Ki Toy Johnson

Ki Toy Johnson (1983- ) is an American video vixen, best known for being the leading woman in OutKast’s music video, “The Way You Move” (2003). She is the one in the black bikini at the beginning and the end dancing with Big Boi. She has been in King, XXL, Black Men, SSX and Smooth magazines.

She won the Ki Toy Johnson vs Buffie the Body contest put on by XXL. In 2004 her name was put up for Vibe magazine’s Video Vixen award. AskMen.com called her “one of hip hop’s best booty shakers”.

Seeing her can make a man walk again: she says that one man was told by doctors he would never walk again after an accident. But then four years later he saw her in “They Way You Move” and started walking again.

She had a Wikipedia article, but it was removed in June 2007 because she was not “notable” enough.

She has a pretty face, a thick figure and a nice round bottom. She is 5 foot 2 (1.57 m) and 135 pounds (61 kg). Her  measurements are 36-22-36 (91-56-91 cm), giving her a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.61.

She says that what you see is what God blessed her with, maintained through exercise.

Women come up to her all the time and ask how she keeps her figure. She says exercise. She shows them how she does her squats. She says, “Even though you have a big butt, if you don’t do your squats, it’ll sag.”  She exercises five days a week, leaving Wednesday for rest and Sunday for church. She gets up at six in the morning to work out at the gym. On Saturdays she speed-walks five miles round Stone Mountain in Georgia.

Because of her amazing body people wonder if she has ever been a stripper, a hooker or a porn star. She has never been any of those things nor does she ever hope to be. She is nothing like that. She has a degree, goes to church and helps children.

Her bottom grew out before the rest of her body, so in high school she was called Duck Booty.

She has done some acting. She was on a television show with Trina, “With Friends Like These” (2005), which never made it. She was in “Beauty Shop” (2005), starring Queen Latifah, and a few other films. She was also in an ad for Boost Mobile.

She was born in Peoria, Illinois, went to high school in Natick, Massachusetts and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

She got an accounting degree at Clayton State University near Atlanta. She applies her accounting to two companies she owns with boxer Vernon Forrest: First Class Enterprises, a construction company, and Destiny’s Child Inc, which helps those who suffer from autism and schizophrenia to live as independent a life as possible.

She has a 13-year-old foster child.

Her sister has two of Big Boi’s children.

She was once a commentator on WAEC, a Christian talk radio station in Atlanta.

See also:

• video vixens
• Buffie the Body
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• big bottom girls
• thick black women
• hip hop music

Read Full Post »

Hoopz

Nikki Alexander (1983- ), better known as Hoopz, is an American hip hip model. In 2006 she won the first season of the television show “Flavor of Love” on VH1. Hoopz is the name Flavor Flav gave her because she likes to play baseketball.

In August 2008 she was in “I Love Money”, another reality show on VH1, and in September she will appear on the cover of King magazine.

Most of the women on “Flavor of Love” are more body than beauty and seem more interested in becoming rich and famous than being with Flavor Flav – who, admittedly, is old enough to be their father. But Hoopz seemed different. From what I saw of the show, she had beauty and seemed to have a sense of dignity, a rare thing in reality television. She seemed to like Flavor Flav for himself.

The point of the show was to find Flavor Flav a girlfriend, but they were already casting for season two before season one was done. Hoopz said she was never in love with Flav – none of the women on the show were, not even New York. It is all just made-up for television.

She hated New York, who came in second.

Even before “Flavor of Love” she was not a complete unknown. She was an Internet model and in 2005 she won King magazine’s Web Girl of the Month. She was also in a Will Smith video and later appeared in Big Tigger’s 2006 swimsuit calendar as Miss April.

She has modelled for Titanium Girlz and Eye Candy Modeling.

Like most hip hop models who have reached this stage she is working on becoming an actress – a hard jump to make.

She has a good figure, but most of all, she has beautiful eyes. Her reported measurements are 34C-24-36 inches (86-61-91 cm). That gives her a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.67. She is 5 foot 2 tall (1.57 m).

She grew up just outside of Detroit, the oldest of six daughters. Her father is black, her mother is Italian-American. She looks kind of like the Hollywood actress Stacey Dash (whose mother is Mexican).

