Danyel Smith - Foxy

 

So I'm at Mesa Grill right here in New York City. [applause] I'm 38 years old now. I was 34 then. I was editor in chief of Vibe magazine and I was feeling pretty good about myself. [audience laughter] I'd moved up in the journalism world. I was able to afford $250 pumps. [audience laughter] I thought that Anne Klein suit was just the epitome of chicness and beauty. And I had one on. [audience laughter] So, I'm sitting there and I'm enjoying my meal at Mesa Grill. And it's a random weeknight and Vibe is having a party down the street at the Giorgio Armani store that I'm supposed to make an entrance after my dinner when the party's really swinging and I'm there, I'm enjoying myself. 

 

And what I didn't realize is that in a few short moments, platinum recording artists and Grammy nominated emcee Foxy Brown was going to come in there and threaten to beat my ass. [audience laughter] A little backstory. [audience laughter] I had just written a story about Foxy Brown for Vibe. It was the December, January 1999 issue of Vibe. And I pride myself on being a good journalist and a good writer. And I thought I had written a story, which for me was different because to me it was pretty much a tongue kiss. I like Foxy. I think she's sexy, I think she's smart. I think she has a great rhyme style. I went down to Miami. I was supposed to be down there for two days to do the story and I ended up staying five days.

 

I was having a good time, came back and wrote this tongue kiss of an article. Yeah, I'm from Oakland, California. I've been in journalism. I started out the San Francisco Bay Guardian. If you clap, somebody fake, like, if you have. [audience laughter] I moved on up, moved on up, moved on up. I've been covering hip hop for years now, 14, 15 years. And hip hop is a wild culture. It's a wild scene. I love it. Back when hip hop first started, there was always a chance that you would at any random concert, that you would get stomped, you would get stabbed, you would get screamed on, but you would have a really good time regardless. [audience laughter] But I think I thought that being a journalist somehow made me think that I was imposing order on the chaos.

 

I think that being a journalist made me feel like I was in some sort of safe box, that whoever was getting stabbed was getting stabbed over there, and I was over there. And then afterwards, I could go talk to the person that was getting stabbed and ask them how they felt. [audience laughter] It didn't really involve me. So, I'm at Mesa Grill, and I'm feeling real cute [audience laughter] and very sophisticated. And I have two assistants. That's how large I was back then. [audience laughter] I had an assistant, Raqiyah Mays, black girl from New York, but she only weighed about 100 pounds. Raqiyah had an intern, Jesse Klein, Jewish from Queens. Jessie could be helpful in some things, but fighting Foxy Brown, I don't know all what she was going to do. [audience laughter]  

 

So anyway, Raqiyah walks in and says, “Look, girl, Foxy Brown is out front in an SUV, and she wants to talk to you about the article. She wants to talk to you immediately. She wants you to come outside.” And I said, “I'm not coming outside.” [audience laughter] I said, “So, you could go tell her that.” [audience laughter] Enjoying my meal. Foxy's publicist comes into the restaurant, “Danyel, Foxy's outside. She's very, very upset about the article.” In my mind, I'm like, “For what?” But I say, “Look, Marvette, I'm not going out there. What you should do is take Foxy back to your—" I thought this was reasonable. “Take Foxy back to your office. When I finish my mail and when I'm done with my party at the Giorgio Armani store, [audience laughter] I'll be happy to come by your office and talk to Foxy. But I'm not running out of my meal at Mesa Grill and talking to her in the middle of the night. I'm just not doing it.” Marvette looks at me like, [whispers] “Okay, I'll tell her that.” [audience laughter] Enjoying my meal. 

 

The next thing I know, my shoulder's getting banged on so violently, “I'm going to tell you, I was scared.” And it's Foxy and she's got four people with her. [audience laughter] Foxy's from Brooklyn. [audience laughter] I mean, I live in Brooklyn and I love Brooklyn, but Foxy's from Brooklyn. [audience laughter] And she was like, “I need to talk to you right now.” I was still trying to keep my composure. [audience laughter] I said, “Fox, I'm trying to enjoy my meal.” She's like, “Look, bitch.” And she was serious. And it was crowded in Mesa Grill. And me and Foxy and her friends, and Raqiyah were like the only black people in there. I was like, “Are we really showing out like this at Mesa Grill?” [audience laughter] She was like, “I don't appreciate what you wrote about me in the article. And I don't think you realize that I will beat your ass right up here in front of all these people.”

 

I was scared to death. I have never had a fight in my life. [audience laughter] So, I started thinking. I said, “Okay, Fox, let's do this now.” I understand when Foxy and I were in Miami, we had a ball and that's what the problem was. I never make friends with the subject. Anybody that's a journalist knows this, you never kick it with the subject. You always remind them the tape is running. You don't try to sit up and drink with the subject. You don't go to the beach with the subject. You don't go to the spa with the subject. You don't make friends with the subject. I made friends with the subject. I love Foxy. Foxy's mother had her when she was 15 years old. I'm about 15 years older than Foxy.

