Carmen’s tell-all memoir dedicated to single mums

Carmen Bryan is a former financial officer at Rush Management, a music production regulatory institution, under Hip Hop's holistic record label, Def Jam Recordings.

She later worked at Capitol Records as an executive assistant to Tracey Waples, the senior vice president of Artist & Repertoire.

As a teenager, she met lyricist Nasir Jones, who was the son of jazz musician Olu Dara, an absentee father. He was commonly known by his local Queensbridge New York rap name, Nas.

In early adulthood, Carmen rekindled her tumultuous relationship with Nas, who had signed a recording contract with Columbia Records.

Carmen's tell-all, explosive, page-turning memoir is dedicated to single mothers. It's titled It’s No Secret: From Nas to Jay-Z, from seduction to scandal, a Hip-Hop Helen of Troy tells all.

It's a revelation about her attrition and instinctive compulsion to protect her daughter, who was caught up in an infamous, exceedingly publicised strife, love triangle and poetic assault.

On June 16, 1994, Carmen and Nas welcomed a baby, Destiny Najae Jones. Carmen, who was then their sole breadwinner, while working at Rush Management, rented a town house apartment in Fresh Meadows, Queens, New York.

Nas's timeless debut studio album Illmatic, had been released on April 19, 1994, and he had spent the advance he'd been handed.
When Nas began touring and promoting his album, his unsettling predisposition to philandering magnified.

“You know me, Carm, I can’t help it. I just love women.” Nas confessed. Carmen was convinced Nas wanted her all to himself, while he was free to frivol.

He developed mood swings and repeatedly contradicted himself, making promises and reneging on them. Carmen found him excruciatingly fatiguing to live with, especially as he gradually distanced himself from her and Destiny.

When he'd emerge, he was physically abusive. Money trickled in from the success of Illmatic, which had sold over half a million copies by January 17, 1996.

Nas spent most of his royalties on expensive jewellery for his friends and small amounts on her and Destiny.
When the Illmatic money was spent, he stopped visiting the recording studio.

By July 1996, Carmen and Nas settled in a new house on Long Island, New York. It Was Written, Nas's stellar second studio album, was released and once again he neglected her.

Carmen went to the medicine cabinet of her bathroom and took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. The next morning, she awoke in hospital and a psychiatrist diagnosed her with chronic post-partum depression.

On her recovery path, Carmen was propositioned by Jay-Z. She discovered his birth name was Shawn Carter. He was a rapper who had been born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with his cousin.

He had released his debut studio album Reasonable Doubt in 25 June 1996.

He owned a symbolic record company, Roc-A-Fella. Jay-Z had intended to retire after his second studio album, In My Lifetime, and was aware of Carmen and Nas's relationship.

Every time Nas and Carmen had an altercation, Jay-Z would call. When Nas ignored her birthday on December 21, 1997, Jay-Z called and they spent New Year's Day in 1998 together.

She had long craved the taste of bitter-sweet revenge on Nas’s infidelity. Over the next few weeks, Carmen noticed she gained weight and her period was late.

A pregnancy test concluded that she was expectant. She hadn’t been using protection and had been intimate with Nas, Jay-Z and Allen Iverson, the NBA first draft pick to whom her friends had introduced her.

She discreetly terminated the pregnancy. After the procedure, Carmen was disorientated, with irrepressible guilt.
Her problems with Nas galvanised and she moved to Long Beach, California, with Destiny in February 1998.

After another flight back to New York, she travelled across to New Jersey to visit Jay-Z, who had moved into a new lavish apartment.

When she returned to California, she visited her doctor and was informed she had a sexually transmitted disease. The news ruined her relationship with Jay-Z.

Nas had rented an apartment in Los Angeles to stalk her. He proposed and she accepted and informed Jay-Z, on their next phone conversation.

Although he asserted to be happy for her, she sensed his disapproval. Shortly after, Nas, who had returned to New York, phoned Carmen, distraught over Jay-Z's lyrics in a song titled, Is That Your Chick?

In the song, an infuriated Jay-Z subliminally claimed to have been intimate with Nas’s girlfriend.

Carmen emotionally confessed to Nas about her five-year clandestine relationship with Jay-Z.

A disconcerted Nas went on an unsuccessful hunt for a scared Jay-Z in New York.

Jay-Z expeditiously released a prequel diss-song, Super Ugly, demeaning and defaming Carmen's daughter Destiny and followed it up with Takeover, from his Blueprint album.

A hysterical Carmen insisted that an apprehensive Nas lyrically retaliate.

Nas discharged, Ether. One of the most historically iconic and reprimanding retribution songs in Hip-Hop culture from his cult-classic album Stillmatic.

Vilifying and degrading Jay-Z, in extensive derogatory vocabulary, and bringing the conflict to a screeching capitulation.

Jeff Anthony is a novelist, a Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre @jeffbigbrother