BY DC CUEVA
Last month, the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards had one of THOSE moments, and it had shades of what happened with Kanye West crashing Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Video Music Awards a decade earlier. A person who was mad that his show didn't win an award they were nominated for supposedly jumped on stage and did the Kanye trick of speaking for a few moments before being ejected from the event. Not only did it not make air out of respect for the winners, it also made those at 1515 Broadway cringe the Sunday morning after when they found that it was Johnny Bananas of Challenge fame who pulled the trick.
That unseen moment that took place while this blogger took a sojourn from the site to win $2,000 at the slots while seeing his cousin get married in Reno offers the context to the latest story of a high-profile celebrity currently in the headlines getting to meet up with a member of the MTV Reality family. And of all the stars who make up an official language of the genre that's brought a generation together for decades, perhaps there is no bigger star in the field of female hip-hop than the most famous alum of the show that pulled off an upset of sorts at one of summer's biggest parties, and the one who had everyone leaving their jaws dropped last week when she dropped her latest music video amidst the latest episode of the biggest star in the hip-hop world right now: Cardi B.
When the field of nominees for the 2019 MTV Awards were revealed back in May, it was dominated by the likes of the Marvel Comic Universe and Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones and Riverdale, while a documentary on Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg also was shortlisted. One of the categories to watch for both casuals and die-hard fans alike was "Reality Royalty," which saw Jersey Shore, The Bachelor, The Challenge and Vanderpump Rules -- all popular in their own right -- get nominated for favorite reality series in one of the many awards shows that the fans get to vote for themselves. Another nominee was an icon of the current TV landscape which would eventually trumped then all for the award, and sparked the ire of Johnny Bananas.
While the total number of those who've appeared on a Real World or Challenge season, on AYTO or Ex On The Beach easily numbers in at over 600 people, the Love & Hip-Hop franchise might have only a third of that total but is as star packed as anything in entertainment. Soulja Boy, Remy Ma, Jim Jones, Trick Daddy, Waka Flocka Flame, Ray J and Keyshia Cole are among the notables in the four sets of ensemble casts who comprise the LHH family, which have also served as launchpads to the careers of artists who were only known to their inner circles before America found out about them.
To those in her family circle including her mom, they thought that Cardi was making money doing some babysitting, all without not having a driver's license. But in actuality, their daughter was earning the big bucks working as a stripper at a local strip club. She saw stripping as as not just a nightly escape, but more as a way to earn money to earn an education and to escape the difficulties in her young life, not just poverty but also an abusive relationship she had at the time so she would not be a victim of domestic violence. And soon enough, she began to gain waves in social media land posting videos on Instagram and Vine, as well as having plastic surgery at just 19 years old.
Around holiday time in 2015, Cardi decided to take the next step and bring her talents to television in joining the cast of Love & Hip Hop: New York for Season 6, along with Remy Ma after she was let go from jail. There, cameras documented Cardi's her rise to becoming the breakout star of those two seasons, as well as dealing with her troubled relationship with her fiance Tommy who was spending time behind bars during her time on the series. She would eventually leave the show after its seventh season the following year, as she began plotting her plans to ascending to greater heights.
When she decided to take the plunge into the music world, Cardi was inspired by hip-hop and dance-hall artists from the Caribbean, and whose first taste of it came from buying an album from the one who spurred the female hip-hop charge, Missy Elliott... as well as of citing Madonna as her idol. Cardi started spitting rhymes when she got to hear Trina and Khia and how their aggressive rap style inspired her, and of as she remembered, "...a lot of girls they cannot afford red bottoms, a lot of girls they cannot afford foreign cars, but I know that every girl has beef with a girl. I know that every bitch don't like some bitch, and it's like 'that's what I wanna rap about."
