Saturday, February 6, 2021

DC ExtraTime: Oops... Cardi & Nurys Did It Again!

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BY DC CUEVA                          
■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

Two years ago - what seems an eternity by now, the mainstream music scene was introduced to a fiery female rapper who first made waves on the biggest franchise on VH1 and perhaps the most star-studded in all of reality TV. Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, better known as Cardi B., made her debut as part of the cast of the first generation of Love & Hip Hop in New York City, who was on several seasons of the show as an up-and-coming artist before turning her attention to putting her stamp on the music world.

There's no doubt that Cardi is the biggest lady in the hip-hop universe, and two of those from the eight seasons of MTV's Are You The One? have had a chance to get close with her. Years before her ascent into stardom, Mike Crescenzo appeared in one of her early music videos before he himself would be cast on the now-legendary Season 3 cast in 2015 as well as The Real World a year later. But that would pale in comparison to what the other AYTO alum got to do with that girl from the Bronx.

The first eight seconds of the "Press" video that dropped during the midst of -- ironically enough, a publicized court case involving a 2018 brawl at a strip club in Queens, saw someone familiar to us MTV Reality fans get to lock lips with Cardi. And this past week, it was deja vu... and to paraphrase a certain pop star who's also been in the news of late, "Oops... Cardi & Nurys Did It Again!"

Since our original story on "Press" back in July 2019, Cardi has continued to add more to her resume, as she headlined her own tour that summer and spent the holidays down in Africa. She also joined Jennifer Lopez for her debut on the big screen in Hustlers, and linked up with Chance the Rapper and T.I. as judges on Netflix's hip-hop talent search, Rhythm + Flow. Cardi also received more honors from the Industry, streaming services and a Grammy nomination... and when everything around us came to a halt, Brooklyn DJ iMarkkeyz created a track based around her reaction to the pandemic that went viral. 
   Last summer, she returned with a vengeance in collaborating with Megan Thee Stallion to drop their entry into the year of super music collaborations, "WAP." The sex-positive anthem brought both Cardi and Megan more fame as it dropped at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, set streaming and video records, and topped many music critics' lists of top songs of the lost year, netting Cardi several Billboard and American Music Awards. And when Super Bowl LV takes place tomorrow night, she will be among the many big celebs making cameos in the slew of commercials to air during the game.

Late Thursday nights mean for music fans a weekly dose of Christmas when new songs and videos are made available on streaming apps and and video platforms right at the stroke of midnight in the East and around bedtime in the West. This week saw the debut of a new video from Megan as she hooked up with DaBaby on "Cry Baby," while new anthems debuted from Chance the Rapper, Wyclef Jean & Vic Mensa in "Shelter" and Super Bowl performers H.E.R. in "Fight for You." And there were other new tracks from Chris Brown, G-Eazy, Dan + Shay, Kehlani and CNCO.
   But the biggest debut of this first New Music Friday of February belonged to Cardi B., as she debuted the second video off of her upcoming new album that doesn't have a title as yet. If "WAP" represented the raunchier side of her, then "Up" serves as a departure from that in being a Southern-style club banger and bringing an element of her past into her 2021 debut. A one-liner from when she was on LHHNY, "Once upon a time man, I heard that I was ugly," opens the track, which has been described by NME as a 2021 power anthem. But some of the jury are out of whether she ripped off a couple unknown Jersey rappers, but she insists that she worked on "Up" since last summer.
   The accompanying music video dropped also at 12:01AM Eastern Time early Friday morning, which sees Cardi go out hard on her wealth, her achievements sexually, and everything else in a clip that began with a tombstone that finally put the past year of 2020 out of its misery, and sees her and her dancers take center stage. And if you are someone who follows MTV Reality as much as we do here, you may be familiar with one of those -- and it offers a spiritual link from "Press" to this "Up" clip.

It's true that 2020 wasn't the best of years for most of us, but it was definitely a great year for Nurys Mateo as far as becoming the AYTO alum with the biggest visibility, outside of Devin, Nelson and Tori competing on The Challenge. She was part of the Season 6 cast of four years ago, then joined the two others in that New Orleans love triangle - Diandra Delgado and Malcolm Drummer - on Season 2 of Ex On The Beach U.S.
   As her fellow AYTO castmates have become parents, appeared on other seasons of EOTB and other things except for crossing over into Challenge Nation as of yet, Nurys has become an in-demand star in the world of music videos. She was the girl who kissed Cardi in the first eight seconds of "Press," the one who lured Chris Brown to her universe from a packed house party in "Goin' Crazy," and was the love interest of Diddy's son Quincy in "Aye-Yo."
   And now, Nurys has returned to where she started becoming a music video star in appearing in her second clip with Cardi, as she's one of the backup dancers in "Up." And, once again, she has her moment with the hip-hop star in sharing a smooch with her.



When Nurys appeared in "Press" a year and a half ago she tweeted @NurysKMateo, "never in a million years did I ever think I’d be in a Cardi B music video MAKING OUT with her!! Just two Dominican women from the Bronx making moves (obvi her moves outweigh mine but alotttttt but y’all get the point)." And for her return engagement with her in a video that has now racked up 17 million views on YouTube in the 48 hours since its premiere Thursday night, she wrote "Lips so nice, had to kiss em twice #up @iamcardib," all as the rest of the internet could hardly contain their excitement as lightning strikes twice.












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