Ice Cream, You Scream

When it comes to body language, hip-hop’s “Jessica Rabbit” speaks volumes. Her pictures allow words to go on vacation by the thousands. So imagine when your favorite video dime decides to speak her mind.

Words: Kris Ex
Images: Charlie Langella

Just because it would be cliché to say that Melyssa Ford is prettier in person than she is in pictures, wouldn’t make it any less true. After all, she’s known for her beauty. Her career spawned with a succession of hit music videos such as Jadakiss’ “Knock Yourself Out” and Usher’s “Yeah,” which years later led to her cohosting the negro channel’s BET Style, making her rise to the cusp of mainstream fame a pretty de rigueur path for a pretty face and body sicker than your average.

But there’s more to Melyssa than what meets the eyes and makes them pop out. She affirms this with conversation amid a couple glasses of wine at a small table in New York City. Over a few soaring hours, she waxes about subjects big, small and in between. From pets (“Animals give you a love without verbal communication that you’ll never ever be able to receive from a human being”) to speed-reading horror novels as a child (“What 8-year-old do you know that reads It by Stephen King?”) to the idea of sex vs. sexy (“I try to keep things in the realm of the modern-day Marilyn Monroe, like the true pinup women that were appreciated for their beauty, their bodies and their personas”) to adolescent dreams of being Clarice Starling (“I was 10 years old, and I snuck into The Silence of the Lambs and was like, “That’s it! I want to work for the behavioral-science unit and study high-profile sex offenders and serial killers”). She shares all this—and much more—with gracefully excited hand movements. Which is good, because it allows one to catch glimpses of her cleavage during conversation without looking like a perv.

What’s it like working for BET? I figure you have to keep it simple, can’t seem too inquisitive and say the same things over and over.
You know what’s hilarious? My mouth gets me into a lot of trouble, because I’m a straight shooter. I don’t know how to be anything other than completely honest and blunt. Sometimes people are really taken aback by how loquacious I can be; how much I feel the need to voice my opinion.

But strong opinions and BET aren’t always synonymous…
When it comes to BET, I will forever be grateful for the opportunity. It has done so many things in terms of elevating me to another level, changing people’s perceptions about me. But, more and more, I’m becoming conscious about my responsibility to the community and how loud my voice actually is. We just don’t offer enough in terms of responsible programming, informative programming to build the African-American community as a whole.

If given the opportunity, what would you do with your airtime?
I offered to house a production crew in Houston for free when all the [Hurricane Katrina] evacuees from the Superdome had been sent to the Astrodome in Houston. I offered to pay for myself to go down and offer a comprehensive look at how the evacuees felt about the lack of urgency from the Bush Administration. I wanted to show it from the perspective of the younger generation, so that people would really understand the severity of the situation, like, Yo, their quality of life is gone. Imagine you’re without your Timbs, you’re without your fuckin’ snorkel jacket, you’re without all the stuff that you apply to your identity and who your are. Because when we’re in our teens, really, materialistic possessions define who we are more often than not. Imagine that gone. You might not even know where your sister or your mom is. Your whole life, your whole culture has been turned upside down. It was never explained that way to get the younger generation to be sympathetic to what was really going on.

So what did BET say to this grand idea?
They turned me down. I was devastated because it was gonna do more than just inform the viewing public. It was gonna offer another perspective, which is what I’m all about—building, evolving, keeping people interested, but at the same time, informing.