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The annual MTV Video Music Awards have been one of pop culture’s biggest nights for decades. Good, bad or ugly, the show has had more than its fair share of headline-making moments since its debut in 1984. Remember when Drake professed his love for Rihanna on stage in 2016? Or Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie […]
After a clip seemingly showing Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake arguing at the VMAs goes viral, the two cleared the air in a new TikTok. Ice Spice has collaborated with Dunkin’ on a new drink featuring munchkins. We also break down the biggest winners, the show-stopping performances and all the highlights from the 2023 […]
Earlier this summer, reports swirled that Diddy, by way of Revolt, award-winning filmmaker Tyler Perry and Entertainment Studios founder Byron Allen were all vying for majority stake in BET. In a new interview with Billboard (Sept. 13), Diddy revealed that his mind is still set on collaborating with his two fellow businessmen in some capacity.
Of Revolt, which is nearing its ten-year anniversary this year, Diddy said, “As far as our business strategy, we’re in acquisition mode to really build a Black-owned media conglomerate. That’s why we were looking at BET and at a couple of other businesses.” He continued, “BET is definitely the mecca, the originator of Black media, and still is…. We’re not going to be able to reach our highest level of success in the media world, like a Rupert Murdoch, if we don’t unify. Like me, Tyler Perry and Byron Allen. We have a responsibility because it’s like 15 of us getting money, but 10 billion people in the world.”
Nonetheless, by the end of the summer (Aug. 16), Paramount decided against selling their majority stake in BET.
Diddy’s talk of unification comes alongside his understanding that diversity in the music industry has “gotten worse” since #TheShowMustBePaused. “It’s all a bunch of bulls–t. Diversity isn’t about inclusion; diversity is about sharing power. And nothing has changed. It’s gotten worse,” he said. “We have some representation … Shout out and all due respect to everybody that’s in power. But [for most people], there’s still somebody over them, a white man that they have to get permission from to do something. And it’s always been the same, no matter what the industry.”
In 2020, Atlantic Records senior directors of marketing Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas launched #TheShowMustBePaused in conjunction with an industry-wide Blackout Tuesday intended to pause music business happenings and focus on ways to protect and uplift the Black community. That same year, Diddy himself challenged the Recording Academy to reckon with their history of not respecting Black music “to the point that it should be.”
One of the most powerful names in music, Diddy has traversed different genres and styles of Black music throughout his career. In fact, his new Billboard interview is in support of his forthcoming The Love Album: Off the Grid, his first studio album since 2010’s Last Train to Paris, a collaborative album with Dawn Richard and Kalenna Harper billed under the Diddy — Dirty Money moniker.
Diddy lamented how he “had to compromise the uncut Blackness and soul” of the album because his “intentions were to get another No. 1 record instead of keeping the album uncut and soulful.” Despite his feelings about the project, Last Train to Paris — which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 — has undergone an interesting trajectory. “As time went on, people were able to connect with the album, and it’s become a cult classic,” Diddy mused.
The Grammy-winner, who was recently awarded the global icon award at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, also touched on his highly anticipated Verzuz battle against Jermaine Dupri, saying “The only Verzuz I want to have right now is Puff Daddy versus Diddy. The only person I’m in competition with is myself. But the battle with Jermaine isn’t off the table. We’re still trying to work it out, and I definitely look forward to that.”
Click here to read the full interview.
If there’s one thing you can count on both Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift to deliver during an awards ceremony, it’s incredible reaction shots. But the pair was spotted in a candid moment together at the 2023 MTV VMAs that has even Gomez laughing. In a post to her Instagram Stories late Tuesday night (Sept. […]
With the 2023 MTV VMAs in the rearview mirror, the time has come to reflect on one of the most important questions from Tuesday evening’s ceremony (Sept. 12): Which performers really brought it to the main stage of the annual awards show? Throughout the nearly four-hour show on Tuesday, viewers were treated to all kinds […]
Megan Thee Stallion wants to make it very clear that she has no beef with Justin Timberlake. On Wednesday morning (Sept. 13), the Grammy-winning “Savage” rapper took to TikTok clear up any confusion stemming from a widely misinterpreted video from backstage at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday night (Sept. 12). In a […]
Some of the awards at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, which were presented on Tuesday (Sept. 12) at Prudential Center in Newark. N.J., were entirely predictable. Taylor Swift’s sweep, including video of the year, song of the year, album of the year and artist of the year, was hardly a surprise, given the year […]
09/13/2023
What soared and what bored.
