DC ExtraTime: Before They Were MTV Stars: On The Red Carpet with Tori Deal

BY DC CUEVA                     

■ @DC408Dxtr  @ TW / IG / YT

Happy November and welcome again to our view Inside the MTV Trifecta at DCBLOG. In a few days, we'll be offering our usual weekend look at The Challenge XXX and Are You The One? as the former heads into its final act and the ladder enters its second half... and both having $1 million on the line. But to tide you over until then here at midweek - and as you all recover from the madness of Halloween and indulge in all of that candy, first we present another dedicated bit from our unique storytelling franchise called DC ExtraTime, featuring an alum of both of those shows.

Instagram @Tori_Deal

As she's on her third MTV show in the span of 18 months, Tori Deal has already made a strong impact on fans and on viewers, charming us with her smart gameplay and awesome personality and humor. She was part of the Season 4 cast of Are You The One? last year, where she made quite a mark… none more so than when she and fellow rapper Giovanni engaged in a rap battle on the season finale and left the poor guy they call the Wolf lying on the floor with the help of her fellow girls in the house and something called the "third eye."
   Ever since, we have seen Tori on two additional MTV shows, and in this latest chapter she has been proven to be both a great cast member and an equally greater competitor competing on The Challenge XXX as a rookie competing for the very first time. She has also had romances with not one, but four AYTO alumni: it began in that Hawaii house with a smooch on Season 4 charmer Asaf, then her perfect match and runner-up on Second Chances - Morgan. Later came her brief and much publicized fling with Mike from not only AYTO Season 3 but also Real World Bad Blood, followed by another short romance we just saw her and Derrick H. from Season 5 earlier this year.
   Okay, so she may not exactly be the very best when it comes to the dating game, but she's now looking to cash in her third straight MTV show in making it to the $1 million final of Dirty 30 after clinching her spot last week. But you may not know that Tori has already racked up a stellar career even before she became more of a household name across America than just in the Big Apple. And on this latest installment of Before They Were MTV Stars, we'll share with you some of what she did before she made the name "Tori Deal" more well known, including making a few friends on a valuable piece of carpet of all things.

At every major film premiere, awards show and any event deemed of major significance in the world of entertainment, there is something called a "red carpet." To those who make them, it's just another textile rug like the welcome mat you rub your shoes on when you walk into someone's home for the first time. But this one is different: it was first used to mark the road taken by heads of state for occasions of a ceremonial and formal nature, and still used to this day when the President of the United States or the Queen arrives on an airport tarmac. And the term "red carpet treatment" was first termed when crimson carpets were used to direct passengers to board a 1900's New York City train, which made hospitality of the best quality a priority in rolling the red carpet to consumers.
   But over time, red carpets have taken on a greater interest outside politics in it now being used more commonly by VIP's and celebrities at formal events and galas. If you glance over at photos from a major gala, then you know that these red carpet affairs are the event in town just by the flashes of the cameras of the press, the crowd adoring their favorite stars, and of course the wonder of what they're wearing. It's most especially the case at the Oscars, the Grammys and other major awards shows where what happens outside matters just as much as what goes on inside, including analyzing fashions right down to which designers made that dress. And media outlets take the chance to talk to stars as they arrive, chatting about their latest movies, albums and shows for TV and the web.
   Back when Season 2 of AYTO was still airing, Tori was only famous to her friends and family and was just a local name in the Tri-State Area. Well before she auditioned for the show, she got to do an internship for a New York based website called Overdrive Productions. There, she got the chance to interview some of the biggest stars in the music world on the red carpet and gain some experience in the industry, before the big break of joining Team MTV came to her door. And with her on this Challenge, we'd thought about sharing with you a sampling of those here.

Last spring, a story that had music fans fuming was what happened to a festival that was supposed to go down in the Caribbean. Instead, the Fyre Music Festival quite literally became more like a scene from a survival film than one of those lavish hip-hop parties, and in this case helping launch a music booking app. Festival goers had to fend for themselves for a few days when behind the scenes logistics problems led organizers to nix the event before the music even got started. In the end, several lawsuits were brought to the attention of the courts and a wire fraud charge was handed down this summer to Fyre founder Billy McFarland.

