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Before Twista became the latest rap / hip-hop sensation and a platinum artist, he was Carl Terrell Mitchell, a young rap wannabe from the West Side who, in 1991, married Rashida Mitchell.
About three years later, the couple brought Aaliyah Mitchell into the world. They separated in 1996, and in 1999, Rashida filed for divorce. She now alleges that Twista, who is not related to me, has been so clever at hiding his assets that the case has languished ever since.
"He would come in court with phony check stubs showing that he made about $2,000 a month. The court ordered Twista to pay me $100 a week in 1999," his wife said.
About a year ago, the court increased Twista's child support payment to $460 a month.
"Right now he is two months behind," Rashida Mitchell said.
According to Jeffery Leving, Twista's lawyer, "the check is in the mail."
"This man is a loving father," Leving told me. ''He is not a malfeasance or deadbeat parent. He told me that his daughter means the world to him."
Meanwhile, when Aaliyah started school last week, Rashida didn't have the money to buy the girl new clothes.
Janice Boback, Rashida's lawyer, says her firm, Anderson & Boback, came into the divorce case a year ago.
"The case has stalled because we've been unable to get the information about his income and business affairs," Boback said. "Obviously he has been living high on the hog, and we are trying to find his resources. Rashida is having a hard time because she is living on her own and is a single parent. Actually, $460 doesn't even pay the rent. She just wants what is best for her daughter."
Leving, who spoke to me while Twista was on another line, claims the rap star has regular visitation with his daughter at his mother's house. But I spoke to the 10-year-old girl, and she says she hasn't seen her father since her ninth birthday last year when he took her to the zoo.
Scrapes up ticket money
And although Twista said he visited with his daughter at the WGCI Big Jam IV a few months ago, the event actually took place in December 2003. Aaliyah's mother showed me her receipt for $144 for two tickets.
"She begged him to go to the concert because she wanted to meet Beyonce and Lil' Bow Wow, and she had never seen her father on stage," Mitchell said. "I scraped up the money to buy the tickets because I didn't want her to be disappointed, and I got one of my friends to take her backstage. Twista wouldn't even take her to the dressing room."
Right now, Aaliyah is a little girl any father would be proud to call his daughter. Last year, she earned straight A's in fourth grade at a school in the Valley View School District, where she is a member of the school's soccer team.
"Twista doesn't participate in her life at all," his wife said. "She goes to school and tells her friends that Twista is her dad, and they don't believe her. All of her friends see him in videos, and they think she is lying. Kids can be cruel."
'Entitled to share in lifestyle'
"As the daughter of Twista, this girl is certainly entitled to share in the lifestyle that her dad has, and that is what we are trying to do now," Boback said. "She is being cut off from what she is entitled to. She wants very desperately to have a relationship with her father, and unfortunately that just hasn't happened."
Twista has children outside of his marriage, and these mothers have not called me to complain. Rashida said she decided to air this matter because her daughter is so unhappy.
"Basically, I want people to know that my daughter does exist," she said. "Her father is Twista although he has not given her the life that she deserves. His daughter is a beautiful little girl and well-mannered. I don't think she deserves to be disrespected and abandoned by him."
On Aug. 18, Aaliyah turned 10. She got a phone call from her father, but no gifts -- not even a birthday card.
Leving, a father's rights pioneer, argues that he presented Twista for his deposition and it is up to Rashida's lawyers to figure out where his money is.
"Right now there are issues, and Twista is out of town a lot. He didn't show up for his daughter's skating party because these parents have a bad relationship," Leving said.
But is this right? Should Twista's daughter be forced to produce a newspaper article to prove to her friends that her father is a successful rap star?
Sooner or later, Rashida and Twista will settle their differences and move on.
But no daughter should be made to look like a liar when she brags about her father
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