Kim Osorio, most known for her success as the editor in chief of The Source Magazine and later for her multimillion-dollar lawsuit against former Source owners Dave Mays and Benzino, has released a “tell-all expose” called Straight From the Source (cute) about the goings-on at The Source, as well her personal and intimate relationships with various artists in the hip-hop industry. Thanks to Karrine Steffans, Carmen Bryan, Tarsha Jones, Pepa, and others, Osorio’s tell-all book is by no means the first or the last hip-hop memoir to be published. And, given that there is evidently an increasingly large market for those that want to put themselves and others on blast, for better or worse, one can’t help but wonder: has ‘privacy’ become a foreign word?
Tell-alls are intended to be one of three things: informative, entertaining, or cautionary. And, while the books themselves are never more complex than that, they never really seem to achieve their desired end as our reactions to the books (as the readers) are potentially manifold. Can we ever really say that we know the ins and outs of a particular industry or lifestyle based on one person’s experience alone? Should we be more skeptical of the author’s propensity to truth given that his or her tales are so shocking, or do we trust the author for that very same reason? Do we applaud the author for being so open, or do we look away in distaste? Do we live our lives with hesitation for fear that the next man or woman we get close to will make us the next chapter in his or her soon-to-be published diary?
In her memoir, Osorio talks about her relationships with 50 Cent and Nas, and even divulges which of the two was better in bed. To her, dating within the industry is just a part of hip-hop industry culture. In an interview with The Round Table, she says about her high-profile relationships, “I was just a girl coming up in the industry. You meet people. You date. That’s what people do whether or not other people want to accept it.” Is that really the way of it, Kim?
If tell-all memoirs must remain on the shelves, it’s about time for someone to write a few chapters about how they weren’t charmed by the Diddys, the 50s, and the Ushers.
But please, only a few chapters, though; some of us prefer to live our own lives over reading about another’s misadventures.
