Love and Hip Hop Finale Recap: Keeping Up With The Joneses

The season finale of VH1's Love and Hip Hop has aired and, frankly, it was a little predictable.  Chrissy still doesn't really know where Jim stands on their engagement; will it be the type of engagement that stays around for five years only to end in a sudden break up?  To try and appease Chrissy, Jim takes her out for a romantic evening at a hotel, but Chrissy still seems like she wants a definite answer in terms of marriage, children, and the like.  Meanwhile, Jim's Mom is still furious that she was not involved with the proposal and calls Chrissy a "selfish bitch".  Chrissy fights back calling Mama Jones a "psychotic bitch" and things spiral down from there.  It looks like Chrissy will never quite be on good terms with the Jones family.  While all this is going on, Olivia's manager confronts Somaya and her manager Maurice about the interview Somaya gave to VladTV where she attacked Olivia, basically calling her talentless and irrelevant.  They basically go at it for a good five or ten minutes (verbally), but don't actually resolve anything.  The finale ends with Chrissy, Olivia, and Emily having a sexy sleep over where Chrissy realizes that she may have to wait for Jim to come around, while Emily realizes that she and Fab may not be meant to be together.

The sexy sleepover involved a whole lot of cleavage.

Love and Hip Hop's Somaya Reese Drops Single Dale Mami

We knew that Somaya had been working on a track for a while, the one she tried to get Jim Jones to drop some lines on, and now she's finally released her single.  It's called Dale Mami and features a cameo from Lumidee.

Love and Hip Hop Episode 5 Recap

Lots of drama in last night's episode, but the producers (or writers, whoever's pulling the strings) are trying to bring it back to the basics by giving us a glimpse into the lives of the characters.  Olivia is trying to get back into the game and heads to the studio to record a track called "December", which was pretty dope (is it still cool to say that?).  Emily goes to see her friend Mashonda (the ex of Swizz Beatz) and is impressed by how quickly relationships in the hip hop industry can disappear after seeing firsthand how Mashonda's life has fallen apart.  Mashonda convinces Emily to go to a poetry reading and read some of her erotic poetry.  Eventually Emily agrees and she reads a female empowerment poem (no sex involved).  Meanwhile, Emily arranges a meeting between all the girls so that Somaya can air out her beef with Olivia.  Somaya believes that Olivia is responsible for almost getting her manager Mauricio beat up because Olivia told Chrissy what Mauricio said about Chrissy and Jim Jones.  Somaya flips out during the meeting and looks like she is about to lunge at Olivia when Olivia rolls her eyes at Somaya.  To prevent a bare knuckle brawl, Chrissy and Olivia walk away.  A few minutes later Emily goes after them and Olivia tells off Emily for staying with Somaya, since none of them really know Somaya and she interprets that action as a lack of loyalty of Emily towards her friends.  That's all she wrote.  Next episode: Chrissy proposes to Jim in front of a live audience.

Somaya looks like a tanned Tura Satana in this pic.  Here she is about to rip Olivia a new one.

Love and Hip Hop Episode 4 Recap: Things Get Gangsta

The big blowup on the yacht on last week's episode ran into this week with Somaya and Chrissy still goin' at.  Somaya basically feels that Chrissy was responsible for Jim Jones pulling out of rapping on her track.  Chrissy admits to this telling Somaya: "The only time you should be rapping is at Christmas".  In last week's episode, Somaya's manager basically was talking smack about Chrissy and Jim, which came back to bite him in the ass this week.  Jim and his crew rode out to meet Somaya and his manager in Hoboken and the guy is lucky he didn't end up floating face down in the Hudson River because these guys were not playing around.  They just made him apologize to Chrissy on camera.  After that, Somaya's manager wants to drop her because he doesn't need any of that gangsta business in his life, but Somaya convinces him that she still needs him.  Instead of Jim Jones, Somaya gets her ex-boyfriend XO (sp?) to rap on the track and he tears it up.  On next week's episode, Emily meets up with Swizz Beatz's ex-girl Mashonda and it looks like Somaya gets into a huge fight with Olivia.

This guy is lucky to have made it through this alive.  When Jim Jones said: "Turn the cameras off!" I was like "Oh snap!"

