Um… it’s worse. I watched it once, wondering “WTF is this?” and laughing at too few and far between highlights such as “Who’s gassin’ this hoe? BP” and “These bitches is my sons and I don’t want custody.” I watched it a second time to figure out if it was a satire that had gone over my head. I watched a third time only to realize that it wasn’t.

And it wasn’t just me, left staring blankly at the screen after the video had gone off. Over on Clutch, Thembi Ford was practically, well, clutching her pearls.

“[Nicki Minaj’s] new video, ‘Stupid Hoe’ is just straight up confusing and makes me think that she may have jumped her own shark,” Ford wrote. “Not only does the song itself sound like a more-vulgar version of her Big Sean collaboration ‘A$$’ — and I mean just like it — but watching the video kind of feels like torture — I mean the Clockwork Orange, Guantanamo Bay kind.”

Sigh.

I’m not even mad Nick spent an entire track dissing Kim. Hova knows the Queen Bee has been buzzing enough to have it coming. It’s how Nick does it that is softly killing me. “Stupid Hoe” isn’t Nicki spitting like she has something to prove the way she did on say “Monster” or her tag-team with Eminem, “Roman’s Revenge.” This is just plain… stupid.Start with the title, move on to the petty grade school jabs about “nappy headed hoes” (word to Don Imus,) then circle back around to that has-been allusion to Jennifer Aniston, the one Kanye used four albums ago and so much better on “Gone.” Don’t get me started on the caged-bird gyrating and my bafflement at the singing.  Then of course, there’s the big Barbie-pink elephant in the room— Nicki making a diss song about how wack Kim is while completely jacking her image (admittedly, with a little Missy thrown in for effect) for her entire career, from start to present. If you call someone a “stupid hoe” and make a profession doing your best imitation of that person, what does that make you?

I’ll wait…

As I learned writing 500 word essays about things I claimed not to care about only for readers to comment, “Uh… Obviously you do if you took the time to write alla dat”, I need Nicks to know that you can’t spend time in the studio making this diss-track and fool anyone into thinking Kim’s the only stupid one. Nicki needs more people and way less Technicolor.

Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

From UPTOWN

The lie, of course, is a short-term convenience, a tool some women are using to avoid acknowledging bad communication in their friendships. Those women also aren’t thinking of long-term consequences of avoiding the truth. (And I only say women because most of the women seeking advice on friendships are women. As such, I can’t speak for the guys on this one.)

I find when people want to lie, what they’re really saying is that they practiced bad communication, and now don’t want to deal with the compounded problems of doing so.  Most often, the woman who agreed to do something and changed her mind usually didn’t want to do it to begin with, but agreed anyway maybe to avoid disappointing a friend. But the lie up front leads to a bigger problem and a bigger disappointment from the now also angry friend, who’s ticked off because she was relying on you. It would have been better for everyone just to be honest from the start.

If you haven’t been honest, tell your friend as soon as you decide not to go along with the game plan. From the perspective of the friend who’s been lied to, and now inconvenienced, there’s nothing more annoying than someone waiting until the last minute to pull out, screw up your plans and be left scrambling for a Plan B.

(Continue reading at UPTOWN…)

Recently I attended a ritzy awards show for a women’s organization. I was speaking to a friend about something or another when she suddenly grabbed my arm, cutting the conversation short.

“Look around!” she instructed. “What do you see?”

I looked. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I looked back at her like she was crazy.

“There are no lace fronts!” she exclaimed, “That’s how you know it’s a classy event.”

If you wear a lace front wig–full wigs with mesh lace attached in front and beyond the “hair line” of the wig–which is temporarily glued to ones skin around the hair line, you probably don’t care that I, and many other people (there are Facebook page dedicated to hating on them) can’t stand them. It’s a disdain unreserved for weaves, even the worst ones. And the reason is that on the vast majority of people, like 99.9%, they look awful.

I blame Beyoncé and her mother for their popularity among the masses. (RuPaul wore them for years, even as the face of beauty for MAC and it never caught on.) Somehow women believe they can channel Bey’s flowing, track free locs on a budget, and the sad fact of the matter is, no, no, no you can’t. Bey pays great money for her wig crypt (and even she’s had some glue errors). With lace fronts that cost less and are applied by anyone other than her top-notch hair team, you can immediately tell the difference, even with other celebs who seemingly can afford the good stuff.

