Author: Marisa Mendez

(Photos + Video) French Montana’s Assistant

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Back in December of 2008, a few of my friends were over my house and played a video from YouTube with Max B featuring a guy named French Montana, “Disturbia Money.” Of course I knew Max from my Dip Set days, but I’d only heard the name French Montana a couple of times and had no idea who he was. After seeing the video, I thought he was so funny and pretty dope, and wanted to see if I could work with him and get his name out more. I found out that weekend that he’d be hitting Jersey Girls with Max, so I went and met up with him, asked if he wanted help and the rest is history!

Here are a few pics from different dope things: his first interview with FADER (big shout to Felipe on that!), Max passed out LOL, French playing “Straight Cash” for T-Pain at the Hit Factory in MIA in Pain’s car, my first blog shout out LOL, the “NY Minute” shoot, random kids asking for his autograph… (I’m positive they didn’t know who he was though, LOL.)
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(Photos + Video) Lil Wayne’s Amerika’s Most Wanted Tour [Scranton, PA & Long Island, NY]

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I hit a couple stops on Lil Wayne’s Amerika’s Most Wanted Tour, including the kickoff (on my birthday!) on 7/27 in Scranton, PA. (Sadly I didn’t see any landmarks from The Office, LOL.)

Fun fact: Backstage at the Scranton stop, Tyga’s BFF/hypeman Trell was freaking the f*ck out because it was his first time ever outside of his Cali hometown. Meanwhile, Amber Rose was inviting all of us to her birthday party, LOL.

Another fun fact: I brought French with me to the Long Island stop. The kids freaked out at the hotel afterward when they met Nicki Minaj and they asked for her autograph, and because French had a big chain and just looked like a rapper, they got his autograph too. Pretty sure they didn’t know him. LOL!


(Photos) Summer Jam 2009

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As an intern on the Funkmaster Flex show at the time, I got to be a “runner” at Summer Jam 2009. My assigned artist was Serani – and I had an awesomely awkward encounter with him when after an hour of being together, I thought his hypeman was him (because I had no idea what he looked like and someone had incorrectly identified this guy as Serani) and found out the hard way that it wasn’t. LOL!

It was really cool to work behind-the-scenes on the big summer show I had grown up attending!
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(Photos + Video) Nicki Minaj “Beam Me Up Scotty” Press Run [New York, NY]

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In April 2009, I helped Mizay Ent. coordinate Nicki Minaj’s press run for her new mixtape, Beam Me Up Scotty. We’d connected when I interviewed Nicki for AllHipHop.com, and they’d reached back out when Nick had to come to NYC for press – as the firm is Atlanta based.

I made a lot of good friends over the course of these few days from the stops we made including Rahim the Dream (at Vlad TV at the time), Lowkey and Andreas Hale (at BET at the time) and Shaheem Reid and Rahman Dukes (at MTV at the time.)
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