Yandy Smith On: New Lifestyle Brand, Why She’s Not An Instigator + If She & Kimbella Are Gettiing A Spin-Off

“I read about it, one of my best friends was going there, [and] I got a scholarship. So I felt ‘what better place to be than in DC?’ They had a great business program. And I really wanted to go to a HBCU……With Howard, unlike some other schools, you’re in the middle of the city. If you want to party full time, you can party full time. If you want to work full time and if you want to be a great student, you can do that as well. So that’s what I did. I partied full time at Howard, I did very well academically, and then I also worked. I had a full time job; I was a waitress and a bartender at ‘Phillips’, and I also worked at ‘Up Against the Wall’. So I did everything, completely, while I was there. So coming out of school, and going right into interning at Violator. We got in at 9 and I didn’t leave, sometimes, until 1 in the morning. And then I was working at a club. It was like no sleep. And Howard taught me that. Can I say, academically, I learned everything that I’m using? Am I using calculus? No. Am I using a whole lot of grammar? No. Am I using the social studies stuff that I learned? No, not particularly. But I think it just helped me to be well rounded because I did so much in school.”

“No, not at all. There are so many people that work in the music industry that have no degrees, that don’t even have high school diplomas. And they’re executives, they’re VP’s, they’re Presidents, they’re Head A&R’s. I think music is more creative and really about the hustle and going out there and knowing how to get a job. If you don’t hustle you don’t eat in this business. And you don’t necessarily learn that with a degree.”

“Internships are like the key to the world in music and TV. I think when you intern you get a wide spectrum of experience, especially if you don’t intern in a concentrated department. Like I was the intern to the President of the company, so we did a little bit of marketing; a little bit of legal contract stuff; we were day-to-day with the artists. And I learned a lot. At Violator I was working with some of the top artists of the time, so I was able to meet a lot of people, go to a lot of countries, and do a lot of things as an intern. And I think that’s really important when you want to break into this business.”

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“It’s intense. She plays no games and she’s very goal-oriented and focused. When she has something that she wants to get done, it needs to be done to the T, or ‘yo ass is grass.’ She really taught me to pay attention to detail, cross my T’s, dot all my i’s, and then double check and make sure I did it. It was very hard working for her. People always say she goes through assistants the quickest, and I think I was one of her longest assistants because she don’t play. She will cut you off in a quick heartbeat of a second if you’re not right.”

“Everything Girls Love is turning into a lifestyle brand right now. Originally it started out as a jewelry and accessory line. As of recently, we’ve also added a lip gloss line, lounge wear that you’ll see on the web site soon, and we’ve also started a magazine line that has everything from fashion tips to health tips, to romance tips. And we really want to make it the one-stop shop for women, where you can go for ‘what should I wear,’ ‘what should I do if I want to hang out with my girls,’ ‘what should I wear if I want to hang out with my man,’ ‘what should I cook for my first date,’ those kinds of things that all of us women need tips on sometimes.”

“Well, I’m a manager, first and foremost. I manage artists. I helped develop the careers of several artists. And that’s my main passion and focus. Also I love working with young women and volunteering. I have an organization I work with called Socks for Tots. We go into domestic violence shelters and really help the women. Everybody needs socks. So we call it ‘Socks for Tots’ because the most minor things that people overlook are the most needed sometimes. We go in and we help these women by just encouraging them and building a teen-spirit for them to be on their own team and be confident in themselves. We give them resume tips, career building skills and that kind of thing.”

