Heather A. Faison, AKA Haftime, is the young whippersnapper with her ears to the street. I’m the old fogey who’s trying desperately to keep up with what’s new and hot.
This week, Haftime solved a few mysteries on singers I’ve been hearing but could not identify, put me on to some new hip-hop and forced me to critique my hometown hero. Sigh.
Check it out:
Heather Faison's favorite VIBE cover: "This cover came out around the time I rededicated my life to God. The irony of him holding a white dove with the sullied cityline in the background was striking artistically. And the headline is a rhetorical 'no'. You can almost hear the editors chuckling at the thought"
8:30 this morning. I’m speeding up the Parkway, on my way to the Apple store to get my computer fixed. My Blackberry pings. I check it, knowing I shouldn’t cause I’m driving.
It’s an email from Heather Faison, a writer and dear reader of this blog. I read the first two lines of what she wrote and I was confused. It was a reflection on the end of Vibe. But she was writing like she worked there. As far as I knew, she hadn’t.
One eye on the parkway. One eye on my Blackberry. Two paragraphs in. I understood.
And I put my Blackberry on the seat of my car and cried.
I feel the loss of Vibe in a certain way. But I did it. I ran through the halls. I wrote a few cover stories. I looked up at the mountain in awe and scaled it.
Too many writers like Heather won’t have the chance to make a literary dream come true.
Preview Issue of VIBE. 1992.
Now what?
You want to clutch your chest and lay back on your chaise and dab your brow with your hankie?
Go ahead.
I can’t go there with y’all.
I’m busy.
Running a fiction workshop right here on my blog.
Reaching out to my dear readers right here on my blog.
Shilling for Yummy’s.
TweetChatting
Writing.
Writing.
Writing.
Writing.
Writing.
The game is changing. If writing is your passion, do not pass Go.
Mourn Vibe.
I’m thisclose to crying. For real.
And then get over it.
We are in the middle of a huge transition.
Where will you end up?
Much love to all my Vibers, past and present.
Thank you to Danyel Smith for not hiring me to be your assistant and for knowing there were bigger things in store for me.
Thank you to Dave Bry, for assigning me my very very first story in the front of the book. Thank you to Erik Parker, for always making me trim the fat and get to the meat of my stories–even when it pissed me off. Thank you to the whole team who made the Mary Woodson story happen: Laura Checkoway, Lacey Banis, Jamie Katz.
Thank you to Keith Clinkscales, for letting me interview for three hours on how Vibe came to be.
Thank you to Serena Kim for assigning and editing some of my best work. Thank you to Karen Good for making me want to be a better writer.
Thank you to Raqiyah. Just because.
Rondell, Angie, BMI, J-Rod, Mariel, Lakeba….Thanks to the entire staff for hosting my students for countlesss class trips to see the inner workings of a magazine. Thank you to Rob Kenner for believing in my long-form investigative work. Thank you to Emil Wilbekin for being tipsy at Danyel’s house on DeKalb that day 12 years ago and making a newbie feel like she had a future in the game. Thank you to Akiba and Ayana and Tai for showing me love at Vixen. Thank you to Alan Light for letting me interview you about your time at Vibe. Thank you to Mimi for a second chance. Thank you so much to Shani Saxon who stopped me in the hallway and assigned me a story on the spot cause she heard I was a fearless reporter. I don’t have a masthead in front of me. This is all off the top. I’m verklempt.
I’m sad.
I’m fucked up.
And now. I’m done.
Onward and upward.
My first cover story for Vibe. 2005
My last cover story for Vibe. Faith Evans. 2005.
Fantasia. 2007. My first and last cover for Vibe Vixen
In general, I can be pretty patient.
Last two weeks of my pregnancy, I was a bit antsy. Especially since TOG was TWO WEEKS overdue. Hmph
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Aliya S. King 