09/13/2023
Around 9:30 ET on Tuesday night (Sept. 12), you might have been ready to declare that the Video Music Awards were back. The awards thus far had been elevated by show-stopping performances from Olivia Rodrigo (cleverly pivoting from a dramatic “Vampire” to a captivatingly choreographed and thrillingly energetic “Get Him Back!”) and Doja Cat (executing at the highest level on a three-song run through her upcoming Scarlet era). Further star power was provided by winners Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, performers Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion and nominal “emcee” Nicki Minaj. By the time Shakira blazed her way through her typically ass-kicking Video Vanguard resumé performance, the show was feeling fuller and more satisfying than any VMAs so far this decade.
Unfortunately, there were still two hours to go. Maybe more like two and a half.
Complaining about award show length in 2023 is, of course, about as scintillating as griping about there being too many previews before a movie, or too many TV timeouts during a football game — at this point, you should probably just accept it as part of the bargain going in or not even bother in the first place. Still, there’s a difference between an award show going a little bit over its scheduled 11:00 ET end-time and damn near crossing the border to midnight. Three hours would’ve certainly already been more than enough of these VMAs, but getting up to the precipice of hour four was Pearl Harbor Director’s Cut territory.
It also doesn’t help that the VMAs have clearly begun subscribing to the increasingly common data-dump approach to award shows, pacing their action like a streaming act’s new album: front-loaded with hits and fairly merciless on the back end. The biggest-name performers — at least domestically — were mostly out of the way in the first couple hours, leaving a hodgepodge of VMA first-timers and unexciting return guests to fill out the many remaining minutes.
That’s not to fault MTV for scheduling game late-evening performances from K-pop sensations Stray Kids and Tomorrow x Together — they were fine, and it was still late morning in Korea at that time, anyway. But Fall Out Boy, rocking through a sweaty and uncomfortable-looking outdoor-stage performance of their absurd “We Didn’t Start the Fire” redo? A Måneskin performance for the second straight year — without so much as a wardrobe malfunction this time? This is what we’re pushing into Seinfeld-rerun hours for? By the time the show got to veteran country hitmaker Kelsea Ballerini’s hard-earned VMAs debut, her legitimately arresting “Penthouse” was totally undercut by coming over three and a half hours in, its penultimate performance slot doing the intimate ballad zero favors.
And it was doubly unfortunate, in this year of 50th anniversary hip-hop celebrations, to find the show floundering a little when it came to representing rap from either a contemporary or legacy standpoint. Doja’s performance was a home run, and Cardi and Megan are always reliable, but the Metro Boomin-led performance of “Superhero (Heroes and Villains)” and “Calling” could not have been much lower-energy, with guests like Nav and A Boogie wit da Hoodie seemingly competing for who could be drowned out by their backing track the most. Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne are both all-time legends, but we didn’t need them both on solo performances of relatively unconvincing new tracks (Minaj’s “Last Time I Saw You” is actually a bit of a grower, but this wasn’t the stage for it) and as part of the obligatory show-closing medley. Meanwhile, still-rising MCs Ice Spice and GloRilla presented but didn’t perform; the show really could’ve used a little of their zip — or more than 30 seconds at a time of Extended Stage performer Kaliii.
And speaking of that show-closing medley: It wasn’t quite the disaster of Madonna’s Aretha Franklin tribute in 2018, but it was yet another fine example of how the next time MTV has internal “we have to do something for it, right?” discussions about a timely topic for the VMAs to cover, some intern really needs to pipe up, “Well…. do we, really?” Hip-hop’s 50th anniversary has been exhaustively covered by this point in 2023, and there was no way the VMAs were going to be able to compete with either the Questlove-curated history lesson at the Grammys in February, or the cavalcade of decades-spanning performers popping up throughout the BET Awards in June. So what could the VMAs even do?