She has appeared in at least two music videos:

• Will Smith: Party Starter (2005)
• Lil Keke: Chunk Up the Deuce (2006)

Some say she had an affair with T.I. His girlfriend, Tiny of Xscape, was certainly afraid it might be true: she pulled him away from Hoopz at a party and then later bad-mouthed her on the radio. When Hoopz was later asked if she had an affair with T.I. she would only say, “That’s my homeboy; we just cool.”

In 2006 she was arrested for fighting with a policeman. The police came to her house when her neighbours complained of loud music. She was speaking her mind when one of the policemen “grabbed me by me neck and I just remember flying down these steps. While I’m falling, I gripped on to him and we fall. Now we wrestling and two more cop guys come and jump on me”.

See also:

• HOOPZ Online – her website.
• Flavor of Love
• hip hop models
• King magazine

Read Full Post »

Vida Guerra

Vida Guerra (1974- ) is a Cuban American video vixen or hip hop model, best known for her beautiful bottom. She first appeared in 2002, in FHM magazine as an “ordinary babe” in lingerie. She was a nobody then, but readers liked her so much that FHM brought her back. Soon she was appearing in King, Smooth, Black Men and Playboy (July 2006) as well as some music videos, like “Shake Ya Tailfeather” in the summer of 2003.

In 2004 she was FHM magazine’s Model of the Year.

In 2006 she was Black Men magazine’s Sexiest Woman of the Year.

AskMen.com puts her somewhere in the 60s between Fergie and Carrie Underwood.

She is a Latin beauty with white skin, long black hair, high cheekbones and a great figure: her measurements are 34C-25-37 (86-64-94 cm). That gives her a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.68. She is 5 foot 3 (1.60 metres) and 115 pounds (52 kg). In person she looks shorter and older than her pictures.

Given her success at both FHM and Black Men magazine it seems she appeals to both black men and white men in America. In fact, her look is right between black and white ideas of female beauty.

For example, her WHR of 0.68 makes her just thick enough for most black men but still thin enough for most white men.

There are plenty of black models with bigger bottoms than her, like Buffie, Bria and Angel, but they seem to be too big for most white men. Vida is just right: not too big, not too small.

Her skin colour too: white. If she looked at all black, like Melyssa Ford or Esther Baxter, she would lose many of her white male fans. On the other hand, if she were Anglo instead of Latin American, she might be “too white” for some black men. That is how it seems. So again, she stands right in the middle.

But if she is white, why did Black Men magazine pick her as their Sexiest Woman of the Year? Over the years they have tried out different sorts of women to see what sort of beauty works in practice among black men in all parts of America and the West Indies. They found that what plays best are light-skinned women with long black hair and big bottoms. Like Melyssa Ford. Or Vida Guerra.

Vida Guerra was born in Havana Cuba. Her family came to America in 1980 when she was six. They lived in Perth Amboy, New Jersey near New York.

She has always loved modelling, but did not get her big break till she was 28, which is old for a model.

She heard that FHM wanted to do pictures of “everyday babes” in lingerie. She sent in her pictures and the rest is history.

She is trying to get into singing and acting, but with little success so far.

In 2005 some naked pictures of her got out on the Internet. She said someone broke into her mobile phone, but her record company at the time said she was behind it and dropped her.

See also:

• big bottom girls
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• Black Men magazine
• video vixens
• race and beauty
• magazine
• Buffie the Body
• Melyssa Ford

Read Full Post »

Angel Lola Luv

Melaku Fershgenet (1986- ), better known as Angel Lola Luv or Angel Melaku, is an Ethiopian-born American video vixen. Starting out in 2006, she made it to the top in just two years. She was the main video girl in “Good Life” by Kanye West and “I Get Money” by 50 Cent.

She has a pretty face, light skin, long black hair and a big, beautiful bottom. So big that it seems unnatural for the frame of her body. Anything is possible, but most likely it is not natural at all. Some have noticed her breasts getting bigger too. And some even say her teeth are not natural! And most likely neither is her hair!

