Confessions of a video vixen on the misogyny in the hip hop culture

Karrine Steffans was born on August 24, 1978 in the 28 square-mile Carribean island of Saint Thomas. Her mother, Josephine, was of Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Danish descent. She was the ultimate personification of evil – irrational, lacked affection, impatient and had no paternal instincts. Josephine was so physically abusive, she would strip Karrine naked and assault her so viciously, she’d bleed profusely and lose consciousness. Josephine talked down upon her daughter’s straight-A academic brilliance with rueful expressions of negative comments. She frequently called Karrine stupid, degraded her good looks and made her feel unworthy. When Karrine was 13, they moved to Tampa Florida in the US. Exhausted by her mother’s wickedness, Karrine resolutely ran away from home. She lived in an abandoned house located in a crack-cocaine infested, prostitute-riddled neighbourhood, while begging strangers for money to buy food. After police located her and tracked down her father Kenneth, Karrine moved to Phoenix Arizona to live with him from January 1994. During the summer, she pocketed $36.57 of her savings and escaped in search of a reprieve, from her father and his girlfriend’s consistent bickering. Her then boyfriend Reggie, introduced her to his mother who was a stripper in a...