Take for instance Jennifer Hudson, who was vilified by viewers when she showed up at the Academy Awards last year. Instead of focusing on the Versace dress that highlighted her newly svelte curves and amazing complexion, all anyone could talk about was her hair, particularly that the glue on her lace front wig didn’t match her skin tone and her hair line was an unnatural, Steve Harvey sharp. Ciara, Lil’ Kim and Trina are also repeat offenders of this phenomenon.As bad as most lace front wearers look in their wigs, I’m petrified for what the future holds. Models Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks have also been longtime lace front aficionados, and I fear that is what has caused the damage to their hairlines, even with the best beauty teams good money can buy –outside of Beyoncé’s– managing their hair.

Several pictures of a now-weaved Naomi Campbell have popped up online in the last year, and they show severe alopecia. I mean our girl has just patches of hair and is mostly bald around the edges. Recent pictures of Tyra Banks revealed a thinning hairline where she’d gelled her remaining hair down in attempt to camouflage it. Gossip site Media Takeout evilly referred to it as a “comb over.”

I also shudder to think about what some women who wear lace fronts look like right now. Vibe Vixen once ran a story “Lace Wigs 101” which featured helpful tips to make your lace front look believable from Tiffany Chanel Luxury Hair. She described how she was “floored” when her customers asked, “how much of my edges do I need to shave off to wear a lace wig?” Turns out, people were allowing people their stylists to cut off their own natural hairlines so that they wouldn’t extend beyond the wig.

“If your hairdresser asks to shave your hair, immediately find a new hairdresser,” Tiffany bluntly advised.

I say this with love for my Sisters: for whatever reason you’ve decided on a lace front wig— fashion, convenience, to hide your hair or to avoid the trouble of doing your own actual locs daily— I implore you to find another method to have the look, texture or style you desire. Don’t do it for me! Do it for your hairline, and oh, so people can actually focus on you, not that horrid hair.

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

I don’t refer to women as “hoes.” It’s crass, judgmental and rude, and too, it’s a term solely created to police women’s sexual experiences while men’s sexual adventures are encouraged as part of the personal development. But “hoes be winning” was a popular catchphrase in 2011, fueled by the come-up of unliked reality stars who garnered rocks, video vixens who got red carpet shine next to ballers and a specific genre of single woman who was bitter and needed any excuse to tear down another woman who had what she didn’t.  Consider my use of “hoes” as necessary for today’s conversation, perhaps the equivalent of an adding “a ‘m*****f***er’ so you ig’nant n****s hear me.”  (Cue Lauryn)

The initial question was actually asked by a commenter on NecoleBitchie.com in response to a story that Drake had spent New Year’s Eve, not with video model Dollicia Bryan. Earlier in the week, her team released a press statement announcing that she and Drake were an item. “Yes, Drake and Dollicia are dating,” said the rep. “They’re both in L.A. right now spending the holidays together.” It seemed believable enough, as Drake recently tweeted a picture of Dollicia at Saddle Ranch restaurant in L.A.

But then Saturday night came, and Drake appeared on Carson Daly’s NYE countdown show, attempting to keep warm with his ex, Zineb “Nebby” Samir.  Maybe you’ve heard of Nebby. Drake appeared on Toronto’s FLOW 93.5 and declared she was the inspiration beyond his first hit single “Best I Ever Had.” More recently, he name-dropped her on “‘Look What You’ve Done” where he raps, ‘It’s like ’09 in your basement and I’m in love with Nebby / And I still love her but it fell through because I wasn’t ready.‘

Drake’s dating track record is worse than Joe Budden and Kanye combined, but there he was, aired before, literally, one billion viewers, bunned up with the girl who was there before he was at the top of game but still in the game. (He was on Degrassi: The Next Generation at the time they dated.)

Sean “Diddy” Combs sharing New Year’s with his ex, Kim Porter (also mother to three of his children), seemed to offer hope to long suffering women with “history” as well. The pair hosted a Ciroc party in Miami for New Year’s Eve, which meant Combs was away from his upgrade of interest, Cassie (or, er Cameron Diaz, depending on reports), and beside his ex.

