No doubt about it, Hype Williams has the juice. So much juice that Vita is traveling from New York to Los Angeles to work with the video director – though she doesn’t know what she’s in for.
“I haven’t read the treatment yet,” Vita admitted Wednesday prior to making the trek to film the first clip from her upcoming debut, La Dolce Vita. “I’m sure Hype has some good ideas. When I get out there, I’ll see what I’m going to do and what I don’t wanna do.”
Vita does know that the clip – based on her remake of Madonna’s “Justify My Love,” – will find her sitting in a hotel with a lot of cute guys and girls. Her manager says it resembles Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” – only “hotter.”
So with Ja Rule’s love interest from the “Put It on Me” video turning up the steam, will it – as Madonna’s own 1990 video for the song was – be too hot for TV?
“No,” says the self-proclaimed “Murder Mami.” “The people around me might get banned, but if I do anything, it’s going to be with myself. It ain’t going to be on the Madonna level. I want it to be sensual and sexy, but I don’t want to put it out there like a come-get-me thing.”
Vita recorded the remake at the suggestion of Irv Gotti, CEO of her label, Murder Inc. And while she’s never seen the original video, she has always been a fan of the song. When she tried to make it her own by rapping on the beat, however, Madonna shut her down.
“We did it with a hot rhyme the first time,” recalls the Queens native. “We did it two ways to see which one Madonna would clear. And of course she cleared the one with me performing it exactly like she did. I was happy with it. I like her style. She’s always recreating herself, and that’s me. I’m the type of person I never wanna limit myself.”
Vita hopes everyone will appreciate her versatility with the fall release of La Dolce Vita.
“My real name is Lavita,” she says. “I put the ‘dolce’ in there. The title means ‘the good life’ in Italian.”
Jay-Z may help Vita live it up on her album, Ja Rule will check in on the love duet “Story of a Girl” and the Neptunes will provide two tracks.
Vita recently appeared with the producers in their “Lap Dance” video. In the clip, Vita and the Neptunes (who released the song under the N.E.R.D. moniker) rocked to the beat while female extras fondled and kissed one another.
“I’d rather get into myself than get into a chick,” Vita says by way of clarification. “I get into enough drama with y’all brothers these days.”
Vita says tracks such as “Me” from her new album will concern the female theatrics.
“I’m really trying to get the ladies to feel me,” she says. “I’m going to talk about dealing with relationships with thugs. You gotta let them know from the start what they’re dealing with.”
