Honey Magazine
May 2003

Freestyle

She is a host of BET's superhot 106 & Park. She's got a debut album in the works. She's got the finest men in hip-hop hitting on her nonstop. So how did this fly girl get so much, so soon? By Nekesa Mumbi Moody.

Technically, BET's 106 and Park has two hosts. But right now, A.J., the male component of the hit show's duo, might as well go out for coffee, or maybe take a nap. For Drumline star-turned-rapper Nick Cannon, one of today's guest, it's all about Free-the very sexy, very sassy female factor. As the casual Q&A wraps up, Cannon leans in toward Free and asks her out - in front of a live audience and countless TV viewers across America. Free gives him a look. Then she gives him a hug. The crowd mostly teenage girls hoots and hollers approval, while A.J. crosses his arms in mock disgust. Free just giggles. With her striking beauty, trendsetting style and ever changing hair, the girl plays it all off so smoothly, no one seems to notice that she has niether accepted nor rejected Cannon's offer.

Fielding celebrity come-ons is all in a day's work for Free; the attention of hip-hop honey dips and black Hollywood's finest hardly fazes her...anymore. Different story three years ago, when 106 and Park was just kicking off and Jamie Foxx got a little too free with Free. "He was hugging on me and hitting on me, and I didn't know what to do," she recalls. " I didn't know if I could check him as I would if I was at home. The boundaries of the show weren't defined yet. But the next time he came? I was like, 'Okay, if you're coming up on this stage, you'd better act like you know!' And he was like,'Okay, Free, I'll be good.'"

Free's transformation from tube newbie to the hostess with the mostess - star of a top rated daily program with 1.5 million viewers, the black show that regularly spanks its mainstream MTV rival, Total Request Live, in the ratings - may seem remarkable, but its only a slice of her story. Free is not "just" a major television personality who chats up high-profile stars by day and throws A-list parties at events like All-Star Weekend by glittering night. With a recording contract from Elecktra Records and a debut album due out by summer, she's a rising rapper-singer as well. Plus, she's got a bunch of other creative, potentially profitable plans on her back burners. And though she's been in the game only a few years, she's already giving back - her foundation, Free4Life, is dedicated to helping young people in disadvantaged neighborhoods with programs that encourage literacy, financial education and creative arts. Eyeballing her resume, you've gotta wonder how she racked it all up so fast.


Born Free

Starting an organization that helps inner-city youth was not a coin-toss decision for the girl born Marie Wright in Dorchester, Mass., a predominantly black, working class section of Boston.

Her parents thrust her and her brother into arts programs at an early age so they wouldn't fall into the traps that trip up a lot of kids."I want to be able to send kids to activites like I used to do," Free says, "because I think that made all the difference for me."

Creative encouragement led Free to dream big. " I wanted to be Debbie Allen, Irene Cara," she says. " I wated fame every day." By high school, Free was already performing with local vocal groups, but after enduring her share of Destiny's Childish drama, she switched gears. " At the time, everyone was telling me, 'You can't sing, you can't this, you can't that,'" she says. "Whatever...haters! So I started rhyming."

And she was good--- good enough to get a deal with a label linked to Priority Records. Yet when Free left a well -paying computor job in Boston to pusue her hip-hop goals in Los Angeles, she realized that she had made a mistake. "They say, once you sign a contract, everything is gonna change, and it really did," she says ruefully, going on to describe how the person who signed her tried to manipulate her. Free was not having it. "It was a bad situation," she says. "But it was a good learning experience for me."

She also made contacts. A chance meeting with Wyclef Jean led to her performing with him under the moniker Marie "Free" Antoinette and a deal with his fledgling label under Columbia Records. She moved to New York, but when Jean's imprint failed to fly at Columbia and he moved it to J Records, Free asked to be let out of her contract. " I didn't feel J Records was a hip-hop label, "she explains, adding that her relationship with Wyclef is still solid.

Disappointments like these just made Free dig in her heels. "I was a little sad about everything not going right," she says. "I went through my stage when I couldn't watch videos, because I was mad I wasn't on one - I was like, 'I could do that!'" Ironically, the clips she couldn't bear to look at took her to the next rung of the ladder. One night at a party, she ran into Stephen G. Hill - the man who'd been her boss when she interned at WILD, a Boston radio station, as a teenager. He was then at BET, heading up a slate of new shows, and Hill had a revalation. " I said to my friend, 'Oh my God - Marie is the one!'" Hill says. He charged off after his former intern and filled her in. "My response was like, 'Yeah, right, Stephen, whatever, don't even gas me,'" Free remembers. "BET...like B-E-T?'"

The next thing she knew, Free and her new partner, A.J., were in TV boot camp. "We went to a class where we just learned basics,"Free says, laughing. "Like: That's a camera." Two weeks later, she was on the air.