She will not say how much of her is natural. She says it is better for people to wonder because it gets her talked about and therefore better known.

Her look is unnatural and, if you look at the women in black men’s magazines, it is very made-to-order.

Her booty-on-a-stick look is new. If it catches on it could become very common by the 2010s. Just like when Pamela Anderson and others in the 1990s brought in the breast-on-a-stick look, which at first looked strange but now is accepted.

There are plenty of men who will tell you she is the most beautiful woman in the world. But she is too strange looking for my tastes. And knowing that something on a woman is not natural makes it seem less good somehow.

She is five foot five (1.65 m). Her measurements are 34C-22-40 inches (86-56-102 cm). Her waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is 0.55, which is extremely low

She was born Melaku Fershgenet in Ethiopia. Melaku is her family name. She came to America when she was only a month old, a year after Live Aid. The Wikipedia says she is part Trinidadian. She grew up in uptown Washington, DC.

In 2006 she appeared in Trey Songz’s video “Wonder Woman”. It made her name. She became XXL‘s Eye Candy of the Year that same year. In 2007 she was the industry’s it girl. And now, in 2008, she is at the top, having appeared in almost every black men’s magazine as well as the videos of not just Kanye West, 50 Cent and Trey Songz but also Twista, Lloyd Banks, Young Jeezy, Busta Rhymes and others.

You can see her in this blog in the video “Beat Rock” by Tabi Bonney. She is the woman he hugs. Like Melaku, Bonney was born in Africa but grew up in DC.

Some wonder if she has gone with Trey Songz, Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne or other rappers. She is very good friends with Trey Songz, calling him one of the realest people she has met in the industry so far, but she is too busy for a relationship. She says sex is sacred. She thinks that sleeping your way to the top does not work in the long run.

She is now trying to become an actress.

Here is an interesting video of Angel in earlier days. Notice how different she looks:

See also:

• video vixens
• big bottom girls
• Tabi Bonney: Beat Rock
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• Washington, DC

Read Full Post »

Liris Crosse

Liris Crosse (1978- ), “shaped like the number 8”, is an American fashion model and video vixen. She was one of the first (and so far few) thick black women to become a fashion model. Before Toccara there was Liris.

She calls herself the Black Barbie: she looks like how a black Barbie doll should look: one with the shape of a black woman.

She is beautiful: I could look at her forever. She has cat-like eyes, high cheekbones, thick lips, an hourglass figure and a big, beautiful behind. Her eyes make her look a bit strange – but beautiful too.

But as beautiful as she is, it was hard for her to become a fashion model. Being black did not help, but worse than that she was seen as fat. The modelling agencies told her to come back when she lost some weight. She did, but it did not help.

In time she did get signed with a modelling agency, Wilhelmina. But she was considered a plus-sized model, meaning fat. This limited the work she could get.

The black models that came before her, like Naomi Campbell, Iman and Tyra Banks, were all tall and thin. But no matter how much weight Crosse lost she would never be thin like them: the shape of her body was all wrong.

But while the white people who ran the fashion industry saw her as fat, ordinary black people did not. She was fine the way she was – more than fine, in fact. Not because blacks like fat women or something, but because their idea of female beauty stands on this side of the stick-thin anorexia that white people like.

This gave Crosse an opening, but she would have to become her own agent since no modelling agency saw it. She talked directly to directors, magazine editors and others. They were not sold right away: even black magazine editors followed white ideas of beauty.

Her hero was Jennifer Lopez. She had a womanly shape too but she never let that stop her. Crosse took her example to heart. By never giving up no matter how many times she was told no, she broke through at last. “If you can think it, you can do it,” she says.

At first she appeared in magazines aimed mainly at black readers, like Essence, XXL and Honey. Later she was in mainstream ones, like Glamour and Seventeen. In time she modelled for Lane Bryant and Ashley Stewart.

She achieved her long-time dream of appearing in Vogue in January 2008.

In addition to print modelling, she has also been in music videos and film. She is the woman in the gold dress in Jay-Z’s “Do It Again” (1999). You saw her with Tyrese in the film “Baby Boy” (2001).

She also hosts parties, sells swimsuit calendars, DVDs and T-shirts. She is even a character in a video game.

