You've Got Decisions: Mandii B on No Holes Barred (Ft. Tempest X)

Speaks to the planet.

I'll go by the name of Charlamagne of God and guess what, I can't wait to see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poeman Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions, Decisions, Mandy B and Weezy. Okay, we got the R and B Money Podcast with taking Jay Valentine. You got the Woman of All Podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts. We got

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If you would like to have us answer your questions.

And you have a terrible job, a terrible boyfriend, or a terrible throuffle, guess what you've got, Decisions.

It's another huff Day.

It's another You've Got Decisions, and the decision you need to make is to purchase pre order our book, No Holds Barred, a dual manifesto of sexual exploration.

Sorry, y'all, Matt spit in my mouth and power. I'm going to say that again.

No Holds Barred, a dual manifesto on sexual exploration and power with myself, Mandy v Weezy, and our co author.

We canna say co author.

Right, there's just you know, our writer tempest X, who's here for this very special edition of You've Got Decisions to talk about the book and writing process.

I want to say, it's not a decision you don't need to don't just buy it.

No, it's it's the decision you need to make to buy it. Like that's a decision you make. Now buy it now, get it wherever you can get books. Please support us because of course, we are trying to make the New York Times bestseller list and we cannot do that first and foremost without the Whorehive. So definitely go ahead and get your books. It is in the description of this episode.

And probably everywhere else Instagram.

Patreon, all the things, everywhere all the things.

Okay, so let's start. I want to ask you a couple of questions. Okay, the process.

Yes, So let's start with have you always wanted to write a book?

So I wrote a book before?

What?

In twenty thirteen? I actually was like, let me pull it up so I can show you. It was called up on Game. I Love it up on Game by bandy Bee. Literally self written, self published, self edited, So it probably sounds a fucking mess.

This was twenty thirteen, so I was twenty two years old.

So then you really have a perspective on how different it is.

Oh that way, girl, I was an executive assistant at an ad firm, so I literally wrote it while I was at work, Like I would just be on my desk, be at my desk writing. I am in fear of going back to read it now. But yeah, I literally, uh went on fiver and had someone turn it into what it needed to be for a ebook and literally uploaded it to Amazon.

Yeah.

So I self sold it, like in all the things, I think when it first dropped it was like, I don't know, nine ninety nine. Then I dropped it to four ninety nine. But I remember a big deal I made like eight thousand dollars and for me it's twenty two years old. But sold it to like Twitter and all the things. It was great, but never wanted to return. I thought it was difficult, it was hard, and basically it was a.

Gammolation.

I don't know when you put all the amalgamation amalgamation of stories with me and my friends with athletes, yeah, I mean there was no names shared, but there was enough detail where actually you could figure out.

Which person it was, so it made the bogs.

At the time, I had a blog, I had full Core Pumps, so it's literally full Court Pumps presents up on game and it's yeah, a whole bunch of short stories on women with athletes, and of course I just got all the stories from my homegirls.

So it wasn't like when we did this book with Simon and Schuster and they were.

The real publisher the same I wanted to say, like when they were like, can we recognize any of the people in this book?

Yeah?

No, no, So it was intentional for this not to be a book that could just be sold based off of any of our relations.

With someone that may have a name or maybe fame.

I think what's great about even what we built as a brand is that we didn't come out as celebrities. We navigated the podcast space as just being ourselves and we've never had to lean into a shock factor of who we were dealing with, and I didn't want to do that for this book.

Also, night and Day, Night and Day.

This is a book wholly on I would say, my growth, my journey, my stories. This was just a retelling of other people's stories.

That was just like I want to write a book, mind you.

After this process of writing it with you, I'm like, Okay, I'm ready to write another book.

Yes.

So I loved this process writing it with you, being more intentional yes, and diving into the ship that I really think would leave a very good mark on what my what I believe my legacy to be.

I think I think the thing for me about working on this book with you that was so interesting was the.

Amount of growth that you've had.

Yeah, from the beginning of us even conceptualizing what the book would be to what the book actually is, and how much you have matured and grown and learned to love yourself as a woman. H has been one of the most beautiful experiences I've.

Ever had I'm like, I'm I'm like loving this person that I've become. Yes, but also I think what also took this book so long.

And Weezy's leaned into it.

She wanted this book to be sex sex sex, Yes, I said, bitch, I'm not.

Writing in erotica.

Lead that to saying leave it to sister Solgia. Yes, I didn't want my name and still don't. I think, even with the rebrand, I don't want all of what I have to offer to.

The world just being my sex. Yeah, it's not just that.

And what I've had to like really navigate in therapy over the last four years and what my relationships have looked like over the last decade have so much nuance to it that I literally, y'all don't even know we sat on this book. Charlamagne came to us in twenty twenty one about the book. We couldn't agree what the book wanted to be. I said, I'm putting therapy in the shame that I have. There's a lot of shame.

