Ozone Magazine

There are times when I absolutely love my job, and other times when it simply isn’t worth the bullshit. I’m gonna walk you through some of the bullshit. Background on me – I’ve been shooting at events for almost 10 years. Built OZONE from the ground up. Did T-Pain’s first photo shoot. Did Plies’ first photo shoot and introduced him to the country at the first OZONE Awards. Did Jeezy’s first interview. The list goes on and on. But I digress…

Earlier this week, I saw a little clip online of Chris Brown being interviewed on a Richmond TV station talking about his star-studded “benefit” concert. The lineup (Trey Songz, Bow Wow, Keri Hilson, Mario etc) sounded good and it’s been a while since I’ve been to Richmond so I figured it was past due for OZONE to show Virginia some love. Plus, it was for a good cause. So, despite the mounds of paperwork on my desk and millions of other things I could spend my Saturday doing, I decided to dedicate my day to specifically flying out to Richmond to cover Chris Brown’s event. Turns out that was a terrible idea and a complete waste of time.

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Occasionally over the years, OZONE has drawn criticism for our raw interviews and uncensored language. And while editing this years’ sex issue, I can see how some of the content might appall some people who don’t live in the same world we live in. But as someone with a voice, the most powerful thing I could present is simply the truth. The good, bad, or ugly truth. I’ve always enjoyed doing the sex issue interviews not only because they’re entertaining (who doesn’t love to talk about sex?) but because it’s an open opportunity to ask men any question that’s ever crossed my mind. That doesn’t mean all the answers are going to be pretty (it also should be mentioned that some artists are prone to exaggerate the “truth”).

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Quite often, if I tell someone I publish a Hip Hop magazine, I get a skeptical side-eye in response. Every time I’m interviewed for another media outlet, there’s some form of the “how did you make it as a white female in the Hip Hop game?” question. I guess from the outside looking in, it might be amusing to see a white girl such as myself forming unlikely friendships with platinum-grill-having, gold-chain-wearing tattooed rappers or producers. But to me, it’s just life. I’ve never viewed us as being that far apart. We share the common creative spirit, which knows no racial or cultural boundaries.

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Since childhood, I’ve always been an avid reader. Even today, in the midst of the 24/7 news cycle where a million bits of information are all vying for my attention throughout the course of the day and threatening to destroy my focus, I try to occasionally take the time to set aside all the distractions. Next time you’re lounging on the couch and the millionth rerun of your favorite reality show comes on VH1 or MTV, turn it off and become absorbed in a good book instead. You’ll be surprised.

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I don’t know what it is about 2009, but there sure is a lot of bitchassness floating around the music industry this year. It might be the recession or it might be the desperation of folks who have been trying to get on forever and are finally realizing that they might not make it. A few people showed their true colors this month, like one Bay Area rapper who revealed his severe case of bitchassness. You will not be seeing any more of him in OZONE West. You already can’t get radio play in your hometown and now you decide to disrespect the one magazine that shows you love – are you serious?? Then there’s the fat ass shiesty booking agent who can be seen around Atlanta wearing more fake jewelry than his artists and pretending to be important, robbing promoters of their deposits and hiding behind lies and third-party contracts. And it isn’t limited to just the United States; Swedish radio station The Voice enlisted promoter Riccardo Jackson, who went so far as to fabricate a wire transfer receipt, to book an artist through me. It’s a dirty game when you can’t even trust the radio stations.

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Why, why, why are people so stupid?

I don’t know which question Boosie is pondering above (photo by Diwang Valdez from Boosie’s interview in the next issue of OZONE Mag), but this is the question I’ve been pondering in my head all day. It seems that people believe anything they read on the internet, no matter how false or how twisted. How did a simple scenario of me negotiating a 100% legitimate deal – as I do every day, all day – turn into some blogger I’ve never heard of before trying to defame my name?

For almost two years my lil side hustle/booking agency, Agency Twelve, has successfully brokered deals for many artists – show bookings and features, primarily. Lil Boosie is one of those artists. Boosie went to jail today – I was told that he will be serving two years, but the Baton Rouge local news reported 4 years – so who knows. In any case, the sentence came as somewhat of a shock to him and he seemed to be stressing out trying to get his affairs in order before going away.

