OK, so Friday was my first official day of my new work at home arrangement. For those that are concerned, I’m still the Senior Correspondent for SOHH.com. I’ll still be interviewing your favorite hip-hop stars, attending events and writing (a lot) but I’ll also have the freedom to get my side hustle on.

Here are a few observations from day 1.

8:00 am: This is awesome. Instead of getting in the shower I can lay in bed and watch a news program about gang violence.

10:00 am: The gym is empty. I look around at the other exercisers. My 10-6 self hates them.

11:00 am: I shower, get dressed for the day and make some breakfast.

12:00 pm: I realize I need to streamline my e-mail situation. Right now I have a Sidekick, Motorola Q and my Macbook, all receiving messages simultaneously.

12:25pm: I need a more comfortable desk chair.

1:00pm: I need to get a source on the phone for a story that I’m working on. Everyone is resisting.

2:00pm: Still no sources but I did schedule a 3pm phone interview.

3:00pm: Phoner is pushed back until 3:30pm.

3:30pm: I need a better way to record phone interviews. The rig I used to record my Devin the Dude phoner can only be described as ghetto.

3:45pm: Finished the interview, I still have to transcribe and write the story and I have dinner reservations at 5:30. Ahh!

All in all, not a bad start.
You can check out the fruits of my labor here.

Last week, I launched this video on SOHH.com. I put a TON of work into it and I was very happy to finally introduce it to the world. It’s primarily an interview with, Terrance Dean, author of this new book called, Hiding In Hip-Hop which is about Dean’s experiences living on the down low in the entertainment industry. I also got some comments from several rappers (Yung Berg, Nelly, David Banner) on the subject of homosexuality in hip-hop.

Of course there are a lot of things I would improve upon if given the chance, but I was pretty pleased with the outcome since this was the first piece of this caliber that I’ve produced and I was working with no budget.

Still, when ever you put anything on the internet there’s going to be hate. I tend to think there are two kinds of people in this world - those who do and those who talk about what other people are doing. Even though I know that, the amount of hate that anonymous people dish out on the internet always amazes. People had some pretty cruel things to say about me in the comment sections of other blogs and though it hurts my feelings (I’m a girl, what can I say?) it ultimately just makes me work harder.

Today, I ran into Tyga at MTV and asked him how he deals with internet hate. This was his response:
“I love it. It’s making me go harder. What did Mr. [Kanye] West say? He said, ‘I’m excited when somebody don’t like me, it keep me writing, so exciting.’ That’s real man. It makes your heart bigger. They don’t understand I’m a little dude and you’re bringing out the fire out of me. I love the hate man, it’s good.”

Pretty wise for an 18-year-old.

When I started this blog I didn’t have an audience so I never felt guilty if I didn’t post for a few days or weeks but now that I know that people are reading I feel like I owe you some sort of explanation. Honestly, I’ve been very busy lately, which is a good thing. I don’t even have time for a proper post now but I do have some photos from last week that I thought I’d share. I’m on working on something good for tomorrow, so stay tuned.

MONDAY: I interviewed the JabbaWockeez, winners of MTV’s show, America’s Best Dance Crew. The guys were super cool and down to earth.

WEDNESDAY: I went to the Santogold listening session at the Cornerstone offices. She wasn’t there, but whiskey and tacos from Burritoville made up for it… almost.

THURSDAY: I hit up the Michelle Williams listening session at the legendary (google it, baby) Electric Lady Studios….

& then I saw Janelle Monae at the Blender Theatre. She is an incredible performer!

FRIDAY: I had the pleasure of joining Robin Thicke in the studio to hear some of the tracks from his new album.

Here’s another edition of Celebrity Cell Phone pics. Today I rolled over to Atlantic Records to produce a video shoot with Kevin Michael, a new jack soul singer from Philly. I’ve seen him perform a few times around the city (Joe’s Pub and opening for Lily Allen). He definitely has something and he was honest and candid in the interview. I’ll be rooting for this dude in the 08. You can check him out here.

Last night, I stopped by the Parish showroom to take a look at their Spring 2008 line. The stuff was looked pretty good and the soul food (Soul Fixins) and martinis were definitely appreciated.

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