Grammy winner Stevie J releases a unique, musically inspired installment of Pop Shots, featuring Penthouse Pets Lexi Belle and Skin Diamond and erotic models Nikki Delano and Abby Lee Brazil.
Hard-Wired for Sound with Stevie J
Stevie J has been an award-winning producer, songwriter, and musician for two decades, and over the past five years he’s become a fixture on television. He was part of one of reality TV’s biggest love triangles, captivating Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta viewers with his relationships with ex-girlfriend Mimi Faust (the mother of Stevie’s daughter, Eva) and now-wife Joseline Hernandez. He and Joseline are back on the airwaves this month, and Stevie is back to working with his Bad Boy Records collaborators, which means 2016 is already destined to be a hell of a year for the Grammy winner.
You’re a tough dude to pin down, Stevie.
Yeah. When I’m in L.A., I’ve been working on this movie, a romantic comedy called That Time of the Month, and I’ve been in the studio working with various artists. I’m back in it with Puffy, producing again. Doing reality shows and executive producing a lot of television shows. I’ve just been working and keeping myself busy.
People are buzzing about you getting back in the studio with Puffy.
We sold hundreds of millions of records together, and it’s only right that we get back together and make some history. It’s Bad Boy Records’ 20-year anniversary, and it’s only right that we get together and make some more classics.
But you still made time to do this shoot for Penthouse.
Nothing beats a Penthouse feather in your cap. And with me being creative director of the shoot, it really helps me define what I want to be in this world. Nothing beats being the creative director of beautiful women.
How does that help you define what you want to be in the world?
It’s about being creative. That really gets my juices flowing, getting to create something from nothing, just out of thin air. When I’m making music, it’s the same thing. When I’m making a beat, it starts off with nothing, but at the end of the day
I have to make a masterpiece of it. And I look at that the same way that I looked at creating the ideas for this photo shoot. I wanted this to be something different.
It’s loud as fuck over there. Where are you?
I’m in Milwaukee right now. I’m in the mall. I go to the mall in every town I visit to show people that I appreciate the love that they give me. Hold on … just getting my picture taken.
You know, a lot of people forget about that type of thing when they achieve success.
No. Fuck no. I go to the mall in every city I go to and make sure that I give love back. I see everybody, and I take all the pictures. Without them, I wouldn’t be who I am—I don’t want them to ever think that I feel differently than that.
Man, it sounds like Milwaukee came out strong to support you.
Yes, they did!
So do we need to stop talking about this photo shoot now?
Not at all. I’m a grown man. Who doesn’t like nude, beautiful women?
What is it that makes a woman beautiful to you?
The body parts … the brain … the conversation. The way she carries herself. Confidence. Sex appeal. A lot of different attributes make a woman beautiful.
Which body parts?
I can’t say one in particular. With some ladies it might be the ass. With some ladies it might be the titties. The lips, the eyes … the shape of her nose. Different body parts with different ladies.
What’s the first thing you notice about a girl?
Is she fully clothed or is she naked?
I guess I don’t live the same type of life that you do, because if someone asks me that question I’m just assuming she’s fully clothed.
Fully clothed, I look at her feet, I look at her hair, and I look at her nails. I make sure that everything is A1 in that department first.
And what if she’s naked?
If she’s naked, I look at her beautiful breasts and that ass to make sure that’s on point.
Is that what you were looking for when you cast Lexi Belle, Skin Diamond, Abby Lee Brazil, and Nikki Delano?
What I was looking for, I got delivered to me. I wasn’t trying to find the standard model type. I wanted the Stevie J type. And I think the models delivered what I was looking for. I chose girls who had a different look than the standard slim, tall model type. I wanted a big joint, a short joint … I need something to hold on to. Some joint that I’d take for myself.
There was no shortage of variety.
Yeah. If you look at all of them, they all look different. They all have a different type of flavor, and that’s what I’m all about. I’m a man who likes different flavors. And I think most men do. Some men say that they have a particular type. Well, they ain’t really going hard. Me? I go hard, so I like different flavors. Nobody likes to deal with the same type of look. Even if a man’s been married for a long time, he’s still looking at different types of chicks because every body is beautiful in its own way. One man finds beauty in a woman that another man might not see.
What about the concept of this shoot? How did that tie into the fantasy?
With me being a musician and playing multiple instruments, I just wanted to portray women as instruments. And if I really look at it, I call all my guitars and my pianos and my keyboards and drum sets my girlfriends. I call them all my girls. So I see the beauty in women as my instruments, and I wanted to showcase that. If you look at the way the piano is set up and how Skin Diamond is playing the piano and the saxophone … Skin is my musician in the photos, and the other girls are my instruments. I just wanted to do something totally against the grain, and I’ve never seen that done before. And I wanted to be the first to do it with Penthouse.
And you really got into it.
I wanted to be involved in creating a masterpiece. I didn’t want to be sitting back and just looking at the pictures. That’s not the way to do this. I wanted to take the pictures with Tommy. Being behind the camera made a lot of sense to me, because I didn’t want it to be generic. Being a visual person, it’s all kind of the same. When I produce music, I just close my eyes and see what I want to see and envision it before it happens. And it was the same with these pictures. I like being behind the camera, and with all these ladies it really was a nice thing.
I thought for sure you were going to get carried away.
I just wanted it to be tasteful. I didn’t want it to be raunchy or anything. I know I could have had the girls busted open, but that really wasn’t what I was going for. The only element that had a little more spread to it was the snare drum. I love the drum set. The drum set was really fly. Other than that, I wanted to keep it sexy.
Did you expect Joseline to pop in on-set? She seemed genuinely excited.
She likes beautiful women as well. It’s all about those flavors. She likes the flavors. She saw Skin Diamond and the other girls, and she really couldn’t say no to being a part of it. She wanted to be a part of what I was doing because she knows how much I got involved in being the creative director of the shoot. It was a great business opportunity and something that was fun for me. There’s nothing like working with a magazine that I’ve grown up looking at. This was a dream come true for me in that respect.
In case you were curious, the romantic picture with the microphone would be Stevie J and his wife, Joseline Hernandez, on the Pop Shots set. The photo with the guitar shows Skin Diamond (Penthouse Pet, January, 2014) – you guessed it – also on the Pop Shots set. Even though it was difficult to find shots where people were wearing clothes for display out here, we did decide we really should use only shots from this Pop Shots shoot. (We’re often clever that way.) … After winning the “Best Rap Album” Grammy in 1998, Stevie J essentially moved on to the executive side of the business an today maintains a predictably popular Instagram presence. … On a personal note, this editor should mention that I have perpetually been waiting for the day when I might test out the theory “Mo Money Mo Problems” for myself.