I think the fact that you go through the psychological aspect of that, oh, in this book, in this book of thinking that it was fine to be a side chick, and why that has changed and why you know you deserve so much more? Yeah, even just that chapter alone, Yeah, so much fun to work on with.

Oh, y'all, don't call me a hypocrite.

I want y'all to know now if y'all believe that I am just the one did mentional raspeed voice aggressive, whole ass bitch that have you sitting here on the podcast when you when you read this book, you'll get to see a lot of elements of my childhood, my upbringing. Why I think the way I do and why my mind has changed. I told y'all the person I am right now when you listen to this podcast, it ain't the same bitch. Okay, I change every day. But no, I think that was important for me to show in

I was insecure.

Yes, there's so many moments of the book where I'm like, yes, I was an insecure as bitch. I thought I was fat, thought these niggas like I literally admit to needing validation from men because I was so insecure. You're very open with how I felt myself.

It was all about you and you not loving you.

Yet that's what the So that's the journey that I got while writing this book. Yes, it's literally a mirror of me going from genuinely not being as confident or not being happy with who I am, to reaching a part of my life where it's like, damn, bitch, you did that, and you are so dope.

You are so great, you.

Look bomb, you could pay your own bills, and you literally are living.

A way in which you never thought you could before.

Like literally I start off in my introduction talking about how I used to want to be one of the girls in the Big Pimpin video. Yes, and now I'm friends with these niggas, Like I'm literally friends with the people that I grew up watching, and like I have the money to go to the South of France, and like Saint Trope is one of my favorite songs about Jay Cole, I could be like.

And I was there, Like if y'all go to my st Tropey post, it's that. And so this.

Book narrates an insecure, broken woman trying to find herself and stepping into her power, which is how we end the book.

That's exactly the journey that we go on.

And it was really I don't get to do that in real time with a lot of people, so being able to do that with you was absolutely Yeah.

So we did pay you. So we I double paid for therapy, y'all.

Over the last two years of writing this book, there's tempests that got paid and my therapist, which I really so of course got permission, ended up recording and tempests actually through certain chapters got to hear me work.

Through things with my therapist.

Yes, so she got to hear me break down and literally find clarity in my childhood trauma, in my sexual assault traumas in my relationship.

Yes. And I was like, Okay, you're here, go my therapy says, I mean enjoy.

That was such I mean, I don't, norm I don't. I've never gotten that before. But like, that was just such a gift.

And the fact that you trusted me enough to listen to those sessions and then to be able to work through those things together and put them in this book was amazing to me.

I don't think this book comes out at all if we weren't able to make it prescriptive. Yes, Like, to me, this is this book is the type of book I wanted to write. Yes, And I'm glad that Weezy agreed to come on this journey.

We still both have sex in it.

Yeah, but it's not the sex and the jokes that you get from the pod. You'll get some of the narratives, but again, the way we retell them is completely different.

It is different. And I am just like, I'm really glad. I'm proud of this book. I am too.

It's what I would have wanted to write if horrible decisions decisions, decisions had.

To be on paper.

Okay, so can you tell us why is this book relevant.

Now to you?

First off, they've taken away our rights, I think with and I think also it includes that historical element. So for me, it was important for me to add so many elements of pop culture and and today in the book. So I literally discussed the reversal of Roe v. Wade in my abortion chapter. Again I mentioned the Big Pimp

I'm eighteen, I'm about to leave my nest and all the latest wind dependent.

So yeah, and if I indeed e pete, like I can sing those songs, that's what was being fed to me, that I had to go and have multiple jobs, that I shouldn't have to ask command for anything. And I think it literally impacted my view on how I had to show up, how a man had to show up, or if you did, like it was just my relationship to love. Relationships and money was fucking skewed, of course, and so those elements of.

Pop culture had to be in there for me.

I had to be there.

But so if you're a millennial, even if you're a little older than me, even if you're a little younger than me, this book allows you to see how generationally you're impacted by what you're being fed.

Were you shocked by the fact that we had so many notes that would come back to us?

Okay, that's the end of question. I can't. I can't. I can't remember if it made it in because I know we just did edits again.

Were we able to keep all of the narrations with the Disney princesses.

I don't think that we.

I think maybe that was all that.

So that was another element, right, Like I went through this I went through like wanting to include out we're like even growing up watching Disney movies, there's a savior complex that a man will always be the one to come and save you and come and get you, or you're willing to fucking give your voice away just to be with a nigga and get legs, Like what the fuck everything is for these men's And yeah, I think that those narratives being given to me and fed to

Not being able to have a kid.

Like to me, it's literally inappropriate now to ask a woman why she doesn't have kids, because we're able to share the struggle that so many women have with infertility. Yes, and so I love that we're stepping away from that while also the government is trying to take our rights away.

