Q & A: Jozen Cummings

Jozen Cummings has a dream job that most guys can only foam at the mouth for. The 25-year-old Howard University alumni is the online editor of “King Magazine.” The publication is known for its photo

Jozen Cummings has a dream job that most guys can only foam at the mouth for. The 25-year-old Howard University alumni is the online editor of “King Magazine.” The publication is known for its photo spreads of scantily-clad vixens with curvaceous assets such as Melyssa Ford and BET’s “106 & Park’s” Rocsi. Their wardrobe malfunctions are intentional and at the former “Vibe” intern’s discretion.

Cumming’s position, which he has held since May of 2006, offers him unlimited contact with the female form. His inbox is spammed with pictures women send of their bare flesh for his approval. On his say-so, their body of art graces the online edition of this “Black Maxim.” Cummings returned to familiar territory this week, a campus setting, as a featured guest at Temple’s “Game Behind the Game” panel. The bachelor dispensed career advice, opened up about his life and about the thrill of seeing half-naked femme fatales.

The Temple News: Do you ever feel attracted to these women?

Jozen Cummings: Of course, I’m attracted to them, but you don’t mix business with pleasure. It’s all business. It’s never anything more. I have my own social life, my own network of friends that I know. I go out to my own spots. I never needed “King” to help me.

TTN: Let’s say down the road you get married and have kids, would you want your daughter appearing on the cover of “King?”

JC: I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I couldn’t have a problem with that. I mean, I work there. Most people that say stuff about the women on the magazine don’t know the women at all. These women are people just like everyone else. They’re complete people. They’re multi-dimensional people who have various things that they’re good at; that they’re no good at, God fearing, thing like that. Hopefully, I have a daughter who I raise that is respectable. If she has the kind of body that she can show off and if she just wants to show off that one side of her for the cover, then sure.

TTN: Do you think “King” should be held responsible for the anorexic image that the media purports?

JZC: No, “King” is more about full figured women than it is about skinny women or anything like that. We know at the end of the day that black women are beautiful and deserve to be shown.

TTN: “King” supports and endorses all these rappers who call these beautiful women “bitches” and “hos?”

JZ: It’s a gender thing. It’s not a cultural thing. We didn’t invent the word ho. We might be the only group of people that go out there and put it out there in our music. But I guarantee that if you read “King,” you will never see a woman referred to as a bitch or a ho. We don’t just take pictures of these women for our cover. We interview them and give them an opportunity to speak on who they are and if a rapper or a person wants to call them a bitch or a ho, they’re just being small-minded and you wouldn’t want to deal with them anyway.

TTN: What do you like to do for fun?

JZ: I like to write. I write a lot. I work on books.

Stephanie Guerilus can be reached at qsteph@temple.edu.

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