Between Drake’s seeming return to a good girl, a pretty ex without a public history of attention-seeking or alleged gold-digging, and Diddy’s choice to spend NYE with one of his children’s mothers, some women got hopeful that maybe 2012 could be the year some guys smarten up and finally realize what a good thing they had.

Or has, in the case of LeBron James or Jim Jones. James put a ring on the finger of his high school sweetheart Savannah Brinson, who stood by him for decade and birthed his two children. Just after the stroke of midnight, he dropped to one knee in the middle of a New Year’s celebration at Miami Beach’s Shelborne hotel. And on this week’s episode of Love & Hip-Hop, Jones proposed to Chrissy Lampkin, his girlfriend of seven years.

With all the high profile men spending time with or recognizing “the real thing”, have the tables turned? Are the women so many don’t call “hoes” going to win in 2012?

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

It feels somehow wrong to write about Ariana Proehl. She’s the creator of a YouTube video calling for the “Death of the Tragic, Scientifically Less Attractive, Unmarriageable, Single Black Woman Narrative” in 2012. Proehl, like many Black women who have sat through a slew of monthly trend pieces, news segments and blog posts analyzing our alleged miserable dating lives and the multitude of causes (always attributed to our generalized disposition, basic expectation and the overall lacking of Black men) wants all the fuss to finally come to a full stop.

“Deading it, it’s done, it’s over,” Proehl says in the video. “So after 2011 I don’t want to read any more articles. I don’t even want to read any more well researched, intelligent thoughtful responses. It’s a waste of our brain trust that has better issues to be attending to and has real issues that need to be solving.”

Sorry, but I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t give Proehl—and the others who champion single Black women– some shine for positivity and truth-telling when I’ve always responded, and by unfortunate proxy, spread the fear-mongering negative news. Proehl might not agree, but what the conversation about single Black women needs more than anything in 2012, isn’t the moratorium she calls for, more like more conversations to undo the damage by giving sensible souls a voice. Maybe just maybe that will combat the idea that their sum total of a Black woman rests on whether a man puts a ring on it, and if she can call her partner, if she has one, her “huszzzband.”

The tragic Black single woman narrative is the deceased horse that seemingly everyone loves to beat. And it’s been effective. I hear traces of panic and fear from many of the clients I work with as a life coach, from the dating and relationship questions I answer on Formspring to casual conversations where women I barely know pull me aside and say with more than a hint of panic and a full cup of shame about being single, “Can you help me meet someone?” The damage has been done, and calling for a moratorium on the issue as a whole won’t clean up the BP-sized spill.

Forgive me for adding to the Single Black Woman Archive of Stories, but I feel compelled to because the affirming, positive stories like Proehl’s don’t get told often enough up on the mountain. When Psychology Today releases a story “verifying” that Black women were less attractive, or when Tyrese adds his two cents about Black women being “too independent,” or author Rick Banks publishes “Is Marriage for White People?”, I can’t go to Facebook or Twitter or e-newspaper or e-mail without hearing about it 50-11 times.

But when researchers from Howard and Morehouse put forth a joint study, as they did in August, declaring that 75% of Black women have been married at least once by 40, or that, despite all the seeming e-complaining from Black men about Black women, more than four out of five marry a Black woman, or that the more educated a Black woman is, the more likely she is to walk down the aisle—essentially deading the idea that we lose bonus points, or men en masse are intimidated by Black women’s education and subsequent income—I don’t hear much chatter. When Angela Stanley, a researcher at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University declares, “This culturally popular notion that 70 percent of black women don’t marry is just a myth,” in an op-ed piece for The New York Times, as she did earlier this month, I don’t get mass e-forwards on BBM and e-mail asking, “Have you seen this?” And I don’t hear and read mainstream media stumbling over themselves to report on it the way they do for, say, a man who releases a video of cartoons mocking Black women’s dating expectations.

