May 05, 2008 @ 11:00 am

Me And Mariah

by: Danyel Smith

Exclusive sneak peak and editor's note from our sizzling June issue!

EDITOR'S LETTER

VIBE and Mariah do go back like babies and pacifiers. There was a Mariah cover in April 1996, around the time of Daydream. That excellent story was written by Elysa Gardner (now of USA Today). In 2003, around the time of Charmbracelet, Lola Ogunnaike (now of CNN’s American Morning) wrote another fantastic cover piece.

As for myself, in 1998, when I was editor-in-chief the first time, I flew to San Francisco (on Mariah time, you have to be ready to get up and go anywhere at a moment’s notice) and then rode north to hilly Sonoma County, in Northern California’s wine country. Carey and I drank red wine until late into the night. She’d just left her marriage. I think she was releasing a greatest hits package (#1’s). She was in a good, if tough, space. That space from which good art and new beauty is sometimes born. She was fun. And open. Soon after, she went through some well-documented rough times. But she’s been back for a while, and the new album is an homage to Einstein’s theory of relativity, first introduced in a 1905 paper called, “Does The Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” I thought you knew.

People forget, because Mariah is so pretty and so about hair and boobs and antics, that she is a songwriter who will go down in history as one of the best, one of the most prolific, and one of the most successful. The sales and radio records she’s breaking are mammoth, and crucial too—because with every one she topples, it’s clearer that Miss Carey is the true People’s Choice. She writes and sings music that people sing to themselves, music that we move our bodies to. She is redefining—in these complicated cultural times, times in which niches are nich-ier than ever, times in which even the sale of creative content is in question—what it is to be popular (believed, embraced, or perpetuated by ordinary people). She’s buttah fly, for sure.

The staff (Robyn Forest, Memsor Kamaraké, and Shanel Odum) and I got on Mariah Time, this time during the last week of March. First the shoot wasn’t happening. Then we were going to Paris. Then the shoot was going to be in Manhattan. Then we got on a plane to the West Indies, bound for a pearl of a private island off the coast of the exquisite isle of Antigua. Odum describes Jumby Bay beautifully in her second cover story (she wrote abut Mary. J Blige for the February issue), but be clear: Over and above the grass tennis courts, crystalline waters, the Cavalier Rum– glazed prawns, and the flawless, breezy-sunny climate, it’s the people of Antigua and Jumby Bay—Thelma, Lissue, Elaine, Glenroy, and everyone else—who make the place. They keep a staff blog, too: jumbybayblog.com/?p=62. It’s as cool as they are.

We got lots done this issue. Went deep into places, near and far. The fashion story (“Boarding School,” page 106) was also shot in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico). There’s a surfer actually surfing on the fashion pages, as well as a (black) Olympic swimmer in the V Heat section. What can I tell you? It’s summer.

The Irv Gotti/Murder Inc. Oral history (“It’s Murder!,” page 94) takes you from Queens, N.Y., to the Murder Mansion in Beverly Hills, and then back to Manhattan’s Meatpacking District for a shoot at which Ja Rule was taller (and more charming) than you think, Deb Lorenzo as gorgeous as she seems on VH-1’s addictive Gotti’s Way, and Irv, a hit-maker’s hit-maker, an old-fashioned wild-man, was as boisterous as he wanted to be.

Even Nate Dogg, who is recovering from a stroke in Los Angeles, came to the phone to talk about making 2003’s “21 Questions” with 50 Cent for “Summer Bangers” (page 75). We were closing our own “20 Questions” (page 120) when, as has been expected, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was married to Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. Congratulations to the happy couple. Best wishes, in fact, to everyone out there working hard, planning, being open to opportunity, being crazy in love, studying, smelling the roses, seeking thrills, being persistent, letting go, shouting it out, being bold, trying to be somebody, trying to make art out of the trial and joys of life. Singing your songs your way. Best, best wishes to those out here trying to live. L’chaim!


As ever,

Danyel Smith

P.S. The VIBE staff as a whole went above and beyond for this issue. If I could, I’d blow up the whole masthead right here on ed. note. Thank you for pushing it.

Article tags: Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Rihanna, Janet Jackson 

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