If you guessed, “Basically use it as an excuse to have one of Run-D.M.C. perform ‘Walk This Way’ at the VMAs for the 25th time,” you would of course be absolutely correct. The closing hip-hop tribute was poorly organized, unhelpfully introduced — here’s hoping all the kids watching at home are already well-schooled in their Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, because no IDs were given — and ultimately purposeless, featuring six disjointed performers (two of whom had already been heard from) giving no remotely coherent representation of hip-hop history. With MTV already locking themselves into two extended medleys every year now via their Video Vanguard and Global Icon awards (the latter went to Diddy for 2023), they should maybe start rejecting any further pitches that involve squeezing a half-dozen songs and/or artists into the same flailing performance. We promise, no one will miss them — or be upset at MTV for not trying to elbow its way into a cultural moment nobody really needs its take on.
The reason all of this is even worth moaning about in the first place is because for the first half, these awards did seem like they were going to be MTV’s best in some years. Getting Olivia Rodrigo and Doja Cat — two legitimate pop A-listers, within a week of the former releasing a new album and the latter hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — was a huge win for the show, and both artists met the moment with the kind of thoughtful, artful and unforgettable performances that illustrated why the VMAs’ stage is still a meaningful one. Peso Pluma and Karol G are undeniably two of the most exciting artists in popular music in 2023; getting both of them for their first big English-language award show looks further demonstrated how the VMAs have actually been a little ahead of the game in recent years when it comes to going international. And of course, even without her performing, nothing makes an event feel like The Place to Be in 2023 like the attendance of Taylor Swift — especially when she’s reduced to a babbling pre-teen in the presence of a reunited *NSYNC, presenting her the best pop award, in the kind of indelible cross-generational moment of pop connection that was once commonplace at the VMAs.
By the fourth award she picked up for the evening, though — best video (for “Anti-Hero”), making her a winner in the VMAs’ premier category for the second year in a row and fourth time total — it even got to be a little too much Taylor, as it started feeling less like an artist in their peak moment of dominance and more like a channel in its peak moment of desperation. Indeed, as Swift ascends to a pop echelon only a handful of other artists in the VMAs’ now-40-year history have ever visited, her investment in the show as an institution worthy of her time and attention is perhaps the greatest reason the VMAs still has whatever cultural credibility it does. But when the show lasts a half-hour longer than an Eras Tour date and burns through all its biggest crowd-pleasers early in the setlist, the Swifties — like all other pop fans watching — are gonna end up wanting to skip the encore to beat the traffic.
Taylor Swift won nine awards at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, which were held at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Tuesday (Sept. 12). That’s just one award off the single-night record. Peter Gabriel won 10 awards in 1987.
This brings Swift’s career VMAs tally to 23, second only to Beyoncé on the all-time VMAs leaderboard. Beyoncé has won 30 VMAs, counting two with Destiny’s Child and two as half of The Carters.
Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, a new personal-best for the superstar, won video of the year. This was her fourth win in the category, extending her record for the most wins in the category. She previously won for “Bad Blood” (with Kendrick Lamar, 2015), “You Need to Calm Down” (2019) and “All Too Well: The Short Film” (2022).
In addition to extending her record for most wins – no one else has won more than two – Swift is the first artist in VMA history to win back-to-back awards in this category.
Swift also extended her record as the artist with the most video of the year wins for videos that she directed or co-directed. She co-directed “You Need to Calm Down” with Drew Kirsch and was the sole director of both “All Too Well: The Short Film” and “Anti-Hero.”
Swift also won in a separate category – best direction – for “Anti-Hero.” It’s her third win in that category in the past four years, following wins for “The Man” (2019) and “All Too Well: The Short Film” (2022). Swift is the third director to win three times in this category, following David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Swift and Fincher are the only directors to win back-to-back awards in this category. Fincher’s back-to-back awards were for directing Madonna’s “Express Yourself” (1989) and “Vogue” (1990).