So while the government is trying to force.

Us well literally literally it's so that's why this book is revelent now relevant.

God damn it, God damn it.

It's relevant, it's revelant, it's revelatory, it's all the things.

Okay, so don't worry about.

It, God damn it. This is why we needed a writer, y'all. I would have got words, y'all. Would have been reading.

Ship like, now, what can I say something that did happen in this book? Sometimes I would read words and be like is this wor what? And I'd be like, I think that they mean this. I'm gonna put that in there and hope that I'm not right.

I go hold you.

There was so many like she was like, yeah, so I think we want to use this word.

I'm pretty sure this for sure?

You mean this. I don't think this word exists. Yeah, that's the.

Word that did happen quite a bit.

More of education system. What do you want from me?

Okay, I'm reading Pennsylvania.

I didn't have no and now I just talk for a living. Y'all know. Every week, y'all gonna get made up words for me. Nothing that good.

Sorry reading no offense, but okay.

So the next question I wanted to ask you was what was the most unexpected thing about the process of writing this book?

First off, the fact that our proposal is nothing like the ending book.

Nothing.

So when we started the book process, I was still in love in the most toxic way with my ex and Weezy was newly single, having a fucking blast.

Yep.

And during the year or so of writing this book, I became single and literally dealing with my first heartbreak.

I was no, literally, you guys got the publishing deal.

We got the publishing deal, and Weezy got an relation.

And you had to tell me you're like I said, I hate like I don't know if you know, but I don't have a man anymore.

I was like, oh, well that changes.

That changes because I think we had decided to end this proposal with and now I finally found love.

I'm in love and I'm happy and I'm floating through the air with happiness.

Like I went through all this shit and now I got my person.

Bitch, we got the deal, the proposal gets approved, and I got to go to her like, hey, yes, so I.

Know, we like wrote what these chapters will look like, Hey, bitch, they.

Change it, and how we're ending on a happy note, but we're not.

We're not like I literally is.

Happy, though it is happiest note.

So it ended up being happy because so during the process, y'all, I'm healing and I know y'all got sick of hearing this nigga. So I found it difficult for any chapter that I thought he would be in.

I literally couldn't write because I was so angry.

I was so angry that I was like, bitch, how am I supposed to write that I'm happy in this moment with a nigga that I know betrayed me, that hurt me.

And I'm literally like, hey, we gonna lead them chapters put in.

So I think there were like three or four chapters that were literally all about him and what we'd experienced during our relationship.

And as we started writing, there started come coming.

Epiphanies and other things. I was like, cut that chapter out of that nigga. We could cut that one too.

Chapter is him.

They're the old chapter that was supposed to be about him in the dungeon, and it wasn't at all about you.

It's about me, And.

So I was really glad that therapy was present because I was so angry with how that relationship ended that I had a block up on how to present him as a good, loving person, which was needed, which was needed for what the themes would be of those chapters. Yeah, and so through the process we got away from that motherfucker. But yeah, I think that that during the process, I was surprised at how much you don't realize your life literally changes by the week.

Yes, so from friends.

That are no longer around, business partners that are no longer around, your mental health that fucking goes up and down like a mother fucker. I went from writing her and her coming to my apartment to her knowing that these were my last couple of weeks in this apartment because I was relocated to another state, and so the process of really being able to be like, damn bitch, a lot of happened in a year.

This year is luck it happened in a year. Yeah.

So yeah, then the next question is what is your favorite chapter?

My favorite chapter that I wrote, I would say, is.

My abortion chapter.

It's really good.

My abortion chapter. You didn't have very many edits. The editor didn't have very many at it.

No, it's just so I did all of my own research and plugged in the stats.

That I wanted again, the Roe v.

Wade reference, being able to include my mom's feelings, being able to include Kita's feelings, being able to go back to that day.

I was.

I was proud that I I fucking wrote that chapter. Like I wrote the hell out of that chapter. That was my favorite chapter to write. I was really good, and I do like that. The chapters that I think got better with edits would be the Unicorn chapter because I think they tried to get rid of it because it seemed like it was the same thing, and I was like, no, the fucking ain't. So I just had to do it through a different lens.

Which was it made it better.

Like that's the thing that I think a lot of people don't know, like you go through so many edits in a book, because it keeps getting better and better and better the more you work on it.

I do want to share with y'all BTS moment of transparency because I thought I had a fucking genius idea and it ended up being the fucking death of us.

What was it? So, y'all?

Within this book again, because it was important for me to tie pop culture, we do this thing where as women, the patriarch is our fucking.

Uh patriarchy keep us down.

The patriarchy keeps us down, and as a matriarch, we will overcome it.

Yes, so my ass, before every chapter we have a patriarchal bullshitch and a matriarchal reply. Yes from celebrities and philosophers and politicians throughout history.

