Hey There!
Well and so it goes, The Quest for "it" was privy to a very special birthday party the other night, given by hip-hop producer extraordinaire Swizz Beats (Full Surface) in honor of his lovely wife Mashonda (see photo at left). We swear we have ABSOLUTELY no idea how we came about the invite, however, we gladly accepted once we saw Swizz Beats was involved. That, and the fact that the invite had a HOT photo of the buxom beauty birthday girl Mashonda, (yes, that was a mouthful) an R&B singer who is currently signed with Full Surface Records. When we found that Full Surface operates through SONY BMG we knew this was going to be BIG!
So upon our early arrival and personal escort by Event Producer Dante Simpson (DSA Media), we were whisked to the back section of the cozy little "icebox" of a lounge known as Retreat. We snapped a few pics (had a few pics snapped of us) then waited amongst an already near full house for the celebs to arrive. While we sat on a banquette adjacent to the VIP, crowds of birthday revelers stood and bopped to the sounds of the DJ, which went from good, to damn good to DAMN his sh*t is off the chain! OK, so we find it hard to keep it clean when describing good music, but as these posts are rare we figured...why not? Anyway, we were FLOORED by the fact that only a select few seemed to be aware of the two girls dressed in black with pink ties around their necks serving NUVO Pink Sparkling Vodka Liqueur --um...let's just say we got OURS!
By 9:45 pm or so the heavyweights arrived (we arrived at 8:30); we were booted to make room for some super curvy chick, and an unidentified player from the Carolina Panthers. At that point it was time to stand and good thing we did, as next to arrive was Baby Phat's BJ Coleman with his new assistant Natalie. Following BJ & Co. was the very bohemian supermodel on the rise Chanel Iman in the company of an "equally bohemian" male friend. What comes next came fast--a HUGE entourage of guys stormed in making a beeline directly to the raised platform VIP. It was Sheek of the LOX, but where was Mashonda? Every few minutes the DJ would announce who was in the building; Dante Simpson assured me Mashonda was right outside. Things were about to get good! Before we knew it Mary J. Blige's latest smash hit Just Fine was blaring. OK, so it BLARED TWICE before the very lovely Mashonda entered the building. Finally to the tune of the DJ Khaled remix of I'm So Hood came the birthday girl. Massive amounts of photographers surrounded her like bees to honey. Many (including yours truly) snapped shots of Mashonda against the brick exposed wall. When most simply wouldn't take "that's enough" for an answer, Swizz Beats stepped in and escorted his wife through the now AT CAPACITY crowd to the VIP section.
The robust, and that's putting it MILDLY, security guard selectively allowed entry to the VIP. In the end, most were booted out the VIP, which appeared to comfortably hold 25 by our estimate--there were clearly well beyond that. It was ON! Let the REAL partying begin! Bottles of Grey Goose, which had already been passed overhead, came even faster and more furious. Unfortunately, our time was up and we had to head out. As we left the club there were still boatloads of people trying to get in. UNREAL! Our cameras couldn't capture it all (see photo at left). We heard that the following night (Thursday, January 10th) Swizz Beats threw yet another birthday soiree for Mashonda at Tommy Hilfiger's Denim Store. The attendees were even more select, and the photos were snapped by the renowned Johnny Nunez --2 parties in one week? That's a LOT of love Mashonda...HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL!
*photos by The Quest for "it"