She knows Tyrese outside of work – they go to the same church. She is also friends with Toccara Jones.

See also:

• Liris Crosse on YouTube
• thick black women
• black fashion models
• video vixens
• Toccara Jones
• Naomi Campbell
• race and beauty
• The most beautiful black women – the only reason she did not make this list is because she is not famous enough to have an article in the Wikipedia.

Read Full Post »

Avonte Wright

Avonte Wright (c. 1974- ) was one of the top black swimsuit models in America in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She is now retired and running her own skin care business, but her pictures still appear in magazines.

She has beautiful eyes, great lips and a wonderful face. But it is mainly her large breasts that have brought her success as a swimsuit model. Her measurements are 36D-25-34 (91-64-86 cm).

Her breasts seem too large for her body, just like with Pamela Anderson, yet they seem to be natural. She says they get in the way of people taking her seriously.

She often makes the point that beauty comes as much from the inside as from the outside.

She has been in music videos for Men at Large, Dogg Pound, Sisqo, and R. Kelly. She has also been on television and in films, but mainly as a dancer or a pretty face. You can see her in “The Parkers”, the HBO film “The Mike Tyson Story”, “Rude Awakening” on Showtime and in the straight-to-DVD film “Three Strikes and Foolish”.

She is best known by far for her pictures in calendars and men’s magazines. She is often pictured with Sacha Kemp.

She is not as famous as, say, Buffie the Body or Melyssa Ford: she has been on cover of Black Men magazine twice, for example, but she has never made the cover of King. She has been in Smooth magazine but never on its cover. You will not find her in the Wikipedia.

In March 1998, when Black Men first put her on the cover, they took a chance: she was unknown except on the Internet. When she first saw herself on the cover she thought it was someone else: they had made her skin lighter! She appeared again on the cover in March 2000.

Like Kenya Moore and Lizz Robbins, she was born a bit too early to be a video vixen in the full sense.

She is also a bit too thin. The move from thin black models to thick ones starting in the late 1990s meant her sort of figure fell out of fashion.

She retired from modelling and went back to school. After that she started her own business, Skin Amour. The name means “Skin Love”. It sells make-up that makes your skin look good.

She got into that business when she was going with a man who had better skin than she did! So she tried all different kinds of things to make her skin look better. She was like a walking science project. In time she found stuff that worked, but since she could not buy it anywhere, she made it for herself and started selling it to others.

She is from Hollywood, Florida.

She says: “I don’t let the game change me, I change the game!”

See also:

• Skin Amour
• thick black women
• King magazine
• Black Men magazine
• video vixens
• The most beautiful black women
• Lizz Robbins
• Kenya Moore

Read Full Post »

Buffie the Body

Buffie Carruth (1977- ), better known as Buffie the Body, is an American video vixen. She is a sort of black Pamela Anderson but instead of having huge breasts she has a huge behind – with the word “Tasty” written on it.

She has an amazing body. Her measurements are 36C-26-44 (91-66-112 cm). She says, “There are a lot of jeans that they just don’t make in my size.” But her face is only somewhat pretty at best, certainly not beautiful.

She says her body is all natural, a gift from God. Unlike Kim Kardashian or Angel Lola Luv, you do not see strange pictures of her with thin legs that seem out of place with the rest of her body. She has the thick legs you would expect in a woman like her.

But as natural as her body might be, much of what you see in pictures is airbrushed:

• She says King doctored her figure on its cover.
• The word “Tasty” is missing from some pictures – a sure sign of airbrushing.
• Her skin often has that strange golden colour that black women get when they are heavily airbrushed.

At least until 2007 she did not exercise regularly and seemed to live largely on Kool-Aid and Southern fried pork chops.

Her calendars have sold as far away as Switzerland and China, but her body does not appeal to all men. Ben Westhoff of the Village Voice for one, who met her once to do a story: “She’s sweet. But I have to come clean. The fact is, her big ass does nothing for me. Perhaps, as a white guy, I’m just not hard-wired to understand.”

She grew up in Athens, Georgia, an hour and a half east of Atlanta. The third of seven children, her father left when she was young. She became a stripper.

