Black Men Magazine
August 2002

FREE...AT LAST!
FREE SPIRIT!
School is letting out around 106th Street in Harlem. In front of the BET Studios, fans have already started lining up for the 6:00 taping of BET's top-rated show 106 and Park, hosted by Free and AJ. The show features music videos and live interviews with celebrities from a variety of fields. Free, a rapper at heart, had a couple of record deals in the past that didn't pan out ("I'm working on my third one, the one I call 'the real one' ") before getting the gig at BET. One evening while attending a Busta Rhymes album release party, she ran into Steven Hill, vice president of music programming at BET, who she knew from his days at a radio station in Boston. He told her about auditions at BET. "From what I hear, [Steven] never told anybody that he knew me. All of the people I auditioned in front of picked me and said they wanted me to do [the show], and then he told me, and that made me feel good." says Free.

Inside a dressing room, Free, born Marie Wright in Boston, Massachusetts, is settling down for an interview sandwiched between production meetings, voice lessons, and work with the foundation she has started, Free4Life Foundation, which is run by her mother and will have programs to benefit the community and youth of Boston.

BM: What's a typical day like?
Free: A typical day for me is in the morning--- I just started working out, so a few days a week I go to the gym. We have production meetings for the show, we work out what we're going to wear with waredrob, makeup--- I stay in makeup for a couple of hours. I make phone calls because I'm starting a foundation in Boston, so I work on the show, we kick it with the guests a little bit or I go to the studio. I do a whole bunch of stuff in a typical day. I could have a vocal lesson of an interview, like now...

BM: Photo sessions.
Free: Yeah, photo sessions. Different days bring different things and there are a lot of squeezing in, but I don't mind doing all this work.

BM: You have a hip-hop backround and the show features hip-hop videos... do you feel that women are being objectified in videos?
Free: Sometimes, but I think that everyone's an adult and they make their own choices. So I don't look at it like anyone had a gun to their head saying, "You have to do this." It's amazing because sex in America sells. These videos sell. People have asked me, "How do you watch these videos and these young girls are in them..." It's really not our job to teach them; it's the parents' job to teach their children. And as far as being objects, men are objects sometimes too, now. There are a lot of videos with the guys walking around with their shirts off with girls saying, "I want that guy because he's fine..." So it goes both ways, and it's just what you allow yourself to do. I try not to pass judgement on anybody. It's a video, isn't it? If there wasn't a demand for videos and a demand for these CDs--- because they're expensive---no record company is going to pay that money for videos if nobody is going to buy the records. So there's a demand for it out there.

BM: Do you believe in love at first sight?
Free: Yes. I believe that that's possible. I believe you can love someone's exterior at first sight. You could say, "Oh my God, I love the way he looks," or you can like something in someone's eyes. You may just be attracted to somebody at first sight, but love, of course, takes a long time.

BM: I always call it lust at first sight.
Free: Yeah, okay. That makes sense. It could be lust or then it could just be you see someone and feel like, "Okay, I respect him." I respect how he's doing his business---or her--- that could be, but I don't think love is the right word. You're right. I don't know if it's lust. I don't know what it is. It could just be attraction. So I believe you can see somebody and be attracted and in your mind feel like, "Boy, oh boy, oh boy!"

BM: How long do you think a woman should wait before getting intimate with a man?
Free: Wow. What a question! I believe a woman should wait until she's comfortable. If you can't talk to him about sex, condoms, his experiences with sex and women, then you shouldn't be having sex. I think if you're adult enough to make that decision, you know to wrap it up, as we say, and you can handle the emotional [aspects] that comes with that. I think if you're comfortable enough to talk to somebody about the issue, if that's going to be your mate or your whatever, I don't think there's a specified rule, there's not a date.

BM: Do you think men, in general, have more respect for a women if she does wait?
Free: Most definitely.
BM: What a double standard.
Free: It is and it sucks...