If only good news traveled as fast as the bad. That video with the cartoons, created by a long-time married man, went viral with upwards of a million views. Proehl challenges viewers to “think of what it would mean if the Black woman was truly empowered in our society. That would mean we would have addressed issues of race, and issues of gender discrimination in our society, and tied into that issues of class and potentially advance conversations about issue of homophobia.” As I type, YouTube says her video… (drumroll, please) has 2,061 views. That’s worth shooting the Sherriff and the Deputy.

As a fan of Proehl’s video and a cheerleader for her cause, I apologize for adding one more story to the (longest ever) list. It’s still 2011, so maybe this can get read without incurring her—and your–wrath.

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

From UPTOWN

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Valenti explains, “The purity myth is the lie that women’s sexuality has some bearing on who we are and how good we are, because really I think we all know that young women are so much more than whether or not they have sex. We really should be teaching our daughters that their ability to be good people should be based on their intelligence, on their compassion, their kindness, not what they do with their bodies.”

Adds Valenti in the film, “women are still led to believe that our moral compass lies in between our legs, literally.”

It’s unfathomable to me that in 2011, the idea of a “pure” woman still abounds in some places even if its subtext forcefully runs through so-called liberal social interactions. Outside of religious circles, a non-married women having sex is generally accepted after a certain age, and yet women continue to be judged on their sexual experience as a primary factor to determine her worth.

Think of the last time a guy asked you “how many people have you had sex with?” As the question assumes you’ve had sex, the answer can’t be used to determine the likely results of your HIV status, whether your STI-negative, or whether you participated in a 10-person gangbang the day before. But the answer is heavily factored by many men in determining whether you are girlfriend, wifey or wife material. Again, your worth and “goodness” are stripped down to the most basic level of how you manage your lady parts.

(Continue reading at UPTOWN…)

Much like a girl-boy crush, which girls you crush on can actually tell you a bit about your own personality. “Whoever your girl crush is, it’s probably a result of somehow feeling connected to the star’s personality and values,” Dr. Helen Fisher, PhD, a biological anthropologist and author of the new book Why Him? Why Her? said in a Cosmo interview about girl crushes.

Having a girl crush also tells something else about you. There’s a certain type of woman who can see a fabulous fly woman and lift her up, instead of tear her down. If you’ve got a crush, you’re the type that bypasses buying into the negativity that is often associated with women’s social interactions (thanks Wives’ franchises). Girls who crush on girls offer a positive expression for how we ladies, really–no, seriously–actually do get along.

A girl crush comes as a great antidote to all the madness, a small, bright reminder that all women aren’t insecure, catty and crazy. Yes, there are those of us left who see a woman who seemingly has it all, or at least something we like, and instead of tearing her down, we raise her a little higher, and use her as inspiration to be a little better, sexier, more confident, whatever it is about our crush that gives a grown woman the giggles.My girl crush(es)? Start with Amber Rose. It’s her… Gosh, I hate to use this word, but it’s the only one that sums it up properly: swag. She’s got an intrinsic I-am-who-I-am confidence that makes her gym-run, clad in spandex and kicks, look like she’s on a European runway in haute couture. And she’s got an unbridled sex appeal, obvious when she’s wearing one of her curve-hugging, cat suit getups, and also when she’s in flared pants and a turtleneck.

I also have a thing for Tracee Ellis Ross. Her fashion, hair game, and shape are bonkers, of course, but my awe comes from the way she walks around like she’s got ever-present theme music, probably something like Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way” on a loop in her head. She’s also incredibly random. Who rocks Jordans and a Birkin bag? Tracee! That’s who! Ever seen her on the mic at an awards show? She’s in front of a room full of people, millions of viewers watching, and she’s just chilling in ball gown, effortlessly cracking jokes and dropping one-liners like it’s her and a bathroom mirror. Loves it!
Yesterday on Twitter and Facebook, I asked female readers to spill on their own girl crushes and the responses poured in. Apparently, ya’ll have a lot of love to give! Many ladies gushed over Tracee and Amber too, and a good chunk of women have it bad for Rihanna. ”I love her style and that witty/candid mouth of hers when she does interviews,” one of you said. ”I also love the random places she gets her tattoos on her body.”

As expected, Beyonce made several lists. “She is the epitome of all things beautiful,” another commenter boasted. “Her grace, talent, beauty, simplicity in nature & humility is something to admire.”

