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Eve: As a rapper, she proved herself as the pit bull in a skirt among an all-male crew. Will she make tails wag as a budding actress and fashion mogul? - Eve Jeffers - Interview
Interview, Sept, 2002 by Dimitri Ehrlich
Eve never sits still for long. Music- and image-wise, she's always on the move. Alternately coy and thugged-out, she first made a mark in rap in 1999 as the only woman in the Ruff Ryders crew. But while she added a sizzling female presence, she stood out from other hyper-sexualized lady MCs of the era by describing herself as "a pit bull in a skirt." As she moves into acting, with a role opposite Vin Diesel in last month's XXX, and emerges with her own clothing line, Eve now has more outlets than ever in which to explore her constantly shifting persona. Her third album, Eve-olution (Ruff Ryders/Interscope), released this month, is aptly titled: She has steadily evolved from the gritty street boasts of her debut to last year's more musical, Grammy-winning collaboration with Gwen Stefani, "Let Me Blow Ya Mind," to the overtly pretty, laid-back, romantic flow of "Gangsta Lovin'," her new duet with Alicia Keys. With so much in flux about Eve, one thing is certain: Darwin probably never envisioned anything quite l ike her.
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EVE: How's your love life? I remember last time we met, I was giving you all kinds of advice. Did I give good advice or fucked-up advice?
DIMITRI EHRLICH: Fine. We broke up, but thank you for remembering.
E: Oh, shit. [laughs]
DE: I know you broke up with [former boyfriend and P. Diddy producer] Stevie J. Beyond that, how's your love life?
E: I have a "like" life. I like everybody. Shit happens. When I see him I'm not like, "Damn." We speak. We're still friends.
DE: I hear you just took a little vacation and jumped off a cliff and went parasailing, despite being afraid of heights and the ocean. That's pretty daring.
E: I jumped off a 45-foot cliff into the water--that was a week and half ago, and my chest has just stopped hurting. I also went parasailing and in the air I began to feel very nauseous and hot and sweaty, so I was screaming, "Please reel us back in!" They couldn't hear me, but they got me in just in time, because we were going over boats and I would have puked on somebody's head.
DE: Now that vacation time is over, I know you're working like crazy. First order of business: Your new record. Eve-olution. What were you striving for on this album?
E: Well, first of all, this album is happier. You can hear I'm happy, and I want the whole world to know. [laughs] But it's not bubblegum. It's still rap lyrics. It's still hard. I have more singing hooks than I've ever had, just because it's more musical. As far as my look goes, I have to change my look or I'll get bored. It's exciting for me to say to my hairdresser, "All right, let's try something new. What look are we going for?" I had three photo shoots this week already. I had a TV show to do. Everything I did, I had different looks. don't want anyone to lock me into something.
DE: What did you learn about yourself from acting in XXX and Barbershop?
E: I learned that I can stick with it. Vin Diesel told me, "Never stop." Go with your fuck-ups. On the video set I can be like, "Yo, I need a break," if I want to. I control everything. On a movie set, it's like, "We're going to be working for 12 hours, and I don't care if you have a headache. Need some aspirin?" I didn't complain as much as I usually do. I usually complain about everything.
DE: Why did you choose these two projects?
E: With XXX, they called me. It was one of those right time, right place situations. Plus, it was a big budget, and they anticipate it being the biggest film of the summer. It was a good move for me. It was a small role, but substantial enough for people to be like, "Damn! I remember Eve in that." In Barbershop, though, I loved Tern, the character I played. I related to her. I understood her. Now that I have acted, I look at characters differently than I used to. With Tern, I was like, "Damn! I'm her." She's the only girl barber in the whole barbershop, and I'm the only girl in Ruff Ryders, around dudes all the time. She had a boyfriend who cheated on her, who she kept taking back. She was really a tough girl, but that was her only vulnerability, and I've been in that situation, too. She loved the guys that she worked with. She had attitude, but she loved them. She kept them off her, and I just related to that.
DE: Is it a relief for you to step out of the Eve persona when you're acting?
E: No, I wouldn't call it a relief. The entertainer Eve and Eve Jeffers are not so different, but they are two different people. But I like being able to become other people. That keeps it interesting and exciting, because it's not music all the time. You can get bored when you do the same thing all the time.
DE: It feels like you are about to blow up even bigger with the films and the new album. I was wondering just how much at odds this experience is with your pre-fame days. There's a story that's going around that you grew up in this real ghetto situation. and then you were a stripper. Let's set the record straight: How rough was it really in west Philly when you were a kid? Isn't it true you only stripped for a few weeks?
