Deb Antney “Not Afraid” [Jan./Dec.2011 Magazine Feature]

 

IMAGES BY ZACH WOLFE
WORDS BY ANDRÉA DUNCAN-MAO

It was the mid-1980s, and the streets of Hollis, Queens, were alive with the sound of hip-hop. If you were an around-the-way b-girl who liked to dance, it wasn’t hard to run in the same circles as local stars Run-D.M.C. or LL Cool J—especially if your little sister was dating Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels and your brothers hung out with Ladies Love. Such was Debra Antney’s introduction to the music business. “These people were like regular people,” she says nonchalantly. “Everybody was regular. Y’all were friends. Y’all came up in the neighborhood together. Everybody was like family.”
Now, two decades later, after raising five sons, pursuing a completely separate career path and enduring personal tragedy, this Queens native finds herself immersed in hip-hop once again. But this time it’s in Atlanta, and it’s as an elder statesperson guiding careers through this chaotic new Internet era of rap. Antney’s Mizay Entertainment management and production group has launched three major stars so far, including the colorfully coiffed tour de force Nicki Minaj, the oft-troubled trap star Gucci Mane and the upstart wild child Waka Flocka Flame (who also happens to be her son, Juaquin Malphurs), and is also home to bubbling-under artists like OJ Da Juiceman, Suga Shane, Muffy and producer Lex Luger. All this helps make Antney one of the most powerful figures in Atlanta’s rap scene.
Her arrival at the forefront of the industry was not without controversy. After quietly building her business over the last few years, helping folks distribute mixtapes and land deals, the woman referred to as “Auntie” by her artists was thrust into the spotlight in 2010. In April, she was abruptly fired via cease-and-desist letter by Nicki Minaj after three years managing the femme fatale rhyme slinger. (No reason was given to Antney, and the two have not spoken since.) A month later, reports surfaced that she and Gucci had split, along with accusations that she had taken money from him, something Antney has denied.
Feeling unfairly maligned, Antney lashed out angrily in profanity-laced online interviews, something she now regrets. “I have to really check myself with that, because I know what light that places you in, and that really kind of bothers me,” she says via phone from her busy A-Town office. “I’m not in the business to hurt people, nor did I get in the music business to hurt people. This was an outlet for me, from my group homes and me helping people, because charity is the biggest part of me.”
After toiling for years as a social worker at the Bureau of Children’s Welfare in New York, Debra ended up in Atlanta and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could get celebrities involved in events, most notably Ludacris. (He coined her nickname, “Ms. A.,” which ultimately became the name of her company.) For Deb, giving back, and especially assisting women and children, helped ease the hurt of her own life. Her sons’ father, who had been in and out of jail for years, was killed in 1993. Then, in 2000, her 10-year-old son, Rah Rah, Waka’s little brother, was killed in a hit-and-run car incident. “I don’t even have words to describe what happened to my family, my sons…” Deb says, trailing off, her voice pained and soft. “As a mother, I wasn’t really able to deal with my kids, because I couldn’t handle it myself. I couldn’t explain what happened to their brother. It was very, very hard. That’s how I really lost Waka to the streets.”
Still trying to pick up the pieces in 2006, Deb met another kid who was seemingly lost to the streets. In this hardheaded, gold-grilled rapper who called himself Gucci Mane, she says she saw something no one else noticed. “I seen a hurt kid. Social services is my background, so there’s a lot of other things that come up with me when I first meet a person, outside of dollars. Dollars don’t come to me; healing comes to me. If I can heal them, then they’re good. And that’s what he needed. He needed unconditional love.”
The two forged a close relationship, and Gucci moved in with Deb in her Jonesboro, Georgia, house. Next came Nicki Minaj, who moved from Queens to Atlanta to work with Antney. Gucci soon signed Waka to his So Icey label, and the core of Mizay Entertainment was formed. “They were all wounded; they were all birds with one wing,” she says of her stable of misfits. “And they needed the healing of the other one so they could fly. Sometimes it’s not for a person to be with you forever. Sometimes your job is complete once you do what you do.”
Deb’s let-them-fly approach could be considered either Zen or naive. For Gucci and Nicki, she never had them sign contracts and says a lot of her early business was done with a handshake, a philosophy she’s had to alter now to protect herself. “I always believed that, if I can’t do nothin’ for you, then I want you to be able to walk. I never want to hold you back on what you can do. We can sit and talk about it, and then it’s over, and you can go.” She says, the sting of the last few months still palpable in her voice: “But don’t kick me in my ass and do things behind my back. Then it becomes something different. Then you use me.”
But in Gucci’s case, her unconventional approach worked. In November, Gucci and Deb quietly reconciled, and she began officially repping him again. “That’s my nephew,” she says emphatically. “I love him. This is beyond the music game.” As for Nicki, they are still estranged, but she holds no grudge. “Let me tell you something. Every time I see Nicki, tears roll out my eyes. She was the most timid girl ever, and she had a lot of stuff done to her, a lot of people she couldn’t trust. So that’s why, no matter what, people can never make me say anything negative. I got so much love for her it’s pathetic. So I’m very happy. I’m not happy with some of the b.s. that goes along with it, but for the most part, she did it. And just what we set out to do, it happened.”
And how does she reconcile being a mother and a manager to that crunktastic knucklehead Waka Flocka? “I hate that he acts like he does,” she says. “Because his grades in school were phenomenal. He wants to be this Billy Badass kid right now. I don’t condone all that shit, believe me. We fight a lot. [But] I’ve learned that Juaquin is my son and Waka Flocka is my artist.”

Source http://www.xxlmag.com/features/2011/02/deb-antney-not-afraid-jan-dec-2011-magazine-feature/