 

I think I was identifying with her. She was identifying with me, but I still didn't know what she could have felt so betrayed by this. She felt like she wanted to be my ass. I said, “Look Fox, let's go to the back to the bathroom and let's try to work this out.” And she was like this, “Fine, let's go.” [audience laughter] She had sneakers on. [audience laughter] She had her hair in a ponytail. [audience laughter] See, I'm laughing about it now, but I was scared out of my fucking mind. So, I walked in front of her to the bathroom. I got my big professional posse of Raqiyah and Jesse following me. [audience laughter] Foxy's backing them up. I walk into the bathroom. There's a little foyer in the bathroom, a little floor area.

 

I guess that's where were supposed to have our little rumble. I walked directly into a stall and shut the door, [audience laughter] put the toilet seat down, sat on the toilet seat, started two-way because you had to have a two way if you were in hip hop in 1998 or you just weren't. Shit. So, I'm two waying, Foxy's management. I'm like, “Look, Chris, you got to come up here.” I'm like, “You got to come up here immediately. Your girl is wilding out. She is wilding out. She wants to beat my ass.” He's like, “Dude, I'm in the Holland Tunnel.” [audience laughter] I'm going to try to get there if I can, but you better try work it out. Meanwhile, I'm embarrassed because I'm like, am I really in the toilet stall in front of Raqiyah and Jesse who look up to me like, “Danyel is the editor in chief. Oh my God, we love her.” [audience laughter] 

 

I was so scared. I never fight. People said, “Well, was it like when you were in high school?” I'm like, “We didn't fight at my high school. I went to an all-girl Catholic school in Los Angeles, California. What are you going to do like that? I'm like, “I can't stand the toilet stall.” I come out, Raqiyah is knocking on the door like, “You got to come out.” I came out. Foxy has nails this long. [audience laughter] She's standing there backed up by like two guys and two girls. And I got Raqiyah and Jesse and Foxy saying, “Bitch this and bitch that.” And everything she's saying to me is, “Bitch, I don't think you know who I am. And bitch, you don't know who you are and you don't know how I beat your ass.”

 

And I'm standing there and I'm getting really scared because she's waving her hand all in my face and I'm like, “I'm about to get my ass beat by a 19-year-old girl.” I'm 34 years old. And what I really thought too was, I'm not fighting. I'm a grown ass woman. [audience laughter] I'm the editor in chief of a magazine. This shit is going to be in the paper. And I'm not like, going to be all up in the paper like, one, Danyel got her ass beat at Mesa Grill. [audience laughter] Two, I'm not going to be in the paper, just brawling like I'm a kid. So finally, I started getting a little bit mad. And you know how anger will make the fear smaller. [audience laughter] 

 

So, finally I said, “You know, Foxy, I'm not going to be too many more bitches up in here.” [audience laughter] I always have to really think about how the story went right here. Because I know Foxy has her version of events that is totally different. And I reached back to like fourth grade and I was like, “So, you know, if you see a bitch, you need to slap a bitch” or you need to beat a bitch's ass or something that was real like Carthay Center Elementary School. [audience laughter] But it kind of shocked her, I think. Because I think she thought I wasn't going to say anything to her that was aggressive. So, I took that opportunity to sort of turn away from her. 

 

My hair is long now, but back then I had the salt and pepper bob, you know what I am talking about, shorten the back and faded out at the back where there was really no hair on your neck. But she reached out to me and tried to grab me by my hair when I turned. And she couldn't grab anything because I didn't really have any hair in the back. But I felt her nails on my scalp. And that pissed me off. [audience laughter] And I turned to her, I said, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said, “Did you touch me?” I said, “You felt like that was okay to reach out and touch me?” I said, “Did you read the article?” I was like, “As long as you are black and, on this earth, no one will ever say anything as nice about you as I did in that piece. You need to read this shit and get out of my fucking face.” I was like, “This is ridiculous.” I think I shocked her. I was mad and I was just trying not to cry. That was my main goal. I didn't want to cry in front of Jessie and Raqiyah. [audience laughter] And I didn't want to cry in front of Foxy Brown and her posse. [audience laughter]

 

So, I turned and I passed by her and I walked out. I think she was just shocked that I cursed at her like that and I said those things. So, I went down to the party and I found some people. Somebody's brother was an off-duty cop, gave me a ride home. I was much more drama. The high-speed chase through Manhattan that I won't go through. But the whole point was, the next day, I was in the Post, it was in the news, it was in Newsweek, it was on MTV News. And people were calling me and saying, “Well, Danyel, do you have a comment? Do you have a comment? I mean, what happened? “Did Foxy Brown beat your ass at Mesa Grill? [audience laughter] Is it true that Foxy Brown pulled your hair at Mesa Grill? Were you fighting at Mesa Grill? Were you Giorgio Armani and Foxy Brown in a big fight at Mesa Grill?” [audience laughter]

 

Every time they called, I said I have no comment. And the reason I had no comment was because I felt like, “Look, I'm in hip hop. I've been in hip hop for a long time. Hip hop has done so well by me. I would not be the Danyel Smith standing before you all, whatever she is right now, if it wasn't for the music, if it wasn't for the culture, if it wasn't for the scene, I would not be this person. So, I just didn't feel it was right or correct for me to comment and come out against Foxy and in essence, and come out against hip hop. I'm in it. 

 

And the thing that I appreciate about Foxy is it's just that kind of crazy energy that she has that makes hip hop what it is, that has made me what I am. And the thing that I thought about is in hip hop, it's the place, the scene that you just might always get your ass beat. [audience chuckle] That's what the deal is. Thank you.