Carmen Bryan

While Jay-Z and Nas mend their seemingly irreconcilable differences, Carmen Bryan's beef still simmers in her tell-all book. Parties involved can hater her now. story Minya photography Daragh McDonagh

‘‘Me and the boy A.I. got more in common / Than just ballin' and rhymin' / Get it? More in Carmen / I came in your Bentley backseat, skeeted in your Jeep / Left condoms on your baby seat. . . .”
—Jay-Z ("Super Ugly”)

Carmen Bryan is a Long Island single mom. She drops her daughter off at school, runs errands, cleans the house. But it's safe to assume the other desperate housewives on her block were never the subject of a song like 2001's "Super Ugly,” the anything-goes retort by Jay-Z, stemming from insults heard on Nasir Jones' epic battle cry "Ether.” n And maybe Carmen, 28, a lithe woman with Lil' Kim DNA, will skip the local book club when her autobiography drops later this year. In her tell-all, Sex, Drugs and Hip-Hop . . . Oh and Did I Mention Love?, she details her relationship with Nas, the birth of their daughter, Destiny, and the sordid affairs she had with both Allen Iverson and Nas' former nemesis Jay-Z. n Of course, only she and her men know if the book is full of truths or just pulp fiction. But does Carmen Bryan believe she was hip-hop's Helen of Troy or just a piece of stolen ammunition in the greatest battle in hip-hop history?

You also mention that you had trust issues with Nas. Did you feel entitled to date other guys because he was doing the same?
Well, I never had to deal with lots of groupies calling me, but I heard things. I asked Nas about some of them. Way after we kind of broke up, I asked him about Lil' Kim, Eve, Mary J. Blige. The only one Nas ever admitted to dating was Mary.

So, you were still together but you were both unfaithful?
I was so in love with Nas at the very beginning. I couldn't even look at another man. But it began to fade. I guess I really took notice to it when I took Jay-Z's phone number that evening.