Trey Songz sits down with Smokey D. Fontaine in this exclusive interview for TheUrbanDaily.com & GIANTLife.com and says he “loves a lot of women,” having a girlfriend is “bad for the brand,” and “I’ll make a million invented sexes!”

Trey Songz Previews Passion, Pain & Pleasure Exclusively On MySpace Music!

Also see:

Trey Songz Top 9 Freakiest/Sexiest Moments

Trey Songz’ Top Shirtless Moments

Trey Songz The Inventor of Sex Picture Gallery

And more COVER STORIES  exclusive interviews:

Sexy actress Paula Patton “Men Need To Be Tamed”

Amazing Alicia Keys “I Am Sooooo Happy Right Now”

Supermodel Sessilee Lopez all greased up…

It was fun. Fun to hear his growls at the beginning of records and to mimic the way he slurred some of the words in his rhyme. I loved watching him play the playa role in a ridiculously huge suit and enjoyed dancing all night to his tracks with women who loved his “Big Poppa” steelo. And when he rose out of bed, naked and unashamed, roaring down the phone in all of his 300-pound glory in the “Warning” clip, I knew that for now and always, Big was a star.

In February 1997, a few weeks before his death, I was assigned to do a feature for Trace magazine on the life and times of Biggie Smalls. I was determined to write a piece that kept clear of what I saw as the bullshit controversy surrounding his life: the drug busts and criminal charges, the hoopla around Lil’ Kim, the break-up with his wife Faith, and of course the conflict with Tupac Shakur.

I wanted to see what was behind all that, concentrate on the music, and explore some of the peculiar dilemmas that the nineties have held for African-Americans. See, for many of our young folk, Big was a hero. A hero because he gave expression to the thoughts and feelings of those who have never been heard. Biggie, as the best hip hop artists do, narrated as artistic fantasy what for so many, is a cultural reality. And that is essentially, the nature and purpose of the art form.

Like the blues, jazz and the best of African-American art, hip hop is one person’s expression of self that is representative of some part of ourselves. Big was Brooklyn’s finest, the brotha who dedicated his album to “all the teachers that told me I’d never amount to nothing…and the niggas in the struggle.” And he was a real person.

I remember the first night I spent with him, his peeps and I laughed for hours about his exploits on the road. Stories of Luke, Shaq, and rolling with R. Kelly had us in tears about as much as the numerous sex tales of groupies along the way. But there was no pretentiousness, no over-confidence, no cocky mask to hide any deep-seated insecurity. Big let you love him or leave him alone. And it was hard to do the latter because as he said so often: “To know me is to love me.”

“Dolly My Baby (Remix)”

But those who have the least, have to sing the loudest. So it was no surprise that Chris Wallace, former hustler, former dealer, former survivor, frequently expressed in his music the anger and frustration inherent in a life from the ‘hood. And the materialism. For over the past two decades, the most significant shift in the culture of African-Americans has been that we have fallen victim to the individualism and greed that have always defined the larger American society.

James Baldwin once asked in his classic discussion of the Civil Rights Movement, The Fire Next Time, “Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?” Without ever answering, black folks find ourselves today within that burning house, robbing and stealing and “going for mine” either on Wall Street in a Ralph Lauren three-button suit or on the streets of Brooklyn in a Korean-made Polo sweatshirt. Biggie wasn’t ashamed about being in hip hop for the money. And why should he be? Goldman Sachs makes no apologies. Everything we learn and are taught by America tells us to go for the paper because with money there is success and happiness. Don’t try to improve your community or change the ghetto, just buy your way out. By any means necessary. And Big did that through hip hop.

A generation ago, Chris Wallace wouldn’t have had a chance to make “tremendous cream.” There wouldn’t have been a space for a “Notorious B.I.G.” or a “Biggie Smalls” or a “Puff Daddy.” And a generation ago, our parents feared we would be killed by someone in a white sheet, not someone that looks like us. So where are we now? And who’s to blame?