Cardi made her musical debut on the remix of "Boom Boom" with Mr. Boombastic, Shaggy... followed shortly after by her solo debut "Cheap Ass Weave." A mixtape would soon follow in 2016 along with a spot in a compilation album and being on the cover of Vibe Magazine's Viva issue... not to mention another TV series spot on BET's Being Mary Jane. And when she appeared on local cable and radio in New York City helping advertise a local chain of lingerie stores as well as partnering with MAC Cosmetics during 2017 New York Fashion Week, that's where she caught the attention of folks at Atlantic Records, who swooped her up with her first major record label deal.
That spring saw Cardi head out on the road for the first time, first as an opening act for both Remy and Lil' Kim, and the former brought her out to join Queen Latifah and other female hip-hop pioneers to perform the Queen's female empowerment track "U.N.I.T.Y." at the Summer Jam put on by New York hip-hop radio heavyweight, Hot 97. Cardi then got nominated for her first major awards in nabbing nine nominations at the 2017 BET Awards, but though she went away empty a consolation prize awaited her in a debut single, "Bodak Yellow," debuting that summer. A track The New York Times dubbed "the summer's rap anthem" eventually rose to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making Cardi the first female rapper to have America's #1 song since another icon, Lauryn Hill two decades earlier, as well as the first of Dominican descent to occupy #1 - and part of a summer where she became the first female rapper to have her first three entries chart in the Top 10 on both the pop and hip-hop charts. And she got a congratulatory bouquet of flowers from someone who she's a fan of: Taylor Swift, as well as collaborate with Bruno Mars on the "Finesse" remix, making more history in occupying half the Billboard urban chart.
And it all led up to the April dropping of her debut studio joint, Invasion of Privacy: the Times, Variety and other music critics were in universal agreement that was a powerful debut unlike anyone in the hip-hop game. The result was it not only debuting at #1, but also pulling a Drake in having all of her songs - 13 entries in all - chart at the same time in the Billboard Hot 100 and all of them being certified for gold or better by the RIAA... a female first. Invasion became the most streamed album ever for a female artist on Apple, part of a then-record output on all online music platforms for a female artist's album.And Cardi celebrated this success by choosing Saturday Night Live to reveal that she was pregnant with Kulture Kiari Cephus... and it would only get better: two more crossover tracks in "I Like It" and "Girls Like You" with Maroon 5 also hit #1 and set more records: 2018's most watched YouTube music video and first female to replace herself at the top of the Hip-Hop/Rap chart. And with her winning a Grammy, three VMA's, three AMA's and other honors for Invasion of Privacy and its singles, Entertainment Weekly bestowed her the title, "Entertainer of the Year." Her 2019 has seen her musically hook-up with Bruno again, headline the Houston Rodeo to a record standing-room-only crowd, and appear in two Pepsi commercials during the Super Bowl.
And she become the only woman to have the top 3 singles on the urban airplay chart, as well as add six Billboard Music Awards (out of a female record 22 nominations) to her growing awards room... and she also started her own line of snack chips, as well as both a fashion line and her Reebok shoe. And at the same time, Cardi has been in an on-again, off-again hip-hop romance with Offset of Migos, all starting with him proposing to her at a Philadelphia radio concert, then getting married shortly thereafter, followed by a breakup and them getting back together to accept her Grammy.
A Instagram Live session earlier this year came back to life about her supposedly drugging and robbing men that came to her hotel while on tour, while her collaboration with Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha & Charli XCX, "Girls", brought into focus accusations the track was trivalizing and sexualizing relationships among LGBT people. And there was the fight her just as socially famous sister, Hennessy Carolina, had with Devin Walker on last year's season of The Challenge's celebrity spinoff, Champs vs. Stars.
