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After “Man and Wife”: Single Dad Dialogue with DJ Fatman Scoop
- Our love class exclusive interview series continues. Last week we spoke with Oprah Winfrey’s favorite matchmaker and Essence love guru, Paul Carrick Brunson. Today we speak with MTV personality Fatman Scoop.
Being a parent is challenging enough, but being a single parent definitely has a steep learning curve. For Fatman Scoop, being a celebrity single dad doesn’t make life any easier for him and his two kids.
In addition to being a Grammy Award winner and ‘Undisputed Voice of The Club’, Scoop is known for being open about all matters of love. Along with his wife, Shanda Freeman, Scoop hosted the pioneer video podcast “Man and Wife.” The series was ultimately picked up by MTV.
Week after week, fans tuned in to watch Scoop and Shanda broadcast from bed. They spoke about their own loving relationship as well as offered explicit advice on love, sex, dating and marriage.
Today this feel-good, high energy, party guy is letting us behind the scenes. Scoop is currently dealing with being separated from his wife and being a single father. Here he shares how he’s coping and what it means to raise a pre-teen daughter and a teenage son by himself.
Abiola: Mr. Isaac Freeman III…
Fatman Scoop: Only my momma calls me that. I never liked it until I started to go and look for a job but the only other person who ever called me that was Shanda.
I interviewed you and Shanda together in September 2008 about “Man and Wife”. That show was really groundbreaking. People were not used to seeing a married couple, in bed together, talking about love. Most men in hip hop create a persona around being a pimp or playboy. In contrast, you said ‘Here I am, man and wife’. Now, some of your fans will be very sad to know that your marriage to Shanda has come to a close.
Well, you know, it’s more of like a separation right now. You know, she’s talked about it on her YouTube series. We’re trying to figure out–can it be fixed and can it be worked out? I still talk to Shanda a lot. We have business together. We’re doing a boutique together and we decided that at some point, we’re going to go to therapy about it because it’s very tough with a separation.
A lot of black people feel that going to a therapist or psychologist is like, you’re nuts – you’re whacko. No, sometimes you need somebody in the middle. Sometimes you need somebody to talk to. Sometimes you need somebody to kind of regulate and say ‘Hey, but look at it this way.’ It doesn’t mean that things may change but it means we will have a chance and sit down and really talk about it and figure out.
I’m so happy to hear you say that. You’re right. Unfortunately some people of color tend to look at therapy as a failure. And I think that – no, that is a win – that it’s you saying ‘I care enough about either myself or this relationship or whatever it is, in order to go and get healthy.’ Whether it’s about figuring out how to part in a healthy way or how to move forward together in a healthy way.
Correct. And you know, if more people did that [therapy], maybe they would have a chance. And you know, for me, it’s that and it’s also just dealing with the facts of getting adjusted to a new form of life.
Now I was a guy who would just go make some money, and that’s it. And now I’m forced to really deal with stuff like – cook, do hair, the stuff that I never thought I would ever be doing. Like if somebody told me ‘You will be able to cook Shrimp Scampi and Diablo Chicken and Parmesan Crusted Meatloaf’, I’d be like: ‘Get out of here, I’m not doing nothing like that’. But you know, being forced to be in that situation, you adapt.
Are you the primary custodian right now of your children?
Yes, 100 percent, because my children are from a previous relationship. I have two kids. My daughter is 12 and my son’s a little older. But it’s learning those kind of things that is tough for me. Either adapt or you fail.
How is it raising a tween daughter?
It is scary because I don’t know anything about being a woman. So, I depend on my mom and other people that are around to get that female perspective. So what I try to do with my daughter is say ‘I don’t understand women’s things 100 percent, but I can tell you certain things from a man’s perspective.’
So, Scoop what do you want Miss Tiana to know the most about being a woman?
That you cannot sacrifice your body for every dude. That, everything I’ve been through for her, to be independent of anybody. You know, when a woman doesn’t have a sense of independence, she doesn’t have a sense of her own soul. So, I just want her to be independent–do her own thing and being able to take care of herself. And to be able to wear my family name in a fashion that I can be proud of. If I can do that, I’m good. Forget her getting a great job and being successful. That’s a plus. Success is relative,anyway. If I can just get her to be able to take care of herself, and be able to actually pick a man from the perspective of what her dad did, then I’m good. Because a lot of times what it really all boils down to, is that when a woman is looking for a man – they’re looking for somebody like their father. If you’ve never had a father, you don’t know what to judge from. Or if your father left you, you got trust issues or whatever.