Love and Hip Hop Episode 3 Recap

This is the episode were Chrissy and Emily get to confront Olivia about the lie she told about her relationship with Terelle.  Emily is Terrelle's stylist and he told her that he was not dating Olivia and that they hadn't spoken for months.  Olivia ducked and weaved and said they were "working things out", but the other girls knew they had caught her in a lie.  Olivia later confronted Emily about digging into her "business" but, surprisingly, they settled things amicably (sort of).  Meanwhile, Emily and Chrissy go to a rap session of Somaya's at a poetry jam and only barely manage to conceal their reactions to how horrible Somaya's rap skills were.  When Somaya later goes to Jim Jones's studio for feedback about the track she fixed with her manager, he tells her that he can't help her because he needs to work on his own album.  Emily then invites all of the girls onto a yacht for an afternoon out, and the inevitable drama begins when Somaya's "manager" overhears Chrissy and Emily talking smack about Somaya.  Somaya confronts Chrissy and a shouting match ensues, the highlight of which were Chrissy calling Somaya's manager "Tattoo" from Fantasy Fucking Island [sic] and Somaya asking Chrissy "what's your job title?"  Alright, I admit it.  This episode was more entertaining than the last one.  The cast is starting to pull it together, but the events in the episodes are about as spontaneous as a day on the set of "The Hills".  See you next week!

Somaya reaches out to Emily.  Somaya is wearing leopard print AGAIN

Love and Hip Hop Episode 2 Recap

Yes, Love and Hip Hop is still on television.  This episode started off with controversy surrounding whether or not recording artist Olivia was actually going out with New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis, with one of the girls asking Darrelle himself who said that he had not see her in months and that they had broken up.  Then, Somaya, the drama queen on the show, met with one of her friends/associates who convinced her that the best thing to do for her career was to take some sexy big booty photos and try to get those into a Hip Hop magazine.  Somaya took a few pictures even though she was embarrassed by her scar from when she was shot on the hip back when she was in a gang in L.A.  She eventually stormed off the set when the photographer wanted to see an ass shot.  Somaya later presents one of her tracks to Jim Jones in his studio (actually, the track was hot), but Jim Jones's girlfriend Chrissy didn't like it and Jones himself wanted her to edit part of the song.  Meanwhile, Chrissy and Jim Jones's mom are planning his birthday party and things get heated when Chrissy disagrees with Mama Jones birthday idea and also the fact that she has to contribute to half of the cost of the event.  The party occurs without a hitch and Jim Jones cries when one of his friends performs a rap that his Mom wrote for him.  The problem with the show is that with the exception of buxom West Coast rapper Somaya (pictured below), the show is boring.  It could use a healthy infusion of personality.

New VH1 Reality Show: Love and Hip Hop

Last night saw the premiere of VH1's new reality television show Love and Hip Hop about the lives of the women behind the men in the Hip-Hop industry, described during the opening credits as a "Brutal Boys Club".  I hope no one will hold it against me when I say that this show was a mess.  First of all, the show stars 90s hip hop sensation Olivia (whose career has taken a down turn), up and coming West Coast "rapper" Somaya, Chrissy (longterm GF of Jim Jones), and Emily (GF and stylist of rapper Fabolous).  There is also an appearance from Mashonda, the baby mamma of Swizz Beatz (AKA Mr. Alicia Keys).  Basically, the show started off with Emily talking to Chrissy and Olivia about how tough it is to be with Fabolous when he refuses to even acknowledge her.  Then the show fast forwards to Chrissy and Jim Jones's relationship, which seems like kind of a sham IMHO.  The drama begins when the viewer is introduced to rapper Somaya who is attempting to break into the East Coast rap scene requiring that she relocate to NY.  Somaya shows up at Jim Jones's studio and he says that she should have no problem getting her record out there because she's pretty.  Next thing we know, the girls are all at an NBA Draft party in Manhattan when all of the sudden Chrissy is sizing up and giving dirty looks to Somaya as they head to the ladies room (the song "Meeting in the Ladies Room" comes to mind).  Somaya  follows Chrissy into the ladies room where Chrissy essentially reveals that she's jealous because Somaya is spending time with her man.  The problem with the show is that it's sloppy.  It's obvious that the encounter between Somaya and Chrissy was staged and  scripted; and most of the women don't have enough of a personality to carry this kind of show.  At least the women on Basketball Wives are somewhat interesting.  I don't foresee this show lasting very long.  That being said, there is no question that I shall be watching the next episode.

Somaya is clearly going to be the target for the other women during the show because she's an outsider and her entire persona is very sexualized (please note the leopard print and enormous breasts)