Sanaa Lathan (“Laid back, cool, and beautiful”), Zoe Saldana (“She’s funny, she can dance and kick your butt”) Jill Scott (“Gorgeous, talented, down to earth”), Angela Bassett (“Simplistic elegance”) and Scarlett Johansson (“Hot white girl. Exudes sex”), Condoleeza Rice (“Ballsy and plain fierce”), Kelly Rowland, (Impeccable style and sweet spirit”), and finally, Kerry Washington (“Poised, classic”) also got a lot of much-deserved love.
I’m feeling the love, ladies! Share some more! Who’s your girl crush?
Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk

From VIBE

Though the drug charges were dropped, T.I. served 11 months in prison for violating his parole. T.I. told VIBE that his wife taking the fall was never an option.

“I’ma tell you, 50 Cent and anybody else, we not gonna have no discussion about what my ole lady shoulda, woulda, coulda done for anything as it pertains to me,” said TI, whose new reality show Family Hustle featuring his wife and six children debuts next week. “I’m the only one in my family that’s gonna take a lick when it pertains to the legal system.”

He added, “A person that stands behind his woman for a criminal charge is a coward anyway.”

T.I. stood firm in his stance, even when VIBE pushed, insisting that Tiny was unlikely to serve time. “She wasn’t gonna catch it period, ’cause I’m there,” he said. “That wasn’t even a consideration. Even if she asked me to I would’ve been like, “Nah, you trippin’.”

He continued, “That’s a discussion between me and another man. Not with the mother of my children. Not with the nurturer of my household.”

Media outlets scrambled to hear what 50 would say in response—cause everyone knew he wasn’t going to say something— but they were overlooking the most important aspect of the interview: TI had just kicked the long upheld idea of being a ride or-die chick off her pedestal. Frankly, it was about a damn time.

(Continue reading at VIBE…)

Has it come to this?

Booty injections have gone from the strip club to every club. This bootleg beauty enhancement is no longer the domain of working girls and video chicks, but the accessory of “regular” girls who sneak off to seedy hotel rooms for “pumping parties” to have unlicensed medical parishioners inject illegal substances into their ass. You can spot their purchased rumps plain as day, either because none of them are able to resist going supersize, adding padding that never believably fits their frame, or because of their misshapen posteriors. There’s a news story every month about a batch of women who landed in some emergency room because they had construction-grade silicone, cement or some other horrible substance put in them that’s left them disfigured with life-threatening injuries.

Just last week, I read a story about a Miami woman who paid $700 for booty injections because she needed a curvier figure to get a job at a nightclub. The ‘doctor’, who has since been arrested, botched the job, inserting “Fix-a-Flat”–a concoction of cement, mineral oil and Super Glue–into her backside. The result? Pneumonia-like symptoms that left large infected welts on her backside.

The stories about how women get fake tush are pretty common, so this one stood out to me for another reason: The picture of the “doc.” How can I describe her? Picture say an upper body like Jennifer Hudson now, and a lower body like J-Hud pre-Weight Watchers (and that’s not a slight at Jenny, just comparison of how odd the combination would look together.) Now take the pre-weight loss hips, and make them lopsided. See how crazy that sounds, it looks even stranger and not in a “Damn, baby got back!!” kind of way, more like a “What the hell did she do to herself?” I’m amazed that women saw this was the affect of the product the “doctor” was selling and assumed the position to get injected anyway. Are some women that desperate for a big butt?

I know “ass, ass, ass, ass, ass, ass” (thanks Big Sean) is all the rage, but really, bigger doesn’t always translate to better. If women insist on pumping their butts, I’m going to need the ladies to apply the same rule we should all be using for hair weaves: blend. Just like the texture of the hair you buy should match your roots, the size of the tush you add should look like your thighs can feasibly support it. Your artificial tush should look like it’s somewhat possible you were born with it, not like it was slapped on like Mr. Potato-head’s nose. Fool some of the people some of the time, and maybe when you raise your hands in the club to claim the booty you bought as “yours,” no one will be able to tell the difference.

Demetria L. Lucas is the author of “A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life” (Atria) in stores now. Follow her on Twitter @abelleinbk