In 2004 a friend created a Yahoo! Group about her and put up some pictures. It was an instant hit. In 2005 she was an even bigger hit when she appeared in F.E.D.S. magazine.

Soon she was in music videos, but, as it turns out, she has only been in a few:

• Tony Yayo and 50 Cent: “So Seductive” (2005)
• Juelz Santana: “Oh Yes (Mr Postman)” (2005)
• DJ KaySlay, Papoose, Bun B, Shaq: “You Can’t Stop The Reign” (2006)
• Gucci Mane: “Go Head” (2006)

She says videos do not pay much. She sees them only as a stepping stone.

Her pictures in magazines like King, Sweets, Smooth, Black Men and XXL is what made her name. There are even special issues that feature only her.

She sells DVDs and calendars on her website and hosts parties. She does over a hundred parties a year, going from city to city.

In the film “ATL” she played Big Booty Judy.

She drives a Mercedes CLS 550.

These days she seems prouder of her credit rating than her body measurements. She is trying to turn herself into a business empire.

See also:

• Healthy, my ass | Salon.com – article by Debra Dickerson, who says Buffie the Body is setting a bad example for black women, setting them up to become fat and unhealthy.
• video vixens
• Kim Kardashian
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• thick black women
• big bottom girls
• King magazine
• Ki Toy Johnson

Read Full Post »

Melyssa Ford

Melyssa Ford (1976- ) was the highest paid video vixen from about 2000 to 2004. With a body better than Marilyn Monroe she appeared in music videos such as Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin'”, Sisqo’s “Thong Song Remix” and Mystikal’s “Shake It Fast”. She has appeared in many swimsuit calendars and on the cover of men’s magazines like King, Smooth, Black Men and XXL Eye Candy. She is a sometime television show host on BET.

She has such an amazing body that some call her “Jessica Rabbit”. Her measurements are 34D-22-36 (86-56-91 cm). But she hates it! She used to cry herself to sleep because she did not look like the thin women on television. She cannot even lie flat on her back!

But she modelled in part to help change ideas about beauty: “What I do sends a message to full-figured black women that we are a part of the beauty standard, even though we’re not rail thin and white.”

She is a mix of Barbados, Russia and Norway. Her mother is white, her father, black. She is proud of being mixed.

The videos made her famous mainly among black men in America. She is little known in Canada, where she is from, and even black women in America say, “Who is Melyssa Ford?”

Now that she is studying acting and trying to break into Hollywood, her video girl past is something she has to live down. It keeps her from getting serious parts in television and film.

She grew up in Toronto, Canada. While at York University she worked at a bar. There she met Little X, a music video director. He put her in some music videos. That in turn got her in magazines. She left Canada and moved to New York. All she brought were two suitcases and $25 (three crowns). The rest is history. Now she drives a Mercedes Benz S500.

Despite her example, she tells women to stay in school. The music video industry is not what it used to be: “Now it’s about body parts and how well you can shake them. It’s not about the female. It’s not about appreciating the female.”

The Game informs us about Ford:

She a video vixen, but behind closed doors
She do whatever it take to get to the Grammy Awards

Ford says some video girls are loose like that, but most (like her) have enough self-respect.

For two years Ford wrote the sex advice column in Smooth magazine. She spoke her mind but did not perform any research. Every month about 50 men would ask to marry her.

Her music videos:

• Rascalz: Northern Touch (1998 )
• 112: Anywhere (1998 )
• Choclair: Let’s Ride (1999)
• Jay-Z: Big Pimpin’ (2000)
• Ghostface Killah: Cherchez LaGhost (2000)
• Mystikal: Shake It Fast (2000)
• Sisqo: Thong Song Remix (2000)
• Jadakiss: Knock Yourself Out (2001)
• Alicia Keys: You Don’t Know My Name (2003)
• Usher: Yeah! (2004)
• R. Kelly: Happy People (2004)

See also:

• Melyssa Ford’s filmography at IMDb.com
• video vixens
• thick black women
• big bottom girls
• WHR: waist to hip ratio
• The most beautiful black women models
• Bria Myles
• King magazine

Read Full Post »