And then there's what Cardi has on her hands right now: late last August, she was caught on video throwing an ice bucket at a pair of bartending sisters during a brawl involving bottles and chairs at a Queens strip club like a scene out of Floribama Shore. Two months later, she met with investigators about a possible connection to the attack, and though she denied any involvement in the case, authorities handed her assault and reckless endangerment charges which both carry a misdemeanor. Cardi first appeared in court last December and was ordered by the judge to keep her distance from the two bar employees. After rejecting an April plea bargain, on June 21 she returned to court with two co-defendants in tow when a federal grand jury indicted her on two charges of felony attempted assault and twelve other lesser offenses, and at arraignment four days later she pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Amidst all of the mania surrounding her biggest spat with the law and the possibility that she could be taking a break from touring for some time behind bars, Cardi got to release her latest single just in time for the summer to share with everyone and a social media following numbering in at 46.7 million followers on Instagram, 11 million on YouTube and 6 million on both Twitter and Facebook. There, she first posted a video of Instagram of her rapping a verse of the track over the Christmas holidays, but it took until just after Memorial Day weekend -- May 31st to be exact -- for the song that became the fittingly titled, "Press," to make it to everyone, replete with a cover of her being escorted from court by a group of men while in her birthday suit.But it was when she released the track's accompanying music video last week that had everyone talking. Not only did the video depict a scene of her coming into court amidst much press attention and those supporting her declaring her innocence similar to what went on last week... it also sees her deal with an interrogation by just putting her feet on the desk, confronting a prosecuter in court which then becomes almost like an episode of Dateline, and then finding herself in jail amidst a pile of dead bodies around her. But the first scene of a video CNN calls "her most outrageous yet" and for whom 19 million people have seen it on YouTube, Cardi finds herself in a hotel room as part of a threesome who make out with one another... and that's where we find the first of the two links to the two MTV Reality shows where love is the name of the game, as well as the show that started it all.
Once in the house, she found herself as part of a love triangle with Florida pretty boy Malcolm Drummer, who also got to date New Yorker Diandra Delgado. The love triangle continued westward to California for Season 2 of Ex On The Beach, where both Nurys and Didi made their way to meet up with Malcolm once again. But along the way, Nurys also had to deal with another of her exes, Nelson Thomas of Challenge and AYTO fame (and now appearing frequently on Teen Mom OG along with Cory & Cheyenne), as well as Farrah Abraham when they got into one of the many late night fights in the Malibu humble abode.
A year before being cast on what is now both of MTV's main experiments on love, Nurys had the chance to be part of the music video for 2016 hit "Broccoli" by hip-hop duo DRAM. But it was after the buzz died down after Season 2 of EOTB that she teased to everyone on her social media avenues to, simply put, "Just Wait On It" when it came to what big opportunity would await her next: No, it's not being part of the Season 34 cast of The Challenge, but something greater, and with an act far and away more popular.
Nurys' fellow MTV'ers got to react to one of the biggest girl-on-girl makeouts we've had with MTV Reality stars - and in this case with someone who got her start in the Viacom family... Alexis Eddy from AYTO 6 wrote, "...I kissed her first" in reference to the Truth or Dare that takes place earlier in any AYTO season, while castmate Kareem Fathalla left a "🐐" emoji.
 |
| IG @MichaelJames631 |
But before all of that for him - and before her career would see her skyrocket to superstar status in the pop culture world right now, Magic Mike was invited by Cardi to be one of many strippers to join her for a hybrid music video and photo shoot. He captioned on Instagram, "@iamcardib dope music video. Of course I'm blinking lol."
Cardi has made so many headlines in the course of a few short years, there's really no need to rehash them again. But for the latest video in a long line of visual eye candy she's offered us on our screens and on our apps, "Press" is no doubt the steamiest one of them all... and it all perfectly fits the time frame and the situation she finds herself in facing the music of last summer's bar brawl. Sure, she's found her perfect match in a member of Migos, but she's no doubt found what her favorite shows on MTV are, two of which headline a Summer of Love. She can thank a girl with common Dominican ties and another who was there at the beginning.
- I AM DC
#DCBLOG
Info courtesy: Wikipedia - Cardi B
No comments:
Post a Comment
Got something on your mind? Let us know! But please be mindful and do not post spam or negative comments (due to that, all comments are subject to blogger approval... and we reserve the right to disable these sections if things get way out of hand).