On Friday night I attended a private dinner in the Gold Room at Pranna with a few of the cast members of “Love & Hip Hop.” The event was hosted by 135th Street Agency at one of NYC’s swanky restaurants on the east side of Manhattan. Every event I’ve attended that 135th Street Agency hosted (screening of Attack the Block, Braxton Family Values) has always been on point. Guests were treated to complimentary appetizers, a nice meal and Bartenura Moscato as we watched the premiere episode of season two.
Out of respect for the 135th Street Agency and the wonderful ladies who work extremely hard for their clients, I had no intentions of blogging about this. If I can’t be honest with my readers about an event, product or anything else I will not write about it. The venue was plush. Very cute decor. The ladies put together a top notch event in less than 24 hours. With that said, the cast was somewhat off putting. They just annoyed me to no end. Chrissy Lampkin, Jim Jones, Olivia Longott and her manager Rich joined the 30 guests and witnessed our reactions to the scenes throughout the episode. Mona Scott-Young, the executive producer/creator of the show, curated the Q&A session.
Looks like Jimmy finally put a ring on it.
We all watched the first episode while shaking our heads. We laughed hard at Jimmy’s mother creating a song about her disdain for her son’s girlfriend. Several conversations were had at our table about how this hurts the portrayal of women of color. Chrissy received a number of questions in regards to the fight between her and Kimbella, the mother of Juelz Santana’s child. Chrissy answered the questions honestly. She did say she was not happy about the fight, but “life happens.” Chrissy was the most likeable of the bunch. Her boo Jimmy though? He was very defensive, rude and disrespectful. Jim Jones took some of the questions as a personal attack instead of bloggers and journalists doing their jobs. He dismissed questions and hurled out a couple personal insults. He was rude. I’m writing this as I should be rushing to get ready for the AEON magazine launch party and Jennifer Williams lip gloss launch party so I won’t go into specific details, but I think the SO summed it up best, “He’s a bird.” Precisely. Olivia seemed very bland. She was quiet and answered the questions very succinctly. Rich, who clearly has no respect for women based on what viewers saw the first season, was himself.
I didn’t watch the first season other than a couple episodes I caught when VH1 ran reruns. Based on how the cast behaved at the event, I will continue not watching this season. I also noticed that “press” has become interchangeable with bloggers. Why did I go to school to become an actual trained journalist? Bloggers made up 90% of the press at the event. Therefore, instead of objective questions there were questions from bloggers who made it known they were #teamChrissy or fans of whomever. Uhh, ok. Don’t be surprised if y’all see me start a new site solely dedicated to entertainment blogging. BALLIN’.
I’m kidding. I’d be miserable. I really could not care less about celebrities. Check out pictures from the event over on my boy Rae’s blog Stuff Fly People Like.
Note: Maybe I’m over analyzing this. But on Friday I wore my ‘fro because I was getting a sew-in the next day. It had a lot of shrinkage and no curl pattern. During the Q&A session Jimmy kept looking at my table and then running his hands over Chrissy’s smooth edges. Then he would move his hand up and down her long jet black weaved ponytail. Repeatedly. Not sure if this was a dig or what, but it seemed so unnecessary to do during a Q&A.