“Juicy”

Do we blame rappers themselves for often talking about the worst of their environments or the media industries for promoting and selling unhealthy words and images? Do we blame the parents who are not around to teach and guide their children or the kids who don’t take responsibility for their own actions? Do we blame an indifferent white government or ineffective black leadership? Or shouldn’t we just blame ourselves as a collective?

If I asked my former students, twelve and thirteen year-olds living in inner-city Baltimore, how many of them had seen or known someone who had been killed, every hand would go up. And so the drive-by murder of Biggie Smalls becomes not an anomaly, but a part of the macabre reality we call black life.

Hip hop is the primary way we are all socialized. In the absence of a strong family unit, the church, or any reliable systems of education, young people learn how to talk to each other, treat each other, and feel about themselves and their world using the rhymes they listen to every day.

The tragedy about the death of B.I.G. is here was a young brotha struggling to figure himself out. Life After Death represented for him a new beginning. A path away from a life he knew to be self-destructive, but one which until recently, he was unable to escape. That is not to say his second album is free of the pathos that made him so Ready to Die, but there is a growth there. A progression he would have continued in his music, a journey that so many young people could have learned from.

“Warning”

Big wanted to be alive, to laugh and cry and act out the lessons he had learned from his past. He also wanted to love. Love his children, his fam, and his moms. Mrs. Wallace was all over Ready to Die. She was an object of stress and bitterness, but also a symbol of strength and survival. Big spoke of her in his rhymes more than any other rapper I know–except of course, Tupac.

Many will point out that Biggie and Tupac’s deaths are more examples of life imitating art. But aren’t we all on stage? Murder is often the leading cause of death for young black men and most of us do very little about it. Can that be a reality? It seems that we have become increasingly unable to differentiate between fantasy and what is real. And for that reason, our art is our life.

Hip hop is our dominant culture, and it’s the way we learn how to live. Kids act like the stars they see in their favorite videos, and find a rhyme for the situations that confront them every day. That power of the art form surprises even many of those who wield it. It’s what makes hip hop so compelling, but aren’t we allowing ourselves to be entertained by our own tragedy?

Tupac, in his martyrdom, became a cultural hero. Biggie will be the same. Tupac asked brothas to die for him…Big found new life. But ultimately, the music couldn’t save either of them.

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The juice features the “gossip worthy” and “juicy” conversations between Andre and some of his closest celebrity friends such as Mekhi Phifer, Robin Thicke, LisaRaye and of course, Diddy. More than  just “real talk” sessions, the juice offers the raw and unfiltered opinions on some of the controversial topics in the music industry and society today . Stay tuned as there is much more to come …

A playlist for when you are truly V.I.P Status. They ain’t ready!

Andre handpicks some of his favorite songs and artists from his early rap days at Motown during the 1990’s.

The history behind the man and mogul Mr. Andre O Harrell.

Andre Harrell is the Black Man Genius with Style, the Originator of Ghetto Fabulous, and the Style Keeper of Uptown Swag. Mr. Harrell, the trailblazing Hip Hop Entrepreneur, has brought to you and discovered the infectious sounds of some of the biggest names in Music. From the ‘Big and Sexy’ persona of Heavy D. to the New Jack Swing sounds of the Male R&B group Guy, Mr. Harrell is responsible for architecting the careers of many forward-thinking black artists. His skillful sense of talent evaluation gave rise to the original the R&B bad boy band of the 90’s, the platinum-selling super group Jodeci. Andre Harrell’s keen entrepreneurial instincts debuted to the world the incomparable soulful sounds of one Ms. Mary J. Blige. Andre Harrell’s flair for attracting excellent executive-level leadership gave a young flashy A&R his start in the music business, someone named Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“He’s a curator of flavor. He understands swag and flavor! Dre is my musical soul mate,” says the Mogul Mentee Sean “Diddy” Combs. Andre Harrell’s flavor reshaped the music industry in the early 90’s scoring a number of chart-topping hits with a more ‘Hip Hop Soul’ sound. From the heart throbbing sexy crooning of Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams to the hip hop smooth sounds of Father MC, Mr. Harrell undoubtedly has an eye for people, talent, and executives. This was once again the case with the 2002 discovery of a White Chubby kid from Bel Air that sang and admired the sultry sounds of Marvin Gaye, one Robin Thicke. Andre Harrell is a lifestyle entertainment entrepreneur, “I use things I see in different trends whether it be Rock N Roll, Punk Rock, Hollywood, Ghetto Fabulous, or Country Hip… I blend it all together to make a New America.”

