hip-hop-related stories
Posted Jun 23rd 2008 4:41PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Programming, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Awards, Reality-Free
The fifth annual
VH1 Hip-Hop Honors will be taped on October 2nd at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. The show will premiere on VH1 the following Tuesday, October 7th. The honorees and performers will be named later this summer. Last year's celebration paid tribute to A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, WHODINI, Missy Elliott, the film
Wild Style and Teddy Riley and Andre Harrell for New Jack Swing with appearances by Mos Def, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Ne-Yo, Ciara, Eve, Chris Rock, Busta Rhymes and others.
Of the show, Tom Calderone, Executive Vice President and General Manager for VH1, says, "Our
VH1 Hip Hop Honors has grown into one of the most anticipated events in the hip hop community, drawing legends from back-in-the-day to the hottest stars of the genre today."
But before the network fetes the innovators of hip-hop, VH1 will tape the 3rd annual
Rock Honors on July 12th at the UCLA campus. This year the network is paying tribute to The Who. Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, and The Flaming Lips will perform.
Posted Jan 27th 2007 4:02PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, FOX, Music and Variety
If you are among those who do, indeed, think they can dance, than your big chance is here. Fox's
So You Think You Can Dance is casting for its third season with a nationwide audition tour. If it's anything like
American Idol auditions, you can expect to stand in crushing lines for hours and hours, be sized up based on your appearance before you even get a chance to dance and spend the rest of the day crying like a colicy baby. Not my cup of tea, but hey, you said you could dance, and someone's gotta compete on the show.
Auditions begin this March in New York and then move to Chicago, LA and Atlanta. They're theoretically looking for all kinds of dancers, but you know the poor Irish Step Champion is never gonna make it past the hip-hop class so take that into consideration before you whip out any specialized moves outside the worlds of ballroom or street dance, and by "street," I mean "music video." More information on the casting tour is available at
Fox's So You Think You Can Dance website. Break a leg, kids.
Posted Jan 4th 2007 2:32PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Music and Variety, Celebrities, MTV
Auditions begin this January 17th in Los Angeles for P. Diddy's latest installment of
Making the Band. This time out, he's looking to put together a boy band that crosses New Edition with N'Sync. In Diddy's imagination these boys would be as disciplined as a bunch of Howard men pledging Alpha Phi Alpha, but since, unlike Oprah, he's not taking his base of operations to South Africa or Howard, he's bound to get a bunch of marginally-talented, fame-seeking alpha males whose knowledge of R&B extends back only as far as Boyz II Men if he's lucky.
I've actually watched every season, if not every episode, of
Making the Band largely because P. Diddy's megalomaniacal behavior has to be seen to be believed. He's like a deeply invasive Donald Trump - doling out business philosophy while telling kids how to sleep, act, breathe, walk, look, etc. You can spare yourself the time investment and just watch Dave Chappelle's take on Diddy from the first season of the
Chappelle Show. It's surprisingly accurate.
Continue reading P. Diddy preps for Making the Band 4
Posted Dec 21st 2006 9:30PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV Royalty, Industry, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities
The guys from the Lonely Island comedy troupe have been three of the most important additions to the
Saturday Night Live family in a very long time. Andy Samberg is now one of the most recognizable faces on the cast, and Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer have lent their writing expertise to some of the most famous sketches of the past few seasons. For example, the "
SNL Digital Shorts", like the wildly popular "Lazy Sunday", were these boys' doing.
Well, it sounds like the guys are thinking about putting their talents to LP form. Samberg recently said that they'd like to try to create an entire album of their now-famous style of hip-hop knock-offs. I'm not sure if I'd jump at the chance to buy a collection of songs like "Dick in a Box", but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't think about it.
Posted Dec 19th 2006 8:05PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Music and Variety, VH1
More information has been released about VH1's latest reality outing -
ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show.
What we reported to you in early November remains the same - the show, which premieres on January 8th, is a reality competition which pits lily white MCs against one another in search of the next Eminem or Adrock.
Now, you wouldn't expect another lame reality show from the team behind
ego trip, would you? For the uninitiated,
ego trip was a New York-based hip-hop magazine that started back in 1994. The publication covered underground sounds with wit and attitude. They were the "arrogant voice of musical truth." While the magazine folded years ago,
ego trip remained at large through a series of books -
ego trip's Book of Rap Lists and
ego trip's Big Book of Racism. They partnered with VH1 on
ego trip's Race-O-Rama and
TV's Illest Minority Moments. Given their track record, it would be a huge disappointment were
The (White) Rapper Show to suck.
