This Week in Drama: Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta, Pre-Review (plus) MeMpHiTz Radio Interview

With all of the drama over the past week, I just felt this need to do a “pre-review” ahead of tonight’s show. In the aftermath of the season 1 premiere of Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta, sex tapes, nude photos and a wave of “ratchetness” was unleashed via the Twitter and a boatload of gossip sites. It was the quintessential definition of a hot ass mess; which happens to be 100% representative of the show itself. (And, yes, I am still watching!) 

The day following the premiere, alone, we had K. Michelle and Karlie Redd tweefing; K. Michelle and MissJia tweefing; Joseline desperately scrambling to prove that she is, in fact, 100% female; and Mimi Faust volunteering to empower young girls via Saving Our Daughters. I mean, really?

This is Saving Our Daughter’s mission:

Saving Our Daughters creates the tools to get teen girls discussing key issues and fired up to take the power away from bullying, (cyber, gossip, face-to-face,…), date abuse, hate crimes, school violence, violence against women, and other esteem slayers.

There is not one woman on this show that I would have a young girl look up to. (ETA: I may change my mind about that after seeing Rasheeda’s introduction tonight, and Ariane seems OK so far – though she is not a main cast member.) Sure, Mimi is a great example of what NOT to do, but before she can go mentoring young women on self respect/esteem and valuing themselves, she needs to live that life. Since she has no recent history of living that life, she is not an appropriate role model. That is like someone saying, “You know who would be the best person to get someone off of crack? A current crackhead.”  NO! You don’t get a current crackhead, you get a recovered crackhead. You get someone who has lived a crack-free life for a considerable amount of time so that people can see that it is possible to get clean and live a productive life. Mimi can’t mentor young women about a damn thing because she herself is still one of those people suffering from “esteem slayers.” That goes to show that we have absolutely no clue of how to select our “heroes” these days. Just having a little fame is enough. I am rooting for Mimi to get her shit together, but she ain’t there yet and I would hate for some teenage girl to think that it is OK to hang around and let a man drag you through the mud for 15 years.

As far as Joseline, I am not even going to post links to all of that disgusting mess that came out about her over the last week. The video, where she is pulling an OctoMom and pleasuring herself, about made me vomit. I am just going to say that it is quite clear that that pussy has seen its fair share of dicks in its day and leave it at that. It’s also clear that she was born a woman. If you do want to see it, it’s just a Google search away. Enter at your own risk, and don’t watch on a full stomach.

This week the drama continued. Today, MempHitz went on Atlanta’s V103 to answer K. Michelle’s claims of abuse. I guess he could not remain quiet about it forever, not with his name being dragged through the mud. Besides, Toya encouraged him to speak out about it. The start of the interview, with V103’s Egypt, is light enough. He talks about how he and Toya went to Paris for their 1^st year anniversary and about the reality show he is looking to pitch, anywhere but BET. He used to be VP of A & R at Jive Records, but now he has his own company, Do Work Enterprises, and he’s breaking into the “kid world.” With that out of the way, he just wants to clear his name and let the world know who he is. Whatever people think afterward, is up to them. He just doesn’t want to be slandered so that someone else can prosper. That someone else, of course, being K. Michelle.

First, he explains how he met K. Michelle. He was speaking to someone in the hallway (I presume at Jive Records), and he turned around to see K. Michelle there. He thought she was very pretty and was taken aback by that. She noticed that he was wearing a chain with his area code on it, and she wanted to know why he was wearing it. Once she realized who he was, she insisted on singing for him – and, of course, he was blown away. He goes into some more of his background at Jive records; he had a recording deal, was VP, and was handling three or four artists. Being a young CEO, he thought he could blow them all up at once, and blah blah blah, stop filibustering. Eventually, Egypt stops him and asked if he and K. Michelle had a volatile relationship. He says the relationship was “cool” and goes into how their relationship was not even supposed to happen, that they dated for 6 months and that he was going around introducing her as his “little sister.” She asked him why he was introducing her as his sister.

Egypt stops him and asks again, “Was the relationship Volatile?”

MeMpHitz: “Volatile, as in violent?”

Egypt: “Yes”

MeMpHItz: “No!”

He says that he has held women from swinging to hit him, even in high school. (Sounds like has been in volatile relationships, but he is claiming it’s he who gets abused.) He says he has never hit a girl in his life, and he can’t even spank his daughter.

Egypt: “Did K. Michelle put her hands on you?”

MeMpHitz: “Yes.”

MeMpHitz: “I love girls a little too much. Even in times when girls hit me the only thing I’ve ever done was hold those arms down.”

He reveals a time that he had to call the cops on K. Michelle for trespassing. It was back when he and Toya first started their relationship and she was in his room, asleep. K. Michelle left before the cops got there.

MeMpHitz: “If you can find one other woman in the world that can say that I have ever put my hands on her, I’ll confess to everything.” (Does that even make sense?)

Egypt: “Why would she come out and say this?”

MeMpHitz: “I don’t know how the devil moves, I just know he moves in ways that humans will never understand. All praises to Jehovah.”

MeMpHitz reveals that there was a time that K. Michelle was in a abusive relationship. He said that she would tell him stories about how some guy used to, “fight her like a man” and that she was raped. He calls her “damaged” and said he fell into a relationship that she insisted upon being in. He said that she would embarrass him in meetings with important people with her screaming. He wishes K. Michelle all the blessings in the world, and hopes that she sells a million records, just don’t slander him to do it.

That was the gist of the interview. I quoted them the best that I could, real time, with no time to pause. I do type over 100 wpm, but still, it was tough! Anyway, what I took from this interview is that both he and K. Michelle sound convincing, so it’s difficult to tell which of the two is lying. One red flag, for me, is that MeMpHitz admits to being in violent relationships, but he makes himself the victim of the violence. Another is that he is making it seem as if K. Michelle strong-armed him into being in the relationship. He also seems to believe K. Michelle’s claims of abuse, when she told him about her past. If she would lie about you abusing her, why do you still believe that she was abused at some point? Maybe she is just a sociopath who has discovered a way to get people to feel sorry for her? And the ultimate question is – Why, if she is lying, are you not suing her for libel?

Here is a legal definition of libel:

Libel  1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander which is oral defamation. It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity (like a newspaper, magazine or political organization) open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie. Publication need only be to one person, but it must be a statement which claims to be fact, and is not clearly identified as an opinion. While it is sometimes said that the person making the libelous statement must have been intentional and malicious, actually it need only be obvious that the statement would do harm and is untrue. Proof of malice, however, does allow a party defamed to sue for “general damages” for damage to reputation, while an inadvertent libel limits the damages to actual harm (such as loss of business) called “special damages.” “Libel per se” involves statements so vicious that malice is assumed and does not require a proof of intent to get an award of general damages. (Continue reading.)

If I am a man, who is being accused of beating the piss out of a woman, AND I DIDN’T DO IT, I am suing on principle. Oh, that ho is going to court! Maybe he doesn’t want the legal fees. Maybe he doesn’t feel that it is worth it because you can’t prove a negative. I don’t know. In the end, I don’t think we will ever have some definitive answer on this one.

At the end of the interview, MeMpHiTz mentioned a recording that he wanted to play for us. He said it wasn’t his voice, or any other man, but they never played it. He said he wanted to let us hear it, and if people still did not believe him, there is nothing he can do about it. Egypt pretended as if he didn’t say any of that, and just thanked him for the interview. I imagine that they didn’t have time to see what the recording was, or how he got it, so they didn’t want to get into trouble by playing it. I hope he releases it at some point!

Well, that’s it for my pre-review. I will be back with my review for tonight’s episode later.