Yes, y'all.

For legal reasons, we had to cite to the tea at where the fuck this was.

We couldn't use tweets because of some other shit.

We had to go in and fucking at the end, we had to change so much because we had to be able to cite everything.

It was painful.

I was on vacation, mind you.

It was so painful, and I'm like, well, bitch, we gotta do it because I want to say I want.

This in the book.

I was literally in my hotel room. My husband was livid.

And we were looking up quotes, and mind you, quotes relate to the chapters yes, So I'm literally googling.

I'm googling celebrities that don't believe women.

Should have autonomy of their body, celebrities that are pro abortion, politicians.

That put bills up like and I'm literally spent.

I'm I'm going to spend We quote Belle Hooks, I quote Share, we quote Tracy Ellis Fross, and then we have to send them literal like transcriptions and YouTube videos and cite everywhere. These people actually said this ship, and I was like, this is work. I want to keep this ship in the book.

It's so good.

It ends up being so good. But it was such a pain in the.

It was a pain in the ass. I ain't even gonna hold you. It was a whole pain.

In the ass.

And then the last question I want to ask last question, what do you think is the most surprising thing that readers will learn about you?

That I have a heart. Goddamn it, it was not just a black hole there.

I know you guys think that I'm you know, this this villainous bitch. No, I think it's gonna be I think I think a lot of people believe I'm stuck in my ways, and I think what's going to be amazing and incredible to read. Is how much you actually get to see my growth. I know the actual members of the whore Hive who have been tuning in, it's visible to them.

Maybe not that every week listener will know or be able.

To actually pick that out and how I've changed from the start of this podcast to now. But when you read the book, I think my ability to hold myself accountable, my ability to hold.

Up a mirror and be like you as a raggedy bitch.

My ability to know my decisions were poor and came from not knowing came from me being selectively ignorant. I think that's a really good I I'm enjoying the hell out of it, and I think for anyone that listens to that pod, you'll be able to hear just more of me, like because I do look at this the world and life as it is from like such a different goal that I think people do. I do think

I believe that I know everything, that I'm always right.

You will read in the book that a bitch been wrong about relationships, how I've navigated things, and that I've also come in that I've also needed.

To unlearn a lot.

Yes, and my willingness to do so, I think has gotten me here.

And I'm like, I'm so proud of this book. I think this book.

If you hate me, you don't like me after you read it, you don't love you don't love it. But yeah, no, I'm just so proud that I laid everything out on paper in a way that I'm proud of, really, in a way that I'm so proud of. And I'm so glad that you were able to like do this with us, and that you were able to have us on our separate journeys but then also make our voices come together for the bigger picture, which is that as women we are we are all on these journeys. We have to

Oh, I'll go to I ain't gonna hold you.

My mama said, I'm jealous, y'all get to do these. My mama doing some of these things now. And she just reminded me she's over fifty five. So eighteen to sixty, yeah, because I don't think the font is big enough for everyone over sixty. But Kendall, you can make the worst thing, get it.

We will also have an audible.

Version of this as well, where we get to read it. I don't know the budget, but I just listen. I told you we'll packers.

Sounds like a movie. I want. I want y'all to held it. When I say I'm.

Splash, and I need you all to hear splash, like I want sound design for our audio book.

I don't know. Simon the shooter is gonna do that. I don't know.

Like when I say I'm getting hit from the back, I need you to hear my ask getting hit from the back. You feel me, don't.

I don't know if they're gonna they're I don't know. You don't think they're gonna.

Lie to I need my ask getting clapped for the audio book.

I don't see I don't see the team we're working with over there, saying let's get the ass clapping going.

But no, this book is literally for women of all ages and colors. Yes, like our relationships with men and women us navigating sex, it's the same. It's the same ups and downs that you have, whether you're monogamous. No, I'm gonna whether you like women, whether you like men, whether you like it from the back, whether you like.

It from the front, whether you like or whether you don't. It's all this.

But the most important lesson to me and this book is self love. Self love, and if you don't love yourself, no one else can love you.

Which can I tell you through line? This is how this book fucking happened. First chapter of mine is self pleasure. Last book is admitting I love myself. Yeah, so literally, self love is how I navigate with pleasure and in progression. And what I learned about myself is to love myself. So it's a full journey. Then I'm still on. By the way, we don't have all the answers, and you'll see that in the book because we're not experts on life.

Sas, make sure you order your book now.

Pre order will help us get to our New York Times bestseller's goal, and we can't do it without you, guys, So go to any of your independent booksellers is Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, No holds barred.

Make sure you cop that and thank you guys. Make sure you subscribe, follow us all the things.

If you want to watch this, you can always join our Patreon Patreon dot com Backslash Horrible Decisions. It's another hunt day. You've got decisions, and the decision you gotta make is tour.

By No Guard Now, thank you guys. Until next week by