Cipha Sounds invites Tara to “Take It Personal”
2014’s inaugural edition of hip hop’s favorite comedy show went down Friday Jan 10 at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater on New York’s Lower East Side hosted by one of your favorite voices on the FM airwaves, Cipha Sounds.
Per usual, Cipha and his comedic clan of improvisers dubbed A Tribe Called Yes packed the house out within minutes of doors opening to the public.
“It’s my favorite night of the week,” Cipha announced to the audience upon the show’s commencement. He elaborated on the origins of his newfound passion, explaining that after taking classes at the UCB, he fell in love, deciding to “Diddy this shit and take it over.”
He proceeded to introduce his atypical yet very special guest of the week, Tara Wallace of Love And Hip Hop.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of Cipha’s show, each week he invites a prominent figure in the hip hop community to the UCB theater to divulge true stories about their private lives based on topics suggested by the audience.
“I didn’t know what to expect so I was very nervous, not because of what they may ask or do, but to make sure that I delivered,” Tara admitted.
If you had to come up with a story based on the crowd’s incredibly varied and outlandish suggestions you’d probably be too.
When the floor was open for them to chime in, shouts of “Obama” “rice and beans” “high school” “dick” – followed by a perturbed Cipha’s remark of “That’s disgusting” – “jalapeno peppers,” “Spanish crime,” and early onset of Alzheimer’s all rang throughout the theater.
For Tara’s first narrative, she recounted a story of agreeing to sleep with a beau of her affection during a high school pep rally. While the rest of her schoolmates were rallying on the home team (or at least that’s what we’d assume was happening) Tara and her crush had a date beneath a baby grand piano…which unfortunately – or arguably so – ended prematurely. Things pretty much finished between the two teens before they even really got started. “All I thought was oh my God, my vagina is so good!”
From that tale alone, A Tribe Called Yes introduced us to the powers of the pussy force field, which went so far as to become a national threat…what “Obama” dubbed “the pussy vortex.” It may or may not have been everyone’s favorite joke of the night, including Tara herself.
During Tara’s second round of story-telling, we learned of her use of Tequila and jalapeno peppers as cold remedies, her childhood infatuation with the “Cocaine Godmother” Griselda Blanco – whom she admired for being strong and independent – her grandfather who was stricken with Alzheimer’s and would pee in corners, and of her children’s take on the whole “Love And Hip Hop thing.” From this we got skits of fame-obsessed killer kids on cocaine, a pregnant tequila-drinking Tara who asserted for us not to worry…since she’s naming her son Jameson instead, a cameo of Peter Gunz as a male nurse, and so much more.
As an actress herself, Tara mentioned being incredibly impressed by how all of the improvisers brought her stories to life.
“In whatever field we choose in life, there’s always a weakness that we have. Improv has always been my weakness. Even when I was getting my MFA when we had to improv I would freeze up, but you know, now I just kind of let go in everything I do, whatever it is, I’ll respond accordingly and truthfully and just go from there.“
Tara also disclosed that she’s booked her first Broadway play entitled Vixens which is set to launch in March of this year.
Follow Tara and all of her moves @Taranashaw, and the next time you’re in New York City on a Friday night, make sure to hit up the UCB theater, and Take It Personal.