Born Andre O’Neal Harrell to a supermarket foreman and a nurse’s aide, Harrell grew up in the housing projects of the Bronx, New York. He teamed up with high-school buddy, Alonzo Brown to form the successful rap duo, Dr. Jekyll (Harrell) and Mr. Hyde (Brown). The rap duo Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde enjoyed three top 20 hits: “Genius Rap,” “Fast Life,” and “AM/FM.” In 1983, Harrell met Russell Simmons, the founder of Rush Management, a company that launched the careers of cutting-edge black “street” artists like Run DMC, LL Cool J, and Whodini. Harrell quickly gained a reputation as having a “golden finger on the pulse of what’s hot in the music industry.

In 1986, he left Rush Management to launch Uptown Records, a company that would fill the void in urban black music by holding it to a higher standard. Harrell drew upon his early experiences of surfing the uptown Harlem club scene and felt he could bridge the gap between “street” and middle to upper class. Harrell demonstrated a strategic ability to package and market young black singers that he was offered a seven-year, $50 million deal to produce multimedia projects with MCA Music Entertainment Group and Universal Pictures–an astounding deal rivaled only by those offered to megastars Michael Jackson and Madonna. The nearly unprecedented arrangement opened up Harrell’s creative vistas to include film and television projects like “New York Undercover” and major motion films like “Honey” and “Strictly Business”.

In 1995 Harrell became the new president and CEO of the renowned first completely black-owned record company, Motown Records. Harrell’s new responsibilities were overseeing all of Motown’s operations: marketing, publishing, creative development, and sales for all of Motown’s music labels and other business interests such as film and television, animations, video production, and multi media productions. Harrell may not have been ready for the particular challenges of running a mega company, such as the legendary Motown. After two years at Motown, Harrell resigned. Harrell’s entrepreneurial savvy and business edge was reflective of his street-fighter sense of survival. Harrell’s success stemmed from fierce determination. So after his tenure at Motown, Harrell formed Harrell Entertainment and returned to doing what he does best…working and consulting with new artists.

In the fall of 1998, Sean “Puffy” Combs, founder and CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment, hired Andre Harrell to take over the Chief Executive duties. After a brief stint Andre Harrell departed from Bad Boy in 2000, and he started up a marketing firm called NuAmerica to help big brands (such as Pepsi) target young urban consumers; he also teamed up with his one-time protégé Babyface to launch NuAmerica Music, a music management company. Recently in 2009, Mr. Andre Harrell inked another major distribution deal with Atlantic Records for his newly developed Harrell Records. His quest to rebuild his dominance on the record industry, while finding the next R&B superstar, and struggling to stay healthy after quadruple bypass surgery is currently being documented for the Interactive One reality show “Andre Harrell: The Next Soul Superstar,” produced by Prophet From It Entertainment.

Welcome to The Hood Newz Weekly Rap-Up, a look back at news that people may or may have not cared about in past few days.  This weeks episode finds Steelers Quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, in some hot water with the ladies and Lil Wayne encounters a certain law enforcement rapper during his stay in New York’ s Riker’s Island.

As an added bonus, Dick Shittman has landed an endorsement deal with beverage company, Rasta Monsta, and introduces the first of his Way To Go Genius commercial series for the brand.

Middle isle, nothing less!!