It's No Secret From Nas to Jay-z, from Seduction to Scandal, a Hip-hop Helen of Troy Tells All

Prologue "Carm, is he talking about you?" Nas's insistent voice penetrated the fog in my head. I must have picked up the ringing telephone in my sleep. Had it awakened our daughter, Destiny, too? "What?" My bedside clock read midnight. It was 3 A.M. for Nas in New York. Uh-oh. Whatever prompted this call was troubling enough to keep him awake. "I keep hearing about this Memphis Bleek song with Jay-Z. It's supposed to be about you." The song was news to me, but at the mention of Shawn's name my heart sank down to my stomach, which tightened into knots. I sat up in bed and tossed aside the silk comforter. With the movement the diamond on my left hand caught a silvery ray of moonlight. I took a deep breath and calmed down. Nas and I were finally getting married. This was no time to panic. "What song?" I asked, as neutrally as possible. "'Is That Your Chick.' Carm, it's getting harder and harder for me to ignore the rumors about you and this dude -- " "They are just rumors, Nas." I put on what I hoped was a persuasively reasonable tone. "People talk. I put up with rumors about who you're supposed to be with all the time. Foxy, Beyonce, Mary J. Every week they're saying it's someone new. You're just going to have to charge it to the game like I do." Nas was silent. I could almost hear him balancing it out in his mind. On one side, there was my comforting explanation. A big part of him wanted to believe it. On the other hand, there was the growing weight of his suspicion. Nas wasn't exactly buying my little speech, but he let things drop for the moment. We hung up and I lunged for the bathroom, where I was sick. Nas was very competitive in that he had two part-time jobs: he spent half his time talking up himself and the other half talking down others. In public, Nas tended to be more low-key and aloof than other entertainers. But at home, he was extremely opinionated and vocal about his peers' artistic efforts. Even if he was cool with someone personally, Nas always had a raw comment about their music. For example: in my opinion, Foxy Brown is the most talented female MC. Most will agree Foxy wears the crown, hands down. Not Nas. "You could just throw a few ingredients in a bowl, stir, and come up with another Foxy," he would rant. He had criticism of just about anyone. He would say Ja Rule was biting DMX's style, or Fat Joe was corny. These reviews always led up to the same point: "There is no real talent out there." The only lyricist Nas considered to be in his league was the late B.I.G. Nas's battle with Jay-Z was as much one of words as of the heart. I'd started seeing Jay finally doing to Nas what he'd been doing to me for years. Nas and Jay-Z always had this bizarre competition. Nas would make comments to me like, "I don't remember that nigga being no ill drug dealer." In fact no one with any real credibility could confirm Jay-Z's "back in the day" drug dealer/baller status. Exaggeration is standard in the music industry. But according to Nas, Jay-Z had no merit to his claims and not one defender. "Carm, this nigga Jay is so shallow," Nas would say. "He's a surface MC. He's plastic on stage. That's bad enough. But he doesn't even know what he's talking about. He hasn't done half the shit he's talking about in his rhymes. I don't believe him. Period." Still, I couldn't imagine what might have motivated this "Is That Your Chick" song. Naturally Shawn would appear on Memphis Bleek's single -- a fellow artist on the Roc-A-Fella label. And the song certainly could have something to do with me. Throughout our clandestine relationship Shawn had made many references to me in his lyrics. But he had never said anything negative or explicit and had never used his relationship with me to taunt Nas. This was turning into an urban soap opera with me in a leading role as the femme fatale. I had to hBryan, Carmen is the author of 'It's No Secret From Nas to Jay-z, from Seduction to Scandal, a Hip-hop Helen of Troy Tells All', published 2006 under ISBN 9781416532668 and ISBN 1416532668.