Must-See B.E.T

There's nothing glitzy about the set of 106 and Park especially compared to TRL. While the two shows share a concept, TRL sits perched in Times Square, one of the crossroads of the world: 106 and Park tapes in an unassuming building in the middle of a midtown Manhattan block. The host of TRL, Carson Daily, is chronicled by the media; Free's name would likely go unrecognized by most newspaper editors. And while celebrity salaries are closely guarded secrets, it's unlikely that Free's paycheck has the purchasing power of Carson's. But if any of this frustrates Free, she dosen't let it show. She scoffs at the notion that she's an invisible celebrity.

"People ask, 'How do you feel that no one knows who you are?'" she says. "But I don't know, because the people I see out on the street, they know who I am." Free also staunchly defends her employer - on all fronts. "'Im making decent money to do what I do," she says. "'Im by no means rich."Still, she claims that her gig affords the kind of perks a single honey in the city really appreciates: "I love not having to stand in a line going to the club, and I love that you go somewhere and people know who you are and they acknowledge it - it's beautiful."

And don't expect her to dis BET about its reliance on booty-shaking videos and its lack of qulality programming. "I don't run the company, so I don't take those comments personally," says Free, who believes that despite its heavy hoochie-mama rotation, the network is empowering. "We're lucky to have a station that promotes black artist, because a lot of them wouldn't have a way to get their music out there," she says. "That's what MTV ends up picking up, the people who we say,'This is our new one right here.'"

Yet it's not just newcomers needing exposure who flock to the show. Although 106 and Park is credited with helping blow up the careers of B2K and Mario, it's became a crucial stop for established players, too. Mariah Carey made sure to go on it while staging her comeback, and in the days after the Whitney Houston-Diane Sawyer fiasco, when other media outlets shut out in their attempts to get to the troubled star, Whitney made a beeline for 106 and Park.

Of course, Free modestly downplays her importance to the show's success-always talking up how it's a team effort with A.J., and the entire crew-but it would be hard to imagine the show with any other hostess. "She has this incredible personality, and it dosen't hurt that she's gorgeous," enthuses R&B singer Joe, who adds that Free's slightly unpolished air adds to her appeal. " Every single person can probably relate to being in her shoes." This Traci Washington, who goes by the moniker I.C. Art: "Young girls and boys can relate to her, and she can relate [to them]. What you see on TV is exactly who she is."

No Chains On Her

Obviously, Free has accomplished a lot, but here's a challenge even she won't be able to pull off - cloning herself so that when her album comes out she can hype her own tunes on 106 and Park. Fortunately, she won't have to. She's got A.J. for that.

"Its going to be an amazing thing when the world sees and knows Free's talent and versatility,"her co-host says. "I've heared a lot of women, but her music is hot." The person who signed Free - Sylvia Rhone, chairman and CEO of Elektra Entertainment Group - concurs: "People won't believe what they hear on Free's project," she says. "The preconceived notions about her-her incredible poise, her impeccable style, her ability to spot trends-pale in comparison to her musical sensibilities. She brings a voice of purpose with something very meaningful to say."

Serious words from a woman who has steered the recording careers of everyone from Missy to Metallica. Yet chatty as Free may be on TV and in person, she's keeping mysteriously mum about her debut - the album she's dreamed of making for years, the album she works on virtually every night leaving BET "day job." All she will confirm is that it's a mix of rap and R&B, and that her Elecktra label mate Missy Elliott is helming various tracks. "Everyone is like,'Are you singing? Are you rapping? I'm like, 'You know, I'm really just expressing myself,'" she says. "It's just gonna be Free."

She does admit that a nonstop toil in both TV and the recording studio demands certain sacrifice on the level of a social life - and a man to share it with. Yes, A.J. says, "She's cute, she's sexy, she's intelligent and she's an outspoken, independent black woman. Every man wants that." Yes, Stephen Hill says, "It's amazing, the number of men who come by and try and put the mack down." Yet Free insist that despite her slew of celebrity admirers, nobody's coming to break her off. "There may be one or two that slide a little extra, like, 'What's up, Free?" she says. in her best mack-daddy impression. "But for the most part, there haven't been too many."

You get the impression that even though Free says that being single "sucks", she isn't ready for true love right now. "I haven't had a lot of luck in the relationship thing," she says. but won't go into detail. " I want to focus on my career." That focus includes putting out her own line of boots this fall and several other "million-dollar ideas," such as a soul food restaurant and a cooking show. Curiouisly, being a multiplatinum hip hop star is not high on her list. "I'm not gonna put that on myself. I'm not gonna say, 'I've gotta have a platinum album, because thats sets you up for disappointment,"she says. "whatever is supposed to happen in my life is gonna happen. I will be happy with whatever comes."