As a young white kid growing up in the suburbs, I listen to nothing but hip-hop throughout the Middle School years. My love of the genre has died down as I have grown mostly due to the blandness rap has gotten with it endless talk of bling over the same bland beats. I was ecstatic last year when VH1 started up their Hip-Hop Honors awards giving props to the innovators and reminding me of a time when rap was truly king. Last year honored some of my favorites such as Run-DMC, Public Enemy, and KRS-One. This years festivities did a better job of focusing on the inductees with only one performance of a song not made famous by an inductee whereas last year there was about three or four. Other highlights included:- LL Cool J was the first inductee. I have always been on the fence about him as he was the guy who brought love songs into the culture. Buy on the other hand, Mama Said Knock You Out is a top 5 rap song of all time. LL is paid tribute by Nelly and Ciara, the black Britney (can’t sing, moderately attractive but shows a lot of skin). But how much of a tribute can it be when both need guided vocals to sing the songs.
- Next up is one of the mainstays of my Middle School years, Ice-T. To this day I can recite both the clean and dirty versions of New Jack Hustler. Ice-T is joined on stage by the only other gangsta rapper who has somehow crept into the mainstream Snoop Dogg. Had anyone guess back in '92 that one would be on the most successful TV show franchise and the other would be doing commercials with Lee Iacocca, you would have been accuse of dipping into one of their stashes.- Many point to Rapper’s Delight as the start of rap, but The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 is where hip-hop started. I did find it odd that during there performance of the song the threw in a line from Matthew Wilder’s Break My Stride just like Diddy did back when he was Puff Daddy when he sampled The Message for Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down. What was stranger was Morbidly Obese Joe inclusion in the whole thing.
- Salt-N-Pepa are next with a hyped performance with En Vouge as the first time they performed together. Am I mistaken or didn’t they perform the Whatta Man during one of the Video Music Awards. Can someone give me confirmation for this? Then during the perfomce the for some reason threw up pictures of Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Ray Charles and I swear I saw Dave Chappelle too. Um, okay.
- I’ll go ahead and admit it, I’ve never seen Boyz 'N the Hood
.- Who invited the dude from Entourage? Was he there just to fill the token white person quota? Wasn’t Ice-T’s wife enough?
- Kanye West comes out and give the most entertaing performance of the night. I don’t say that because of anything he did but that there was some old fat white dude in the second row that had an Art Garfunkel receding afro that had me cracking up thought the whole thing.
- The midget Jermaine Dupree comes out with charms on his watch. No wonder why anyone with credibility makes fun of the dude.
- The induction of Big Daddy Kane is next and the dude can still move. He gets a tribute from Biz Markie on the turntable, T.I. (or Antoine Merriwether as I like to call him), Black Thought of The Roots, and Common sporting a “I Love Black People” t-shirt which seems to be in response to his boss’ “George Bus hates black people” remark.
- Diddy is up last to induct his friend/meal ticket and mentioned Biggie duets album. I have a feeling I’ll pass on that. The finale with Kanye, Ludacris, and Lil’Cease wasn’t as cool as the VMA tribute, but the choir was a nice touch.
If I were on the selection committee for Hip-Hop Honors, here is who I would nominate for the 2006 class (feel free to add anyone you would nominate in the comment section):
A Tribe Called Quest
Beastie Boys
Eric B. & Rakim
N.W.A.
Slick Rick
Just like you, I grew up listening to rap/hip-hop and now listen to very little of it. I guess I grew into my whiteness as I got older.
ReplyDeleteIs it too early to nominate Outkast? I'd go for them. Maybe Queen Latifah too. I'd personally nominate D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and MC Hammer because they brought hip hop to a larger, whiter audience but I suspect I'd get shot if I made that suggestion to anyone who has already been honored.
I think that it may be too early to nominate Outkast as they haven't inducted any 90's act aside from two dead rappers (2Pac, Biggie) and haven't really gone outside NYC aside from Ice-T and 2Pac. I give Outkast another five years.
ReplyDeleteAs for Hammer he does have widespead respect from the rapping commuinty now because he was the one who brought money into the rap game. So I wouldn't be too surprised.