   Another person who was at the heart of the Fyre fiasco was Ja Rule, who tweeted after the chaos that it wasn't a scam and did not want to be part of the blame game. It was the latest saga for a man from the Queens who only officially celebrates his birthday every four years on leap year, but for a time in the 2000's he was part of hip hop royalty. As main artist for Irv Gotti's The Inc. label, collaborations with Jennifer Lopez, Ashanti, 90s House co-host Christina Milian and R. Kelly vaulted him to the top of the charts, and had epic feuds with 50 Cent, DMX and Foxy Brown. He even had his own MTV show featuring his family, and he got to talk with Tori about that and his music.

Seventeen years ago during a time of a new generation of artists emerging on the scene, a man from St. Louis by the name of Nelly came onto the scene with "Country Grammar." He began his music career in the mid-90s with local group the St. Lunatics, and patience paid off for him in his debut solo effort becoming a chart-topper, and began a career that has seen him make many other top albums and singles, ascending to #3 on Billboard's Top Artists of the 2000's. But recently, there was the recent case of Nelly being cuffed for a second time for a rape charge in Seattle just after a misdemeanor drug offense two years ago and a tax lien last year.

   When 2016 was rung in last year, Nelly chatted it up with Tori about New Year's resolutions and his charity work.

Born to parents of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent and who had went through a tough childhood, it's been 25 years since Bronx's own Fat Joe first took up hip-hop, followed in '93 by dropping his debut album - inspired from seeing another fellow rapper with Hispanic roots, Big Pun. The man at the heart of the Terror Squad, he is known for his big presence both physically -- once weighing 300 lbs. -- and lyrically in releasing 10 albums, dropping 3 mixtapes and releasing 22 singles. From hooking up with many of hip-hop's finest to scoring a money cameo with J.Lo that brought his name to a wider audience, Fat Joe has done just about everything in the genre. And that includes inviting everyone to "Lean Back" back in 2004 -- his first #1 single.
   Instead of just waiting there on the red carpet, Tori did what every good reporter does -- go and chase down the person she wanted to talk with, and caught up with Joe for a brief word or two being surrounded by his entourage.

Next up: someone who made "Auto Tune" a part of regular music production… T-Pain popularized the use of that pitch correction effect in helping him score a part in more than 50 chart-topping singles in earning two Grammys with Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, and his most-notable work in "Low," which helped introduce the world of Flo Rida. Tori caught up with the Tallahassee rapper where he talked about performing in unusual venues, new music and Saturdays.

Two years ago, a young Atlanta rapper named Silentó burst onto the scene by dropping his debut joint, "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" on YouTube and notched over 2.5 million views in 7 days. With  the track's combo of two fiery dance moves synonymous with Southern hip-hop, Capitol Records won the signing wars for this viral star and that track became a Billboard Top 5, earning him performing spots at the BET Awards and on New Year's Eve.
   Silentó got to chat it up with Tori at that New Year's event and told about the story of that breakout hit and him wanting to be the next Biebs.

Another artist Tori got to talk with is someone from Britain: Jay Sean first emerged on the scene in Britain back in 2003, but because of his Punjabi roots he became much more popular in Asia. It was only in 2008 that he became a worldwide name when Cash Money Records brought him into America, and his debut track "Down" with Lil' Wayne went to #1 -- the first solo artist of South Asian origin and first British urban act to top the U.S. charts. Several more top singles would follow for Jay Sean with collaborations with Sean Paul, Lil' Jon, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull, Mary J. Blige and even Pauly D. from Jersey Shore.
   Jay talked with Tori at a Queens tour stop, where she asked a question most music fans have wondered of why British artists lose their distinctive accent when they perform?

Another notable artist Tori got to talk to gets to turn 50 years old next year: Shaggy moved from Jamaica to Brooklyn when he was a kid, and after he earned a lance corporal serving in the Gulf War took up music and has churned out some timeless hits over the course of the past two decades -- beginning with "Boombastic" back in 1995... when Tori was just 2 years old.

