DC ExtraTime: An MTV Lover "Goes Crazy" with Chris Brown

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Usually, summers like these would be the biggest time of year for those in the music industry as tours and festivals take over amphitheaters and sporting venues all throughout the hottest season of the year... but this one is like no other: those venues are empty as we continue to grapple with the COVID reality that we living with. But still, there is plenty of new music to go around to keep us company at home and wherever we may be to keep ourselves entertained.

This year marks a decade & a half since the emergence on the scene of a 16-year-old from a suburb of over 2,500 people outside of Richmond, Virginia. It was in summer 2005 that "Run It!" from Chris Brown was released on pop radio stations, and it instantly became a song of the summer. And was the sign of things to come when, during Thanksgiving week, the track hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time Chris' self-titled debut album also dropped and eventually followed the lead of his debut single to ascending to the Top 5 of the Billboard 200 - the first man to have a #1 debut single since the mid-'90s.

That set the tone for a career that has seen him continue to top the charts and where he has sold over 140 million records and garnered dozens of awards... and he just turned 31. He's also forged a movie career for himself with several roles, along with owning his own clothing line and even owning more than a dozen Burger King restaurants. But there's also the elephant in the room of past wrongdoings: a summer 2012 fight in New York with Drake and his entourage where the Spurs' Tony Parker had his eye cut, another scuffle with Frank Ocean a year later, a hit & run in L.A., and charges of Brown threatening a woman with a gun... and due to this he's prohibited from traveling to Britain.

And of course, there's the high-profile relationship with Chris and Rihanna: just before the 2009 Grammys they got into a huge fight that ended with her face all beaten up. His public image suffered tremendously in the wake of that domestic violence incident by the time he had his day in court, eventually pleading guilty to a felony of assault and being handed a lengthy probation, although most thought Brown was left off lightly than he should have been. More bad blood followed including a controversial tattoo and him going off behind the scenes at a TV appearance before finally agreeing to enter rehab to clean up his act due to his out-of-control mental health.

Summer 2020 sees Chris mark a slew of milestones: earlier this month, he revealed the name of his upcoming tenth studio album which bears his nickname Breezy. He also had his 100th career entry into the Hot 100 singles chart when "Not You Too" from a Drake mixtape entered the list, and a collaborative mixtape with Young Thug, Slime & B, which includes the lead single "Go Crazy," which has also sparked its own TikTok dance challenge. The video for it dropped yesterday which sees him and Young throw a house party in the Hollywood Hills (something we wish we could throw on Saturday nights like this), and features cameos by Justin & King Combs, sons of their more famous daddy Sean "Diddy" Combs, the man behind MTV's next relaunch of Making the Band 5.

The reason we are covering Breezy here is that, if you watch the video in its entirety, two young ladies come walking into that bash as lightning bolts in the L.A. sky and join the hundreds partying with Chris and Young. The lady wearing the white dress is none other than Nurys Mateo from MTV's Are You The One? and Ex On The Beach... the last time we featured that member of the "Sexy Season 6" crew on here was exactly a year ago this summer when she made out with Cardi B. in the opening seconds of the Love & Hip Hop queen's spine-tingling video for "Press," and a few years after being in "Broccoli" by D.R.A.M. before being cast on AYTO.

Since it was released it has been at the top of the YouTube trending list and has already achieved over four million views on YouTube. And Nurys co-stars in the clip alongside Sharlena Hassani, a Beverly Hills skincare small business owner, and who ask them to follow them to wherever they go next... which ends with a cliffhanger and teasing a possible reappearance in a follow-up video. When the video dropped yesterday, only those who have followed Nurys from the beginning knew who she is from her MTV days... and she posted on Instagram after the premiere, "We might’ve gone crazy 😜 @chrisbrownofficial"

And those who have rolled with Nurys from when then joined Team MTV three years ago (and for when they were filming AYTO at this time in summer 2017 - with the end of this month being when they completed that historic $1 million comeback) were quick to send their reactions to her after seeing her starring role in "Go Crazy," with her ride or die Diandra Delgado reminding everyone on Twitter, "Y’all go watch the GO CRAZY music video & lmk if ya see a familia face 😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏 @NurysKMateo." 

Nour of last year's Season 8 saying "OMG YES BABYGURL!!!! so proud of you!! congrats 🔥🔥🔥🔥😻😻😻😻," Tyranny of Season 5 & Ex On The Beach writing "Yes yes yes go girl ! I’m so so happy for you you deserve this !!!! Aghhhh!", and Ellie of Season 2 saying "Omfg THATS MY BABY DADDDDYYYY STOPPPPP BITCH IM SO JEALOUS 😭😭😭😭!" And where will Nurys pop up next? We'll wait and see...

View this post on Instagram

We might’ve gone crazy 😜 @chrisbrownofficial • • • • Shoutout to the team for making this happen! The video came out just as 🔥🔥 as the song! @millticketceo 💄 by @nikkiparisi

A post shared by NURYS MATEO (@nuryskmateo) on Jul 17, 2020 at 10:11am PDT

- I AM DC
#DCBLOG

DC ExtraTime: Staying Relevant - The Ultimate House Party

This Post is Dedicated in Memory of Alexis Eddy, Who Passed Away in January 2020 - Two Years After Being on Season 1 of Staying Relevant.

 FOLLOW-UP  Rose City Reunion of Romance 
& All-Star Weekend of Love from Summer '18
BY DC CUEVA                            

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

For someone who blogs on the ebbs & flows of MTV Reality weekly, I have made room in the ample amount of my spare time to shoot & edit my own videos - which has also become a favorite hobby. My DC YouTube channel (YouTube.com/dc408dxtr) serves the site's original purpose when it launched years ago: showcase original videos shot, produced & edited by ordinary people, those with a passion for this field and now by influencers, not be a channel reposting videos from other people and sources as part of the world's largest video library.

Like what I have with DCBLOG, I put in all the time to make sure that the videos posted on my channel meets the same high levels of quality and detail as my blog posts... only here it's all about the visual part of the experience than the written version. It's best on display when I go on vacation and shoot video of my trips, then post produce them to make it available to everyone on the web. For my most recent Las Vegas trip last fall, I bought new editing software and gear to help serve my growing interest in this part of the digital world, including a gimbal which was the first thing I bought with the $2,000 I won in Reno last year.

Instagram @ayeejaee_

With the launch of live video outlets, MTV cast members have also found the video part of social media as a way to communicate to us... and when they go on Instagram Live the moment the episodes end, you know what it's like to see everyone spill the tea and garner thousands of viewers just before bedtime out east and before the episodes air out west. They have also found YouTube as another way for them to communicate with their fans through getting to discuss the episodes from their point of view, and do much more such as give make-up tips. It's become more common now as everyone is staying home to avoid the pandemic going on, as TikTok and Zoom have joined in on the fun.

In the spring of 2018 just as the channel was about to bring one of its biggest reality formats to our shores, a bold idea was hatched up by those who have experienced the feeling on love on MTV. One of those lucky few asked something like, "How about if we can bring those who have shared the same house, and have the chance to enjoy the feeling of living again?" A good handful of those who had this shared experience on Are You The One? and Ex On The Beach got to do it all over again, but this time under their own rules, their way and without MTV holding them back.

The result of all this became Staying Relevant, a unique YouTube reality series that continued the story of those who we loved watching in MTV's two entries into the now packed subgenre of romantic reality dating television, and what happened in their very own trilogy might be just as good as the shows they were on... maybe even better as they got to enjoy three installments of The Ultimate House Party.