DC ExtraTime: Before They Were MTV Stars: DRAM, Broccoli & An AYTO Girl

From the Pulse of The Challenge Vendettas Premiere

BY DC CUEVA                     

■ @DC408Dxtr  @ TW / IG / YT

Fairly often, this site scours the web and YouTube for videos of interest involving the hundreds who've appeared on shows of the MTV Trifecta: either clips from past shows which we featured in our Vendettas version of "Who Are These Newbies?", or most especially those from the past before these people were casted. Before They Were MTV Stars gives us that chance sometimes, and last year, we looked at when Tori earned her stripes not on her four MTV shows but on the red carpet talking to hip-hop royalty, when Nelson appeared on a game show hosted by Jerry Springer, and when Asaf Goren did So You Think You Can Dance?, before he went onto not just two AYTO seasons but also a new show on Food Network to identify the Worst Cook in America. Speaking of food, the name of a vegetable is a co-subject to this bit...
   This summer sees Shalley Marshaun Massenburg-Smith, a Hampton Roads, VA resident, turn 30 having become a musician and actor who took up the alias of DRAM, which means "Does Real @$$ Music."  Being in a military family where his mom served the country, he was born in Germany but it was in spring 2015 that he began to became more well known outside of this military area where Challenge champ Sam from Back to San Diego and AYTO original Chris T. call home. There, he released his debut EP #1Epic under Atlantic, had a single "Cha Cha" that topped the Emerging Hip-Hop charts, and then dropped a mixtape later that year. The next year drop his debut major label album, saw him appear on The Tonight Show performing with Chance the Rapper, Ty Dolla Sign and Anthony Hamilton, and was part of Chance's Grammy-winning Best Rap Album and is now himself with a collaboration with the world's most famous animated band, British group Gorillaz.

IG @NurysKMateo

DRAM's breakout moment came in April 2016 when he and fellow rapper Lil' Yachty hooked up for his hit single, "Broccoli." It gained much international success, became his first Billboard Top 5 peaking inside the Hot 100, and earned him Grammy, iHeartRadio, Billboard and MTV VMA nominations in the process. The track's video took place both outside in the neighborhood and inside the guys' house, and featured a piano, plenty of twerking from a lot of girls and wiggle stereoscopy that has garnered over 250 million YouTube hits.
   One of those who were chosen by DRAM to twerk and dance in the "Broccoli" video, which was shot in that hip-hop hotbed of Atlanta, was Nurys from Season 6 of Are You The One?. On her season - which came a year after her U.S. TV debut in that video, she was part of that love triangle that she and New Jersey girl Diandra were involved in with one of the house's resident players, Malcolm, and well after they were a no match Nurys and Diandra decided to go all in on Malcolm towards the late part of the season when they had enough of them being played.  Nurys posted a picture on Instagram when "Broccoli" was the rage that summer of 2016 with the caption, "Check out the video to BROCCOLI by the homie @bigbabydram ft. @lilyachty 🌳I had a blast shooting this! #youtube #spotify #applemusic #tidal"

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