And lastly, more interviews, featuring Jason Derulo, Ray J., DJ's Cash Cash, Carmit from The Pussycat Dolls, and a slew of hip-hop legends... including getting a beat-box primer from the one & only OG, Doug E. Fresh.

The body of work Tori was able to establish in her time on the red carpet came to the attention of two of the web's most well-known sites.
   Twelve years ago, a Queens native named Lee "Q" O'Denat created World Star Hip Hop, a content-aggregating video blog site which rakes in over half a million visitors a day to its mix of music videos, viral clips of daily fights caught on tape and all else of interest to the millennial audience that's voyeuristic and eye-appealing. "Q", whose obesity would take his life earlier this year, described his site as "the CNN of the ghetto," and its presence has expanded to Twitter @WorldStar with over 2 million followers and ready-to-post memes. And despite the site's somewhat mixed reputation, it nonetheless hired Tori to do several video news bits for their site.

And at times, Tori has also lent time to offer her thoughts on the entertainment world for TMZ -- Yes, that TMZ which has grown from a simple website covering the ins and outs going on in the "thirty mile zone" of movie studios in Hollywood to becoming one of the world's most famous websites and a go-to place for those who want some juice celebrity gossip from Harvey Levin and his team.
   Last year, she came onto its daily TV show to talk about a couple that seem to always be in the gossip everyday: Kanye and Kim.

I'm coming from every angle 😈 @Tmz @Mtv @WORLDSTAR @AREUTHE1 pic.twitter.com/lGhEzAexLI

— tori deal (@tori_deal) July 28, 2016

And of course, there's her musical side, which includes her latest single "Lay Low" and some other stuff too. But no doubt her most notable musical moment - and MTV moment for that matter - was, of course, that rap battle.

In the run-up to last night's episode and the start of the $1 million final, MTV.com posed the question, "Is Tori the greatest Challenge rookie of all time?"  She has already followed in the footsteps of these other notable people of making it to the final in their first go: Leroy, Sarah, Cory, Zach, Jenna, Emily, Laurel, Nicole Z., Johnny R., Svetlana and her Second Chances enemy Devin. From the early returns of my ongoing Twitter poll at @DC408Dxtr, a lot of you are rooting for Tori to do something none of those dozen have been able to do: overtake a deep and loaded finals field featuring previous champions like the one she is in and win the whole thing at their first try.
   The guy she partnered with in the last daily challenge Jordan already called her this game's toughest player, and had to overcome her lone ally bouncing early to win an early elimination, then taking advantage of the Double Cross to eventually send home AYTO alum Britni and time-tested veteran Aneesa. And in utilizing the smarts she acquired in Hawaii and then in Australia, she got to deal with Jenna and Kailah to strategize with them and keep herself in the main house while Jenna, Cara Maria and others were in the Redemption House.
   But the true measure of greatness for any Challenge great comes when there's money on the line and this show's purest & most thorough test: the final. Unlike the two other ladies she's facing in Cara Maria and Camila, Tori has the position of being so well-liked that if she goes on and win, it would be historic and famous. She would be the first AYTO alum to win a Challenge title, the first rookie girl since Ashley K. and Sam to win at their first try, and perhaps this would overtake Sarah Greyson's run on The Gauntlet as the biggest rookie story in this show's long history, and one of its best ever overall... most especially in this individual format.

For now, those are the particulars, and above - the prelude to this moment. Don't be surprised if Tori pulls this all off... everyone who's had a chance to talk with her will no doubt root for her.

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DCBLOG will look at how Tori fares with the rest of the field as they take flight for the $1 million final of The Challenge XXX when we bring you our look Inside the MTV Trifecta coming up this weekend. We'll also focus on Episode 7 of Are You The One? Season 6 that airs tonight, plus a first look at what may become MTV's next big hit series.  All of that comes your way here Friday, after we give those who were busy with Halloween last night the time to catch up now until then.
   And remember to share our DCBLOG links on your social media platforms so my site can help reach more of your fellow fans and to let a wider fanbase experience & enjoy my insightful content and acclaimed posts with episode coverage, Pulse reaction and compelling stories no one else offers such as these. Enjoy tonight's AYTO, and see you here this weekend.

- I AM DC