gonna click on those five.
DX: The first time we met was at the Too Short show at Blue Moon. Can you shed some light on the complicated relationship that porn and Hip Hop has or does have?
Mr. Marcus: I think the [relation] always began with 2Pac. A lot of people don’t know that, but he was the first guy to approach [the] adult [industry], openly. He went to Ron Hightower and did the video to “How Do U Want It,” which is by far a classic. And he put in Nina Hartley and Heather Hunter. I went to that set; I was working with Ron Hightower a lot at that time. I think, for me, that was the first time I saw that. Ron Hightower, he had The Geto Boys hangin’ out at his house. He did his music video for 2Pac. A lot of the east coast rappers, when they came to town, they would hang out with Ron. They knew that Ron shot black porn, and would have girls there. That was the first time I saw the marriage of the two. It didn’t dawn on me. I was just like, “Wow, we’re cool enough to where these guys want to hang with us?”
The guy who really opened the door was Snoop [Dogg]. When he did Doggystyle [the film], the only person who’d [done Rap and done porn] was DJ Yella. DJ Yella was a little hesitant; he didn’t want nobody to know he was shooting porn. As soon as fuckin’ Snoop got success and had that porn out, everybody wanted to do it. I’m lucky enough to the point where I have three songs with my name in it. I have two songs where my name is [in] the hook. Two! One of my songs is with T-Pain. I feel like it’s happened. It was happening a few years ago – Vh1 [did a special]. It’s always been there. The thing that’s really gonna set it off is one of us rappers, porn stars are gonna make a song together that’s gonna be in the Top 40. [Laughs]
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DX: People hate on Brian Pumper, but he has the Urban Spice thing…
Mr. Marcus: I like Brian and shit, but I don’t think he can rap. I just think he’s gonna go for whatever’s gonna work. Whatever’s gonna put money in his pocket. He’s gonna hustle; he’s got that New York mentality. I got this, I’m gonna do that. There’s a lot of rappers in porn, but don’t get it twisted; there’s some dope rappers. There’s Wesley Pipes. There’s a cat from Chicago, John E. Depth. They’re good. I think it’s just a matter of fuckin’ time.