Swift won song of the year for “Anti-Hero.” None of the previous five winners in this category have gone on to win the Grammy in that category, but “Anti-Hero” (which Swift co-wrote with Jack Antonoff) has a very good chance of doing just that. Swift has yet to win in that Grammy category, and a lot of people think it’s about time.
And Swift won best pop for the second time for “Anti-Hero,” having won eight years ago for “Blank Space.” Only Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake have won more times (three) in the category. (Timberlake’s tally includes two awards with NSYNC.) NSYNC presented the award to Swift.
Swift’s other wins on the night were artist of the year, album of the year (for Midnights), show of the summer, best cinematography and best visual effects. (Swift didn’t personally work in the latter two capacities on her “Anti-Hero” video, but the VMAs give all artists credit for technical awards their videos win.)
Swift wasn’t the only artist who set records at the 2023 VMAs. Take a look:
Nicki Minaj won a record fifth award for best hip-hop for “Super Freaky Girl.” She previously won for “Super Bass” (2011), “Anaconda” (2015), “Chun-Li” (2018) and “Do We Have a Problem” (featuring Lil Baby, 2022). Minaj, who also emceed this year’s show, is pulling away from Drake, who is in second place with three wins in the category.
Ice Spice won best new artist. (She, of course, also has a Swift connection, having been featured on a remix of Swift’s “Karma,” a No. 2 Hot 100 hit.) This is the sixth consecutive year that a female artist has won in this category. Ice Spice follows Cardi B (2018), Billie Eilish (2019), Doja Cat (2019), Olivia Rodrigo (2021) and Dove Cameron (2022). Of those artists, all but Cardi and Cameron went on to land Grammy nominations for best new artist. Ice Spice is expected to follow suit.
Shakira won two awards – the Video Vanguard Award and best collaboration for “TQG,” on which she teamed with Karol G. This is the second year in a row that the Video Vanguard recipient has also won in a competitive category that same year. Last year, Nicki Minaj won best hip-hop for “Do We Have a Problem” (featuring Lil Baby).
This is the third time in the past four years that a pairing of two women has won in the collaboration category. “Rain on Me” by Lady Gaga with Ariana Grande won in 2020. “Kiss Me More” by Doja Cat featuring SZA won in 2021. In addition, two previous category winners were pairings of two women – “Beautiful Liar” by Beyoncé and Shakira won in 2007, followed by “Telephone” by Lady Gaga featuring Beyoncé in 2010.
Blackpink also won two awards – group of the year and best choreography for “Pink Venom.”
“Seven” by Jungkook featuring Latto won song of summer. Jungkook won in the same category two years ago as a member of BTS for their smash “Butter.” Both songs reached No. 1 on the Hot 100.
“Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez was the inaugural winner in the new best Afrobeats category. The versatile Gomez won best pop 10 years ago for “Come and Get It.”
Anitta won best Latin for the second year in a row. She won this year for “Funk Rave” and won last year for “Envolver.” Anitta is the second artist to win back-to-back awards in this category. J Balvin won three years running (2018-20).
Stray Kids won best K-pop for “S-Class.” They were nominated last year but lost to Lisa for “Lalisa.” Lisa was nominated this year as a member of Blackpink.
Tomorrow X Together won Push performance of the year. It’s the second year in a row that a South Korean band has won in that category. Seventeen won last year.
Måneskin won best rock for “The Loneliest,” one year after winning best alternative for “I Wanna Be Your Slave.” Måneskin is just the second act, following Green Day, to win in both categories. The award for rock has been presented in every year but one since 1989. The award for best alternative originated in 1991, but went on hiatus from 1999 to 2019.
Dove Cameron, last year’s winner for best new artist, won video for good for “Breakfast.”
Lana Del Rey’s “Candy Necklace” (featuring Jon Batiste) won for best alternative, making her the first female solo artist to win in the category. Note: The category was on hiatus between 1999 and 2019.