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For the past few months, the million dollar question has been, “when are the OZONE Awards?” Last year, after the third annual event in Houston, TJ and I scoured the country for some possible ‘09 locations and I was starting to get excited about the prospects.

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This is the first of many posts to come.. I have been busy planning my birthday tour around the country for the month of June. My first birthday party is on Friday June 5th in Anchorage, AK with Gorilla Zoe (yes, there is a rap scene in Alaska) and on Saturday June 13th I’m headed to Jacksonville, FL with Bigga Rankin & the Cool Runnings crew and of course all the Duval All Stars will be in the building. Come through if you’re in the area.

I wasn’t even gonna justify this with a response, but since everybody including Ross’ ex-manager E-Class keeps asking me about it, here goes. Last week WorldStarHipHop posted up a video/audio of a girl rating Rick Ross in bed and incorrectly titled it “Julia Beverly of OZONE Magazine.” Although they have since removed my name, they didn’t remove my picture from the clip.

The truth is, the audio clip is from almost two years ago when I was interviewed on Sirius for Angela Yee & Leah Rose’s show Lip Service to promote OZONE’s Sex Issue. Back before websites like backstagepazz.com started stealing all our stories & claiming them as their own, OZONE’s Groupie Confessions was a pretty popular column in the annual sex issue. During the show, Angela asked listeners to call in with their own Groupie Confessions and someone called in with a Rick Ross story as well as Trick Daddy & Trey Songz & several others.

Although I have enjoyed a lot of good times with Ross & the Carol City homies during my OZONE travels, I keep it professional. Sites like WorldStar should be a little more careful with the information they put out, because a little rumor can go a long way on the ‘net. The audio clip may be amusing, but it is not me.

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Reggae festivals are generally more fun than rap shows because the performers actually put forth the effort and energy to make it a real performance. I remember being on stage while the entire Marley family performed “One Love” at Bicentennial Park in Miami to 20,000+ people with a haze of weed smoke hanging over the crowd while the sun set over the ocean.

Anyway, a similar event is the annual “Best of the Best” concert during Memorial Day weekend in Miami. If you’ve never been to an all-day concert like this you’re missing out. The event is produced by Budafuco, a mysterious Miami figure who once bet me $1,000 that I couldn’t find a picture of him (I did and to this day, 4+ years later, he refuses to pay up). He is also a large part of the reason Khaled drives a Bentley Phantom and has a home worthy of MTV Cribs. This year, he’s added T-Pain, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy to the usual reggae lineup (Beenie Man, Bounty Killa, and the Energy God Elephant Man).

Shouldn’t Trick Daddy be headlining the “Hip Hop Against Lupus” concert?
 
On a semi-related note, Trick Daddy is in Orlando today filming his scene for the movie “(Just) Another Day.” The film is being directed by Peter Spirer, who previously directed the Beef DVDs that you may have seen on BET. Lil Scrappy, Petey Pablo, Ja Rule, and a number of other rappers are also scheduled to make an appearance in “(Just) Another Day,” which features actor Wood Harris from The Wire.

According to The New York Times, Blender Magazine has folded. Damn. Blender was my favorite magazine (besides, of course, OZONE). Tough times for everybody, especially magazines and newspapers. I’m glad the indie labels still fuck with us. We love you, indies!

Carmelo Anthony, Trey Songz, & Allen Iverson cut off their braids, Busta Rhymes & E-40 shaved off their dreads, and now gold grills are finally going out of style. What’s next, world peace?

As a Floridian who is pretty ‘hood (for a white girl) I know I’m supposed to rep for the Dirty Dirty, but gold teeth just never did it for me. After spending a few hours on the set of Kia Shine’s video shoot yesterday with Young Dro flashing his new (I think they’re new; maybe I’m late) pearly whites I was inspired to create this post to hopefully inspire others to follow suit.

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OZONE photographer extraordinaire, J Lash, was run over by a car in a hit & run incident which left him with a broken leg. He says the woman in this photo is the culprit, so if you happen to know who she is, hit him up at jlash@tmail.com.

Back in the day when I was an amateur photographer, someone hired me to take pictures at a “WNBA afterparty” and at the time I was too naïve to realize that this translated to “Dykes Humping Each Other In A Poorly-Lit Smoke-Filled Nightclub.” As I recall, it was a disturbing scene much like the ones captured below at a recent lesbian lovefest over at www.ATLNightspots.com.

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