My mind was racing with questions that I anticipated they could ask. So I started to quickly jot down notes on the pad—points that I knew I had to hit and topics I knew I needed to avoid.
Benzino’s beef with Eminem not connected to the magazine…. Stay neutral and don’t say anything bad about Eminem … or 50 [Cent] … 50! Don’t mention knowing 50 personally.
There was so much controversy involving the magazine’s rivalry with XXL, Benzino’s beef with Eminem, and Eminem’s record label, Interscope, having pulled their advertising dollars from the magazine that I knew the real reason they’d agreed to have me on the show.
Of course, Sway did quickly dip into the muck:
“You were sucking off 50 Cent?”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t Eminem say something about you sucking off 50 Cent?”
“Eminem never said that. No.”
“Isn’t there a song where Eminem said you were on your knees sucking off 50?”
“No, I think you got that wrong.”
“So you were never sucking off 50 Cent?”
“No.”
What in the hell??? I started to write down on my notepad to Miss Info. That quickly, I was thrown off. I couldn’t look Sway in the face because I didn’t want to turn him to stone. I was so angry, Medusa had nothing on me.
Sway cut to a commercial, the on-air light went off, then he walked out of the room to take a break. Miss Info was on her feet. “I’m going to go talk to him.”
In truth, it was too late to talk to him because he had already tried to blow up the spot. Did he even know anything about 50? How could I just ignore this now? If my coworkers, or even worse, my superiors, were listening, I was going to be humiliated when I got into the office. I had to calm down and figure out what had just happened.
First off, Sway was way off. I started to work it out in my head like an algebra problem. I’ve always been good at math, so I knew I could figure out the answer before we went back on the air. There was an Eminem verse that mentioned my name, but Sway had the lyrics wrong. Wait, maybe this was a new song that he was talking about. Uh-oh. Oh no. No, wait. I know the song he’s talking about. Sway’s buggin’. That was the song where Eminem was talking about his wife, whose name happens to also be Kim. Damn it, why is her name Kim? “She’s probably on her knees somewhere sucking off 50 Cent.” He’s not talking about me in that song. I should have said that on the air. The song that mentioned my name said something entirely different: “Kim Osorio, you sorry ho…drag you through the barrio.” Or something like that. Say that on the air. No, duh, don’t say that on the air, but clear this up.
“Hot 97, we’re back on the air with Kim Osorio, editor in chief of the Source magazine.” Sway was back in the room, and the red on-air light was back on. Miss Info was sitting next to me and writing on my pad again. I felt I was in a time warp. This time, I had no choice but to pay attention to her and not him. He’s going to come back to it. Just stay calm. Treat it like they’re men in the street whistling at you and you don’t turn around so they just automatically call you a bitch. Stay professional.
“So there is a song where Eminem mentions you, right?” Sway rephrased his question.
I knew that whenever I acted out of emotion it was usually the wrong thing to do. So now I just followed exactly what Miss Info was telling me to do. Why is her handwriting so damn small?
“You know what, Sway. It’s, like, what’s the first thing a man says when he’s whistling at you in the street and you’re not paying him any attention? He calls you out of your name. That’s all that was. I’ve never even met Eminem.”
That damn Eminem, look at all the shit he was about to start.
It’s hard to laugh and joke around when you’re as mad as I was at the station that day, but I somehow managed to ignore it and forgive Sway. I left the station immediately after the interview and went straight to the office, pretending it didn’t all happen, but knowing it was at the top of everyone’s mind and on the tip of everyone’s tongue. I couldn’t let anyone know just how much it bothered me to have been put on the spot like that. When you’re in a position of power, you have to dust your shoulders off. You have to learn how to become immune to insults and expect the worst things to be said about you. Throughout my career at the Source, mud was slung so many times on my name, both inside and outside the office. Biggie said it best: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” For me, though, once I became editor in chief, it was the problems that seemed to come a lot faster
August 20th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
so….was she sucking of 50 or not? lol
August 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
she sucked him off……………….
August 21st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Maybe 50…definitely NAS!
August 21st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
All I can say…is WOW!
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:10 am
Hmmm…this just might be a good read
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 am
This money hungry hoes keep fukcing dudes to make a profit in the future. I hope she tell how she was eating Miss Info from Hot 97 carpet. I bet she won’t tell that in the book. Fishcake broad!!! You sue a dude for 8 Million and now need to write a book. Paper Chaser
September 13th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Yeah you’re a man now, huh? Listen up you fuckers, it’s time to get spanked.
It’s your own male chauvinism that creates the environment which makes some women resort to such measures. It’s funny how you’re too sexist to even realize it. Whenever a woman assumes any position of power, instead of admiring her determination, her reputation is questioned. Women are being treated like opportunists instead of professionals. The same behaviors that would be praised as “business-savy” in men, are judged as “opportunistic” in women. It’s even worse in the commercial rap music industy, where it is assumed that you had suck someone off to get where you are. You fuckin pundits need to shut your mouth because you don’t have the facts, you don’t know the author, and you don’t contribute anything to the discourse but ignorance and empty machismo.
You’re all weak hearted men who are doing nothing but proving Ms. Osorio’s final analysis to be correct, which should be obvious - that the entertainment industry is male-dominated whereas within the rap industry in particular, misogyny has become the status quo. That means a hatred of women. The scene is governed by sex and ego-driven weirdos and infested with jerk offs whose attitudes mirror the sad comments on this page and on nearly every other blog promoting Ms. Osorio’s book. She must have hit a vital nerve because this “Real Source” asshole is quite emotional about it all.
This mysogyny does nothing but expose your own weakness as a men. Man up and learn to analyze the situation from a critical point of view.
Kudos to Ms. Osorio for exposing insitutional sexism and her new book. The gas face to all you sorry misogynists for hating on a sister on the come up.