Rap legends delivered a blunt-laced performance at the 2022 MTV VMAs and brought along their Bored Ape personas.
So it's been one week since the 2022 MTV VMA's put on their show hosted by LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj and Jack Harlow. And we definitely have some thoughts.
First off, kudos for putting LL Cool J back into the mix. As a kid from the 80's, I have high respect for the man as he was a force in the 80's/90's rap scene, which I am 100% extremely biased towards. To me, there is no greater era in hip-hop and rap history than listening to the likes of The Beastie Boys, Eric B. and Rakim, Dr. Dre, NWA, Public Enemy, MF Doom, Biz Markie, Doug E. Fresh, Big Daddy Kane, KRSOne, Wu-Tang, Tupac, Biggie, and Snoop (I know I'm leaving out a lot, but this was just the top of my head). Mind you, this is also in a Vietnamese household where my older brother liked to listen to Richard Marx, my dad liked to listen to The Eagles, and my mom like to listen to Paris by Night on repeat, respectively.
But I digress.
Overall, the VMAs were just all right. No longer the powerhouse it was before, it's only started to stop the bleeding by including a more diverse array of acts/celebrities. I stopped watching about 15 years ago, as it went from the likes of Missy Elliott, Don Omar, The Killers, The White Stripes and the Gorillaz to just Kanye, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga over, and over, and over, and over again. But what really stood out about this year's show, was the performance of Eminem and Snoop Dogg.
Not only did we get a debut of their hit "From The D 2 the LBC," we got another opportunity to see the Bored Ape Yacht Club imagery being used besides Andy Nguyen's "Bored and Hungry," as we see Snoop and Em transform into their BAYC NFTs. But we're not sure if this was a home run.
And let's be clear – we're not taking a dig at Eminem and Snoop Dogg, as that would be sacrilegious. These guys are fucking legends. They are supremely talented and we'd be foolish to take anything away from their musical performance. The part that bugs me the most is the clunky use of the BAYC IP.
For starters, the graphic quality was sub-par. Wait, not just sub-par, it was pretty bad. Like early 2000's bad. It looked like we were about took a time machine back 15 years, looking at something out of old-school PS2 games. I mean, have do you remember some of the WWE wrestling games in the early 2000's? This kind of felt like that. Yuga Labs (creators of BAYC) seems a few years away from perfecting what this world might look like in the metaverse. We already know there were issues back in May with their "Otherside" release, so it's a shame this didn't feel uber-futuristic and something to look forward to with all the time Yuga Labs had to correct their false starts.
I mean, look at these images from WWE's 2K lineup and the progression of graphics. We couldn't at least get something like 2019 and higher? Jesus Christ man.
Shinsuke Nakamura's mullet is pretty spot-on here.
As well as Brock Lesnar's scowl and build.
Even "The Viper" Randy Orton looks pretty life-like with the lights bouncing off just right. You're telling me that Yuga Labs couldn't do something remotely close to something that was created 4-5 years ago? Something is fishy here. Then we have the actual use of the BAYC imagery itself. If this is all that could be conjured up in terms of a ground-breaking performance, we're most likely pretty far away in terms of what NFT adoption can do for marketing, branding and interaction. Every time we see something NFT-related crossover (no pun intended) into the real world, it's mostly fallen flat with the exception of "Bored and Hungry." We can't say where things go from here, other than, there's a lot of area to play in and the NFT universe really is up for grabs, as no one has truly figured it out quite yet. #CROSSxOVER #Streetware #Streetwear #StreetCulture #Culture #Music #MTV #VMA #HipHop #Rap #Eminem #SnoopDogg #BAYC #YugaLabs #WWE #Sneakerheads #Sneakers #Art #NFT #BoredApeYachtClub #AndyNguyen #BoredAndHungry