So, I’m praying that I’m alive long enough to give her the proper idea of what a man should be. A guy who gets up in the morning, he works hard, he’s dedicated to his family, he loves his kids. I’m not the best person in the world but I’m hoping that all of the things that I’ve done she’ll look at it and be like ‘My dad’s a great guy, he worked hard for us and I wanna find a guy that’s like that’.
Scoop, where did you get your sense of self?
I grew up in a house with a mother and a father. So, that’s all I really know. I’ve always been the same person with the same moral compass. But I was more focused on making money. I never was forced into dealing 100 percent with my kids. I would deal with them but now I’m really, really dealing with them.
So now, the vision that I have is being shaped by dealing with them every single day, in every single way. When I’m not home, my parents jump in. My mom and my dad have been good enough to be my support system. But in terms of every day, it’s me. So, that’s number one – that’s how I am molding my vision. I’m molding it based upon what I want my kids to be. And I got that from my parents.
Are you heartbroken?
Of course, I’m dying. I’m Fatman Scoop. I make people dance. I’m no tough guy. Who wants to wake up in the morning and be in this position? And it’s hurtful. I deal with pain every single day. But you know, I force myself to get up and try and keep hard and hopefully I can get to a place where I am better. But, look, when you really love someone and things happen – it’s devastating.
So what do you do to cope on the toughest days?
You know, I’m blessed with friends that talk it out with me. If I didn’t have friends to talk it out with me, I would be in deep trouble. I got a support system luckily. And that’s what keeps me going, that keeps me moving. And then when I wake up and I see my kids, I’m like ‘I can’t quit’. Because no matter what’s going on, they still have to live. So that’s what keeps me going and sometimes that’s what I have to do to eat the pain. But I do meditate at night. I do meditate 20 minutes a day. I try to meditate 20 minutes a day.
Meditation is key. So, what’s your advice to other single dads? Because what I hear you saying is that first you were very like a lot of dads… focused on making the money and working all the time and feeling like you were doing your part of fatherhood that way. And then now, you’re realizing ‘Wow, okay. The kids need me more.” And so you shifted your perspective and it’s forcing you to grow.
Yes it is, it’s definitely forcing me to grow. You are 100 percent right. I was more focused on – ‘Alright, here are the projections for this month. This is how much I gotta make for everybody to get this. You get your shoes. You get this, you get that. And the car gets fixed. Then I go here, and we can do this’.
And let me tell you something, when I first started cooking – it was horrible. I was making high blood pressure steak. The smoke alarm was always going off. The kids were eating my food because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. They were like ‘Hmm, this is great’. But then, I just kept working and kept pushing. The fourth week was like ‘This Thursday’s food was pretty good’. The fifth week, sixth week they were ‘Oh, you’re getting good’. Now it’s to the point where they call me in the day time like ‘What are we having for dinner?’ You know, I look at YouTube for recipes and go to Recipes.com. I do all that kind of stuff.
[My son Torrance] recently go into a car accident and he was laying on the floor and a woman came to assist him. She was trying to keep his mind off of everything and she asked him who his role model was. And he said I was his role model. And that re-purposed my vision of trying to even be better for him. Trying to be more patient when I deal with him. Because, you know, he gets me angry and makes me go crazy but I just said ‘I have to try to be better. I gotta try to be more patient.’
You said you’re doing hair. How are your hair braiding skills? Because sometimes my father sent me to school with my hair looking twisted.
Scoop: (laughs) I’m learning, I’m actually going to go to the Africans to take a hair braiding class and I got to the Dominicans right here in Harlem and I have them tell me. One of my people who owns a beauty salon, she’s showing me. My daughter can do her hair now but if I don’t like it I’ll say, ‘Do this or do that’ but I still want to be hands-on enough that I can do it if I don’t like the way it’s looking.
Is there anything else that you would want our readers to know?
Keep at it every day. And anybody who’s in a [breaking up] relationship, it’s not easy. And the thing is, sometimes you can’t listen to your friends or family because they’re like ‘Oh, get over it!’ Sometimes you just can’t get over it and you don’t know why you can’t get over it.
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Passionate Living Coach Abiola Abrams gives extraordinary women inspiring advice on healthy relationships, self-esteem and getting the love we deserve. You’ve seen her love interventions in magazines from Essence to JET and on shows from MTV’s “Made” to the CW Network’s “Bill Cunningham Show.” Find love class worksheets, advice videos, coaching, and more at Abiola’s Love University. Her upcoming advice guide is named “The Official Bombshell Handbook.” Tweet @abiolaTV or #loveclass.