“They’ll [the producers] say ‘hey we have this new girl, she’s been looking for you for management.’ Then they’ll say, ‘we have this lunch set up, we want you and Erica to come to the lunch.’ And you might not know what this lunch is. And that’s what happened with us. I got there and they were like ‘Okay, you and Erica are walking in.’ We didn’t know who we were walking in with, or what the situation was. It was an hour long dinner and for 45 minutes of it she was saying, ‘I researched you, I know you went to Howard, I know how good of a manager you are, I know you worked with this artist.’ Then I said, ‘oh you want to transition to singing from modeling, that’s great. I have a girlfriend who wants to do the same thing. Her name is Kimbella’ She’s like, ‘oh I know Kimbella. I’m here she’s there, and we’re just completely different.’ And I’m like, ‘Well on paper, ya’ll seem the same to me, so how do you compare?’ She’s like, ‘well I don’t compare myself to nobody.’ I’m like ‘Okay, I’m cool with that.’ And the very next day it seems like I’m taking her to a damn lunch. And I was like ‘I look crazy.’ So that kind of stuff I’m irked by. I look foolish… No [I did not invite Erica to the lunch with Kimbella]. Everything is very situational. It’s not scripted but it’s situational.”

“I was actually surprised. That scene went on a lot longer than what you guys saw. She was going in for a while. Then I actually said, ‘You’re not going to be sitting here going in on my friend like this. Hold on… I ain’t for the drama, I’m outta here.’ Then we all went our separate ways, then we had to come back into the scene and pick up where we left off. I’m like ‘While this girl is going in on my friend, ya’ll got me sitting there with the stupid face.’ So Monday night I was aggravated. I’m always aggravated when I watch this damn show.”

“You see 10 minutes of a 24 hour day mushed together. Every episode takes two weeks to make, almost. They show what’s going to be compelling. How compelling would it have been if Kim would have taken Emily to the side, in the bathroom, and told her, ‘Not around the cameras.’ Would you guys have tuned in for 3.9 million views? People have to start thinking outside the box… Now was that fight something that looked good? Of course not. But I didn’t throw a punch. What you guys also didn’t see is that Emily invited me and Kim to a party, at my jewelry party. They never said what the party was, they never said what it was for. We went not knowing what the hell we were walking into. We didn’t know this was like an Emancipation party, an ‘I’m Leaving Fab’ party. Kim intended to tell her anyway was, just so she wasn’t walk around being phony. Emily would have found out regardless. What you also don’t see is that Emily said, ‘Kim, I saw your number in his phone before, I’ve seen pictures in his phone, of you.’ But they cut that out too. There’s a lot that goes into these shows. And if I didn’t throw a punch, or I didn’t say, ‘yo, you should beat her up,’ then how can you say I orchestrated something? How could I have known Chrissy would take offense to that ? It had nothing to do with her.”

“ No [the tension between me and Chrissy was not there before the show started]. I don’t know what [the issue is]… and quite frankly, I don’t care. It’s odd. I’ve been around for 8 years and I never had an issue with Chrissy or Jim.”

“On the ride to Atlantic City, which you guys don’t see, Chrissy and I talked the whole time about her relationship with Jim and her issues with Mama Jones. And in that conversation, I said, “Chrissy, you can’t change Mama Jones, but maybe you can change something about you. You have to calm down, stop being rude. Just listen to her, care a little more, that is his mother… ‘ It was about 30 or 40 minutes of us talking about Mama Jones. So the next time I met with her, I thought it was a kind gesture. Like, “you want to get married, so here’s a book on how to be a great daughter in law. [This issue with Chrissy] is all very recent, since the show.”

“Exactly. You tell me. Maybe you know…”

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“Somaya is a hustler and she goes hard for hers. I’m not mad at her hustle. She has a tequila line, she has a shoe line, she does shows, why wouldn’t I [manage her]? She’s making money. It might not be necessarily because of her great talent. And I’m not disrespecting her talent, I think she’s fine. But she has her own liquor and her own shoes. She’s doing much more than some of the artists I manage. So if I wanted to manage her, so what, what’s the problem?”

“Girl you know we can’t talk about that kind of stuff. I will [talk to you about it when I can speak on it].”

“I have no idea, no clue. I never would have thought I’d be where I am today. The sky is the limit.”