XXL
By John Kennedy | March 2009

As one of hip-hop’s go-to video chicks, Angel Lola Luv and her rotund derriere have routinely stolen the show from artists like Kanye West and Young Jeezy. Now the 22-year-old model-cum-rapper wants to flip the script and be the name in the credits, not just the pretty face on set.

Born Fershgenet Melaku in Ethiopia and raised in Washington D.C., Angel first flirted with rhyming at age 12, when she started penning poems. “I used to just write [about] everyday things that I was going through,” she recalls. By 19, the bankable lure of modeling had taken hold. After meeting 50 Cent in 2006 through her manager, Angel made her music-video debut in Lloyd Banks’s “Hands Up” and “Cake,” followed by cameos in Kanye’s “Good Life” and Twista’s “Give It Up,” among others. Despite her increasing popularity, Angel saw more of a future for herself in front of the mic. “I could be in a video with a rapper, but I’d rather that video be [mine],” she says.

Inspired by Lil Wayne’s performance at the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards, Angel started turning her penchant for poetry into bars and hooks. After meeting Wyclef Jean affiliate Haitian Fresh at an industry event, she recorded a verse for one of his tracks, “No Panties,” featuring Pleasure P, released in October. “She’s a workaholic,” says Haitian Fresh of his frequent collaborator. “She’s got her own sound, her own voice… This girl has a story.”

For some, however, accepting this doll-faced beauty as a ghetto griot is a tougher sell than Kanye as an R&B singer. (Fellow video vixens Gloria Velez and Vida Guerra also attempted the model-to-rap transition, in the past.) “Of course [people are] wondering if I can pull it off,” says Angel. “It’s not nothing that I’m just jumping into out of the blue. I’ve been around it.” More Shawnna than Shakespeare, Angel describes her rap persona, Ms. Lola, as a “boss bitch” who rhymes about the streets, sexuality and the good life. “No one’s been given the platform to speak for the hood from a female perspective,” she says.

Set to show her hand with records alongside Rick Ross and Haitian Fresh (“International Boss”) and Raheem DeVaughn, Ms. Lola is recording her as-yet-untitled debut mixtape, due in early ’09. Though Angel’s got plenty to fall back on (literally), seizing the rap reins is her ultimate goal. “Modeling was like work. I’m not [rapping] for it to just be work,” she says. “I’m a rapper. This is what I want to do.”