Continue reading More on ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show
Posted Dec 2nd 2006 10:05AM by Julia Ward
Filed under: TV Royalty, Daytime, Syndicated, Celebrities, Talk Show
How's this for a hip-hop feud? 50 Cent vs. Oprah. In the
January issue of Elle magazine, 50 Cent states that Winfrey "started out with black women's views but has been catering to middle-aged white American women for so long that she's become one herself." The old Oreo accusation - white on the inside, black on the outside.
It's bad enough that 50 has dissed every rapper in the game - Ja Rule, Nas, Fat Joe, Shyne, Jadakiss, D-Block and The Game. Now, he has to go and diss one of the most important black public figures of the past twenty years. I don't see 50 using his fortune to open schools for girls in South Africa or getting America to read Toni Morrison novels. There's a great deal you can take down Oprah for, but questioning the integrity of her "blackness" is ridiculous - particularly when done by a rapper who owes much of his success to industry mentor and white boy Eminem. Seriously, 50, stick to telling us how to party like it's our birthday instead of picking fights with the big O.
Posted Nov 19th 2006 2:35PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, Late Night, OpEd, Saturday Night Live
(S32E06) Some of you weren't so happy that we
stopped reviewing Saturday Night Live, so I'm going to give this another go, just so that everyone at least as a place to discuss. And I will try and resist saying "ehh, it was okay, I guess" for every single review, but, let me warn you, it's going to be tough. That said, this particular episode was... well... ehh, it was okay, I guess. Surprisingly, Ludacris did a much better job than many other musician hosts (and some "real actor" guests, actually), but it was nothing spectacular.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Chris "Ludacris" Bridges
Posted Nov 7th 2006 2:07PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, HBO, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, The Wire
Did you see
The Wire on Sunday night? If not, you can start catching up by reading
Michael Canfield's reviews. Then, and only then, can you "jiggle it."
Having just relocated to LA from DC, neighbor to Baltimore, I was psyched to hear a Charm City club shout-out to Young Leek on
The Wire. Two killers for hire smoked out a New York City dealer who had invaded their turf by asking everyone they met if they'd heard the Young Leek club hit
Jiggle It. "They don't listen to that shit up in New York." The first dude who doesn't know
Jiggle It gets popped.
We don't want that to happen to you so here's a link to
Leek's MySpace site where you can hear Baltimore fav
Jiggle It - one of the most ridiculously infectious club tracks to come out in a long time. Right when I was feeling homesick for DC,
The Wire drops a Young Leek track. I love those writers. Now, if I ever hear go-go music on DC-based show, I'll be in heaven.
Posted Oct 31st 2006 11:02AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Cable, OpEd, Celebrities, VH1
Barely any time has passed since the dramatic conclusion of the
Flavor of Love: Season Two. Only a few weeks ago, we saw New York angrily make her exit, bits of her weave coming dangerously close to exploding with fury, after she got second place... again. Well, even after losing Flav (seriously, is he
that great of a catch?), she's gained a lot... in the form of a sweet spin-off deal with VH1 to do her own
Bachelorette-style program,
The Flavorette. I can't wait to see what kind of man is crazy enough to vie for her attention. By the way, has anyone figured out if New York is a drama queen extreme or just a really bad actress? She remins me of those theater-folk that try to do TV, but forget to leave their exaggerated gestures at the stage door.
As for Flavor Flav, he is still with his Season Two lady, Deelishis. He has a new album on the way. He is also about to
become a father for the seventh time. Oh yes. That's right. Some small, tiny being will soon be welcomed into this world with a smack on the bottom and an obnoxiously loud "YEAH BOYEE!". Flav hasn't said who the baby momma is, but she's a "shorty in Vegas". Good lord.
Posted May 27th 2006 2:02PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: TV Royalty, Celebrities
Rapper/actor Ice Cube is joining the chorus of performers who have a problem with Oprah. Cube tells FHM magazine that he thinks he wasn't invited on her show when Barbershop II came out because he is a rapper (Oprah did have Cedric the Entertainer and Eve on). He also takes it a step further by saying, "She's had damn rapists, child molesters and lying authors on her show. And if I'm not a rags-to-riches story for her, who is?" Forget East vs. West. It's Rappers vs. Oprah (and I think Oprah will prevail).
Fellow rappers Ludacris and
50 Cent have also voiced their discontent with Oprah's lack of hip-hop artists on her show. Oprah was pretty clear with Ludacris, when he was on a year ago for
Crash, that she did not approve of his dirty and derogatory lyrics. However, she did defend herself on an NYC radio station after 50 Cent accused her of banning rappers from her show. She said she even has a little 50 Cent on her iPod, and she loves Mary J. Blige, Kanye West, and Jay-Z.
So. Is this just a ploy by these guys to get some face time on
Oprah or what?
The TV Squad Podcast: Vik Sahay of Chuck, Oprah talk, brutal timeslots, and more!
TV Squad Ten: Top Ten ESPN shows from worst to first
Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
