DIRTY COMES CLEAN

"A nigga don't come out of jail and get his toes done,” balks a hesitant Russell Jones as he arrives at the opulent Mezzanine Spa in lower Manhattan. It seems there will be no pedicures for the man better known to the public as Ol' Dirty Bastard, who is draped in a stitched Roc-A-Wear blue jean outfit (a nod to his recent and somewhat leftfield signing with Roc-A-Fella Records). Certainly, anyone who refers to themselves as dirty would be the last person you would expect to find at an exclusive pamper palace. So what the hell is hip-hop's mercurial wild man doing here? Dirty himself is perplexed. "I'm trying to convince myself that it ain't sweet right now [being at this spa],” the rapper nervously muses on his backdrop of earth-tone walls, concrete black pillars, and mini waterfalls. "I'm fighting with the shit. How the kids gonna feel about that?”

Minutes later, the most infamous alumnus of the seminal hip-hop troop Wu-Tang Clan reluctantly changes into a regal navy blue robe and slippers. His frizzled cornrows and gold teeth clash hard with the ultra swank décor of the Mezzanine. Seemingly on cue, Sally, a stunning, bronze-dipped model from Trinidad, introduces herself to ODB. "We are going to have fun,” she coos with a wicked smile. A reserved Dirty signals his fresh-faced manager Jared Weisfeld, whose backwards Yankees cap makes him look like an overgrown batboy and says, "Tell them I'll think about the pedicure.” Beauty, it appears, can change the mind of any beast.