All About Laughs
Rapper Chingy is trying to put the past behind him. The “Right Thurr” rapper, who was once one of the acts dominating the early 2000s era of Hip-Hop and pop music, fell from grace following deceptive rumors stemming from transgender artist and Love and Hip Hop: New York personality, Sidney Starr, back in 2010. He is now ready to bounce back a decade later, a different man.
Chingy is gearing up to release his latest album entitled Crown Jewel in 2021, although originally given a July 31, 2020 release date. Fans were able to receive new music despite getting their hands on his album thanks to his collaboration with country duo Meg & Tyler for their single The Woah Down.
In regards to his new album, he dives further into consciousness and hopes to show his immense growth since the public last experienced him. “My album ‘Crown Jewel’ is a reflection of my growth mentally and spiritually,” Chingy shared via TheMusicUniverse. “I wanted to talk about things that I have been growing through and experiencing in this business, and personally, that molded my transition into wanting to lead a healthier and more focused lifestyle. On this album, you’ll see me inspiring young males to go after their dreams and inspiring people to lead a more healthy lifestyle, both physically and mentally. Crown Jewel is about knowing yourself on the inside and letting that express on the outside.”
The album will also touch on themes dealing with social justice, and healthy relationships that are not necessarily what his fans are used to hearing from him. The last charting single released by the St. Louis rapper was the 2007 single Fly Like Me featuring Amerie.
It would take a fateful night in Chicago when following a show with rapper Ludacris, the former Disturbing Tha Peace rapper took a picture with Sidney Starr that two years later, would haunt him and ultimately halt his career. “I thought she was a fan,” said Chingy in a VladTV interview. “I thought it was a young lady who was a fan. She seemed pretty cool. I took the picture. And that was it. Two years after that, I see something come out of some bull crap about this transsexual person was in a relationship with me. I was just like everybody else. I didn’t have a clue at what this person was talking about.”
After some time, Starr apologized for her involvement in the incident, admitting to fabricating the story via WorldStarHipHop. “I wanna give a huge apology to Chingy,” she said in her video. “I’m very, very sorry Chingy for anything that I caused to throw dirt on your name…I met him as a fan because I was a backup dancer. Chingy didn’t know anything about me. Didn’t know my background. He didn’t know I was transgender. I just need people to know that the things I said about Chingy weren’t true.”
Starr also interviewed with VladTV where she detailed how and why she went along with the lie. Admitting that it was two years after the picture was initially taken, she says that the influence of many people in her ear telling her that she would finally get the attention in the blogs that she craved, would finally come to fruition. Tired of being just a back-up dancer, and claiming to be “young minded”, she said, “Let’s do this s**t”.
She added, “If I could have changed the hands of time, I would have never did that s**t. I would have [said], ‘Hold up, I ain’t [about to] do this s**t, no you do it and I’m just going to not say nothing and deny it.’ I was definitely not in the right mindset at that time in my life. I was just all about trying to get where I wanted to be and to get famous and it backfired.”
Chingy appeared on an installment of BET’s Finding where he spoke on the incident and professes to have forgiven Starr. He admits that the rumors haven’t been easy for him to deal with, but over the years he’s found a way to rise above. “My response to all of that is what happens when know yourself on the inside,” Chingy said to the St. Louis American. “We are all writing this book of life. And somebody might be jotting you down in their book as a character that you don’t represent. You know that’s not you, so there’s really no reason to entertain that. While they are over there telling lies, just keep it moving.”
