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On this day 9 years ago, Kanye West released his 4th studio album, 808s & Heartbreak. Besides the 3 biggest hits from the album (Heartless, Love Lockdown and Amazing) my favorite song is Paranoid.
Celebrating the 7th year anniversary of Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by sharing All of the Lights. Hands down my favorite album from Kanye West.
On this day in 2003 Jay-Z released his eighth studio album, The Black Album. The record was advertised as Jay’s last album before he retired from rap. I remember being shocked that he was retiring, 14 years later fans have realized that wasn’t true as Jay was back in 2006. In honor of one of Jay-Z’s biggest albums here are two of my favorite songs.
I’m a huge fan of Pharrell and I was obsessed with him throughout middle school and high school. That obsession was one of the reasons I liked Change Clothes and I also loved the beat which puts me in a great mood whenever I hear it. The video is peak early 2000s featuring Kimora Lee Simmons, Kelly Ripa and Jade from America’s Next Top Model.
Favorite Lyrics: Gotta keep it peace like a Buddhist/I ain't a New Jack nobody goin' Wesley Snipe me
One of the most iconic rap songs is 99 Problems from The Black Album. The mix of rock and rap still feels fresh and new to this day. Not is this hit a representation of being black in America it showed fans how hard the Brooklyn native had to work to be taken seriously by the music industry. You know you've made it as an artist when the President of the United States quotes your song. Back in 2013 people had issues with Jay-Z and Beyonce visiting Cuba. Barack Obama joked, “I've got 99 problems and now Jay-Z is one.”
Favorite Lyrics: I'm like "F**k critics" you can kiss my whole asshole/If you don't like my lyrics, you can press fast forward?
In case you missed the premiere of the video for “Look What You Made Me Do” during the VMAs here is the full video. What do you think of Taylor’s not so subtle messages throughout the video?
Are Wiz and Amber Rose back together? The exes were spotted at Clive Davis' Pre- Grammy party. Not only did they kiss on the red carpet, they were seen holding hands and smiling through out the event. Amber recently spilt from DWTS Val Chmerkovskiy after 5 months of dating. Do you think Amber and Wiz should give their love a second chance?
13 years ago today, Kanye West changed the rap game and released The College Dropout. Here are two of my favorite songs from the album, The New Workout Plan and All Falls Down.
Happy Birthday, Kid Cudi!
2015 music in review (part 2)
Here are 12 songs I couldn’t get enough of during 2015. Click here to the see my favorite all around artists from 2015.
ICYMI: VMAs 2015
The 2015 VMAs were this sunday and here are all the moments that shut down the internet. Just like in previous years the focus of the show was on performances and not on the awards. MTV held the VMAs at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, but they also had a second stage set up outside in downtown LA. The outside stage was home to performances from Macklemore, Demi Lovato and Pharrell Williams. Nicki Minaj opened the show by performing her song, “Trini Dem Girls”, then she squashed the rumors of a beef between her and Taylor Swift by bringing out the singer to perform, “The Night Is Still Young” and “Bad Blood.”
Revamped my Pop Culture Scoop videos, took days to upload so the information is a little old however my opinions are still the same.
What I’m Listening To
Here are six songs that I can’t get enough of, to listen to each song click the title.
The Monday Top 5
This weekend saw the opening of Disney’s live action version of Cinderella, which blew the other movies out for the water. This weekend also saw another new movie, Run All Night, which stars Liam Neeson. Here are the top five movies from this weekend.
1. Cinderella 70 million
2. Run All Night 11 million
3. Kingsman: The Secret Service 6 million
4. Focus 5.81 million
5. Chappie 5.81 million
While the top movies list has seen two new additions, the Billboard Hot 100 top five songs is the same as last week. That being said, things may change as Earned It by The Weeknd and Style by Taylor Swift are creeping up the charts ready to break the top five. Here are this week’s top five songs.
1. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars
2. Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran
3. Sugar - Maroon 5
4. Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding
5. FourFiveSeconds - Rhianna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney
The Monday Top 5
This weekend has seen new movies taking the top spots, such as Chappie starring Hugh Jackman. While American Sniper is still in theaters it has been knocked out of the top five. Here are the top five movies from this weekend.
1. Chappie - 13.3 million
2. Focus - 10 million
3. The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - 8.6 million
4. Kingsman: The Secret Service - 8.3 million
5. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water - 7 million
While the list of top 5 movies has changed this week; Uptown Funk has yet to be knocked from the number one spot. Ed Sheeran’s love song, Thinking Out Loud is holding strong at number 2, but Sugar by Maroon 5 is right behind and ready take over a higher spot. Here are the Top 5 songs from the Billboard Hot 100.
1. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars
2. Thinking Out aloud - Ed Sheeran
3. Sugar - Maroon 5
4. Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding
5. fourfiveseconds - Rhianna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney
Review: SNL 40th Anniversary Special
Last night Saturday Night Live took over Sunday for 3 and half hours to celebrate 40 years. As a SNL fan I watched it all and kept track of everything. While the special was a great tribute to the many hosts, cast members and artists who have been on the shown, they couldn’t include everything to please everybody, but boy did they try. Here are the surprises and disappointments from Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary special.
Best Friends Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon opened the show in the best way possible, a history of SNL rap; which included Debbie Downer and Mary Catherine Gallagher.
The biggest disappointment was Eddie Murphy; word starting spreading that Murphy was coming back to SNL after being away for 30 years. Chris Rock gave a great speech about how Murphy saved SNL in the 80s and their will never be another comedian like him. Then Murphy came out to applause and a standing ovation and then he said it felt good to be back and cut to a commercial break. He didn’t tell any jokes or reminisce about his experience on the show. I was hoping after the commercial break he would’ve done a sketch, the one sketch I praying for was Mr. Robinson’s neighborhood sketch.
Another disappointment was Kanye West’s performance. He started the performance lying on the floor rapping “Jesus Walks”. He might have been in a lazy mood because he has been wearing sweatsuits lately, plus all the ranting he’s been doing has to be exhausting. Besides Jesus Walks, West performed “Only One” and “Wolves” which features Sia and Vic Mensa who joined him on stage last night. The performance was mediocre to say the least.
While the show was 3 and half hours long, only one part seemed to drag on. Martin Short hosted the SNL songs segment and it just went on forever. Maya Rudolph as Beyonce couldn’t even save this segment and her Beyonce impression is spot on. That being said their were a few good parts of this segment. My favorite part was Dan Akyrod and Jim Belushi coming about and performing as The Blues Brothers. It was perfect that Jim came out and performed as his brother who passed away many years ago. Bill Murray reprised his role as Nick the Lounge singer and sang the Jaws theme song, which was hysterical. Adam Sandler reprised his role as Opera Man and Steve Martin came out as King Tut. One last segment that was a disappointment was the two seconds allotted to honor Tracey Morgan. Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey came out to introduce the segment and say that Morgan wished he could’ve been there. They played about five seconds of a Brian Fellows clip and then went to a commercial.
A great surprise was the Weekend Update segment, which was hosted by the women of Update, Jane Curtain, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. During the Weekend Update segment Melissa McCarthy, Emma Stone and Edward Norton all came out to do impressions of well known SNL characters. McCarthy did a spot on impression of motivational speaker, Matt Foley which was made famous by the late Chris Farley. Emma Stone did a great impression of Gilda Radnor’s character Roseanne Roseannadanna. Norton’s impression of city correspondent Stefon was horrible but was saved by Bill Hader, the real Stefon who gave him a few pointers, before a very jealous Seth Meyers came out. If you didn’t know Meyers and Stefon are married and have kids.
The best performance goes to Miley Cyrus who performed Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Simon performed “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” when SNL was still trying to get it’s footing on NBC. Cyrus made the song her own and really showed that she can sing. If this performance didn’t convince you, check out Cyrus’ cover of Jolene on youtube.
The best sketch of the night hands down was Celebrity Jeopardy. Will Ferrell reprised his role as Alex Trebek, Darrell Hammond came back as Sean Connery and Norm MacDonald came out as Burt Reynolds. But the cameos didn’t stop there, Kate McKinnon came out as Justin Beiber and Jim Carey did his impression of Matthew McConaughey. Plus Kenan Thompson came out as Bill Cosby. What made this my favorite sketch of the night was it blended old cast members and new cast members for a flawless and hilarious performance.
Another great sketch was The Californians. Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Kristen Wigg reprised their roles. Plus Kerry Washington, Bradley Cooper and Betty White had parts. But Taylor swift was the best and her California accent was perfect. Former cast member Laraine Newman joined in on the fun as well during this sketch. The funniest part was David Spade and Cicely Strong who “hijacked” the sketch as the buh-bye flight attendants and said rude things to each of the actors as they left the set.
Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey came back to do Wayne’s World. The best part of the sketch was that they made fun of Kanye West intruppting and had people standig by West who was the audience to make sure he didn’t rush the stage
There were many clip segments ranging from politics to SNL shorts. Robert Deniro introduced a segment that honored New York, which has become the most important part of SNL over the past 40 years. Plus there was a montage of cast and crew members that passed away over the years. One segment that was unexpected but awesome was the audition tapes. We saw tapes from cast members doing impressions and characters we have grown to love over the years, such as Kristen Wigg’s Target Lady. We also say audition tapes from people that didn’t make SNL, such as Kevin Hart and Stephen Colbert.
You can catch up on everything from last night’s SNL 40 by visiting NBC.com. Plus relive your favorite sketches by downloading the SNL app.
The 3 Minute Pop Culture Scoop/2.12.15
Source: youtube.com