DC ExtraTime: Music Week

Following contains excerpts from DCBLOG's Pulse posts during this weekend, reposted in the interest of our readers and containing bits in relation to two current cast members of The Challenge XXX and AYTO Season 6.

BY DC CUEVA                     

■ @DC408Dxtr  @ TW / IG / YT

This week following our two diaries covering this week's episodes of The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30 and Are You The One? Season 6, DCBLOG marked this past week's return to MTV of the iconic Total Request Live, "TRL" with showcasing two music videos with relation to cast members from both seasons. For the interest of those who don't want to scroll down to the end of the posts, we are reposting these bits for everyone to check out... enjoy these two pieces of ExtraTime as we mark Music Week on this site.

"WAKE UP" WITH MIKEY P.

On Monday, the show that helped make MTV the place to be in the late 90's and 2000's - Total Request Live or "TRL" - made its grand comeback with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato joining the fun in the iconic Times Square studio. For premiere day, two members of Team MTV were in that crowd seeing new history being made: Mark of the new series 90's House (and a huge 'NSYNC fan whose fantasies came true in dancing in front of Lance Bass and Joey Fatone on this week's episode) and David from 2014's Virgin Territory. The guys joined new hosts DC Young Fly, Amy Pham, Erik Zachary, Lawrence Jackson and Tamara Dhia and a slew of content creators as TRL was revived for a new generation.

   In honor of the return of this MTV Icon, the theme of 'Pulse ExtraTime this weekend is music, and at the end of both of these diaries we'll be featuring music videos starring two members of our current casts, including one who's played a key role in the first three weeks of Are You The One? Season 6, and for which we will next place our focus on. First, if you have seen their Instagram hubs this year, then you know that there is a romance between Kailah of this Challenge season and a true jack of all trades who is now her boyfriend.

Mikey P. was born and raised in the streets of Philadelphia, but for a decade and a half his eyes has been set on taking over the world, which now are in more ways than one. At heart, he is a musician: a hip-hop and pop artist who blends those two genres with an influence from The Beastie Boys to create his sound. And there was a time, once upon a time, where he boasted a Pauly D.-like blowout to his hair instead of his current platinum blond.
   Mikey was a member of local group DaCav, who won a local Philly talent showcase and won local Breakout Artist at the 2009 VMA's put on by hometown cable giant Comcast, and earned coveted spots performing alongside some of music's biggest acts. Very few, and perhaps only the music world's elite, can say that they got to share a stage with Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Flo Rida and the Pussycat Dolls, but that's what DaCav did when they got to do that very thing at radio show concerts. And in typical millennial fashion, songs on their MySpace page got over 3 million plays, and their music was also featured in the film Standing Ovation in contributing five tracks to that flick. And all of this success came on their own as independent artists, with no major record label deal.

   As for Mikey, he has followed in the lead of the likes of other artists and crossed over into another form of entertainment, and in his case, the world of television. His charismatic personality seems to fit perfectly with reality TV, and thanks to having done three series a broader audience beyond the Delaware Valley now have an idea of who he is. His first show came nine years ago on an MTV series called From G's to Gents, where he was one of those guys who were chosen to take on a transformation from a gangsta to a gentlemen, thanks to the help of hip-hop's most famous valet Fonzworth Bentley.
   A few years later, he would then try his luck on TV's most famous obstacle course on American Ninja Warrior, which if you have seen his Instagram or SnapChat stories, he spends time in dedicated gyms which features some of those obstacles, which he often practices alongside his girl. And just three years ago, he decided to quite literally take it all off on an island with girls and guys in the quest for love - Dating Naked, which is also produced by the same group behind Are You The One? - Lighthearted Entertainment. Those shows aside, he has also done two shows for Hulu and Guinness World Records.... six shows in all.
   A year or two ago in his new adopted home of Las Vegas, Mikey met up with Jenna when she visited Sin City… and her becoming buddy-buddy in the Shelter and in the Oasis on Invasion in Thailand with a newcomer eventually saw the Barbie Beast introduce Mikey to Kailah. She moved back to when her MTV journey began -- two years ago this weekend -- and has settled back in Las Vegas with him. His side job of working gigs in America's adult playground has afforded him the chance to meet many top stars, including (as we showcased here previously) Floyd Mayweather at his 40th birthday party, Pauly D. and Ronnie from Jersey Shore, and Kevin Hart on Labor Day weekend.

For Mikey's latest music video, it's no surprise that he enlisted the help of Kailah to co-star in the vid which takes place in the Nevada desert (a cloudy one in this town known for its sweltering summer heat) and in the city that they, TJ Lavin, Leroy and so many others in Team MTV call home. The video features them and their friends going bowling, driving in the same desert where she bungee-jumped to begin her MTV journey, and walking in the indoor lighted canopy of The Fremont Street Experience and the Strip.
   Check out "Wake Up" below also featuring artists TC Carter & Kurt Kesedar, and the YouTube channels for Mikey P. and Kailah… Perhaps, this is the MTV world's next power couple.

On an additional note, Mikey, Kailah and all of our friends who call Vegas home were deeply affected by last Sunday's events that has touched everyone, including me as a fellow high school friend serves as a responder in Southern Nevada and no doubt rose to the challenge during the city's darkest hour since the hotel fires of the early 80's. The official site of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors' Authority has information on how you can help, located at VisitLasVegas.com, while Clark County Commissioner Chair Steve Sisolak set up a Go Fund Me that has raised nearly $10 million and is still going strong… visit it at the link above, and the Las Vegas Victims Fund as well. Our blog coverage this weekend is dedicated in memory of the victims, and our thoughts are with them, their families and everyone affected by this unspeakable tragedy.

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INTRODUCING MACKEM DRUMMER

IG @MackemDrummer

After what we've seen from him in these first three episodes - and having already become romantically connected to three girls during this first one-third of our stay in the Bayou, Malcolm now finds himself in the hot seat and headed for the place where lasers can change the fortunes of an entire house with two words. With Are You The One? now taking a cue from The Challenge in making the road to the following week's a drag to stretch out time thanks to a cliffhanger as he heads into the Truth Booth, there is something we have discovered about him. And after we featured Challenger Kailah's hip-hop boyfriend Mikey P. a day ago, he is our other focus of Music Week on Pulse ExtraTime.

Since AYTO began a few short years ago, we have seen some castmates with a musical background: lawyer John from Season 2 is part of a rock cover band, Rashida of Season 3 is a singer, and the Season 4 cast was full of musicians in Francesca, Prosper, Giovanni, Asaf and of course Tori. And on this cast, Malcolm is not alone music-wise in the house as in what we saw with Ethan and the music he's released under his nickname of "E-Money" (we'll share with you his music later on here).
   It seems rather coincidental that he shares a surname with a position that many in the music business take up in grabbing sticks, sitting behind a drum kit and banging them at full blast. But in the case of this musician whose last name is Drummer, that's far from the case. For the guy they also call Mackem, Malcolm has been spitting rhymes for the past three years under just his last name of Drummer. If you head over to his SoundCloud channel, you can glance over at all of those 25 tracks he has released on that site since taking up hip-hop... that includes taking a shot at the man who eventually became President.

   On the night of him being the third to take the trip into the Truth Booth whose resolution we will see off the bat this Wednesday, Drummer dropped his first music video on his YouTube channel, which he shot earlier this year and knowing that he was gonna audition for the show and eventually earn his spot in NOLA, he waited until now to drop the video to everyone. Enjoy it below.

- I AM DC