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    MTV Video Music Awards: 7 Memorable Moments

    Taylor Swift set a record and Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Katy Perry delivered noteworthy performances as the show struck a balance between past and present.Wednesday night’s MTV Video Music Awards marked the show’s 40th anniversary, and much of the festivities strived for déjà vu by honoring memorable performances and moments from shows past. Montages of “V.M.A. flashbacks” like Michael Jackson heartily kissing Lisa Marie Presley, Madonna writhing through “Like a Virgin,” and Eminem storming the building with a regiment of bleached look-alikes peppered the telecast.This year’s show paid homage to those events too, sometimes explicitly. Eminem, for instance, opened the show performing his latest single, “Houdini,” alongside an army costumed to look like him, with dark beards underneath blond wigs that referenced the old days. The host Megan Thee Stallion donned an outfit that nodded to the silky green top Britney Spears wore in 2001 to perform “I’m a Slave 4 U,” and sported a yellow boa constrictor to boot — though Megan’s genuine discomfort with the creature worked to comedic effect.The V.M.A.s are forever looking to inaugurate new stars to take up the mantle of the classic music-video era icons. This year’s class, including Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Tyla and Rauw Alejandro stood out amid the throwback references. Katy Perry bridged the gap between eras, and Taylor Swift did what she does best at award shows — dance zealously to other artists and collect hardware. Here are the highlights.Shawn Mendes returned to the stage with new music.The last time Shawn Mendes was on the V.M.A. stage, it was 2021 and he was performing “Summer of Love” with Tainy. He’d last released an album, “Wonder,” in 2020 but later postponed a 2022 tour to focus on his mental health.Wednesday Mendes returned to the stage to perform an acoustic and stripped-down new single, “Nobody Knows,” from his upcoming album “Shawn,” expected to release in October. Fans on social media speculated that the song contained a reference to his ex-girlfriend and fellow V.M.A. performer, Camila Cabello. In the song, Mendes sings, “When the bottle is open, anything can happen/flying too close to the sun”; Cabello’s Instagram bio reads, “long, thick black hair turned white from flying too close to the sun.” — SHIVANI GONZALEZWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Bad Blood: A Timeline of the Taylor Swift-Kanye West-Kim Kardashian Feud

    After 14 years, a new interview suggests this dispute may keep giving us new chapters.Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Optimus Prime and Megatron.And Taylor Swift and Kanye West.Feuds don’t get more colossal than the one between two of the biggest stars in music. (And the reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who was married to West for a time, has been involved too.) There has been a leaked tape, diss tracks and videos, and a naked wax figure. The latest salvo came in Swift’s interview with Time magazine after the publication chose her as Person of the Year.The story has bubbled up even more as fans await the expected rerelease of Swift’s album “Reputation,” which was particularly focused on the dispute.Here’s the decade-long story of how the feud has progressed.Sept. 13, 2009West interrupts Swift.West interrupts Swift as she accepts the award for best female video at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009.Jason Decrow/Associated PressThe incident that started it all. Swift, 19, goes onstage at Radio City Music Hall to accept the MTV Video Music Award for best female video for “You Belong With Me,” after defeating Beyoncé, among others.She has barely said thank you when West, 32, bum rushes the stage, takes her microphone and declares: “I’m really happy for you; I’m going to let you finish. But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Peso Pluma, Mexico’s Breakout Music Star, Finds New Spotlights

    Backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards last month, at the Prudential Center in Newark, the out-of-nowhere Mexican superstar Peso Pluma gathered his band for an inspirational talk. That night, he was to become the first Mexican artist to ever perform on the show, but before the dress rehearsal of his song “Lady Gaga,” he set aside around 10 minutes to reminisce with the musicians who have been with him for years, telling them how none of his success would have been possible without them. At the end, almost the whole band walked out of the room in tears.Peso was in a reflective mood because of the milestone he was about to achieve. But some somberness was in the air, too. That morning, there were news reports from Mexico about banners posted in Tijuana, signed with the initials of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a powerful rival to the Sinaloa Cartel. They demanded Peso cancel an upcoming concert in the city, threatening his safety if he were to perform.A handful of personal security guards were milling about, but at the moment, there wasn’t much to do besides press on. Before Peso hit the red carpet, he and his manager, George Prajin, huddled quickly, to talk about how to handle any questions about something other than music. Then, he stepped out in front of the paparazzi phalanx, playfully jabbing out his tongue, Jagger-style, and sidled into cheerful interviews with “Entertainment Tonight” and “El Gordo y La Flaca.”The following day, at the Hard Rock Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Peso woke up late after a long night at his V.M.A.s after-party. But he was alert, and pointed in underscoring the importance of the prior night’s performance.“I took it as an opportunity to show the world what I had,” he said. “I just wanted all these artists to get to know me. To get to know what I do, and to get to know better the genre that I do.”More than a dozen weeks after the release of Peso’s third album, “Génesis,” it remains in the top 10 of Billboard’s all-genre album chart.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesPeso, 24, is the reigning king of corridos tumbados, a modern version of traditional Mexican music, which has found great success over the last couple of years. Peso sings and raps in a fashion indebted to contemporary hip-hop and reggaeton over production that holds close to traditional forms. (Peso Pluma — which translates to featherweight — is both his stage name and how he refers to the musical project and band as a whole.)In July, “Génesis” — Peso’s third studio album, but his first since refining his sound and growing his ambitions — made its debut on the Billboard all-genre album chart at No. 3, the highest position ever for an album of regional Mexican music. And it’s had staying power — more than a dozen weeks later, it remains in the Top 10. On Spotify alone, his songs have been streamed several billion times.There have been occasional moments of Mexican American musical crossover in this country — the gangster rap of Kid Frost, the emotional ballads of Selena, the lite R&B and hip-hop of Frankie J and Baby Bash. But Mexican performers have largely been relegated to, and musically remained faithful to, the traditions of what is termed regional Mexican music, an umbrella term that encompasses varying styles from different parts of the country and the southwestern United States. Peso has reframed this music from regional to global. He has collaborated with artists from across the Spanish-speaking world — the Puerto Rican rapper Eladio Carrión, the Dominican dembow star El Alfa, the superstar Argentine producer Bizarrap. And his song “Ella Baila Sola” — a collaboration with Eslabon Armado — was the first Mexican song to hit the Top 5 on the Billboard all-genre Hot 100Peso — whose real name is Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija — was born in Guadalajara, and sometimes spent time in Sinaloa with family as a child. He found inspiration in the work of Chalino Sánchez, a seminal singer of narcocorridos, which tell stories about the Mexican drug trade. Peso fell for “his raspy voice, his very unique way to sing corridos, his very unique way to sing romantic songs,” he said. “When this type of music was playing in the car, I literally took my earphones out to hear what he was saying.”Peso also gravitated to Ariel Camacho, a rising young star of the 2010s known for impressive guitar playing. (Sanchez was murdered in 1992; Camacho died in a car accident in 2015.)But even though Peso enjoyed that music, he didn’t feel particularly connected to its aesthetics, which tend toward crisp Western wear, embroidered suits and cowboy boots.“Since I was a kid, my favorite genres have always been reggaeton and hip-hop,” he said. (He spent some of his teenage years in San Antonio and New York, where he found himself gravitating to the likes of Kanye West and Drake.) “That’s why I don’t wear the sombreros. I don’t wear the boots. I’m not that.”Instead, he dresses like a rapper — loud designer clothes, expensive jewelry and watches that a member of his entourage is tasked with carrying around in soft blue cases from the Atlanta celebrity jeweler Icebox.On the V.M.A.s stage, he was dressed in all black, like a luxury spider — wide and angular puffy vest, shamelessly wide and crinkly pants, short leather gloves and boxy sunglasses. Backstage, he gamely stood for a signature antic TikTok interrogation about his outfit from the social media personality Christoosmoove, a clip that was viewed over 10 million times.Peso was also the first Mexican musician to film an episode of “Sneaker Shopping,” a YouTube series that’s a favorite of rappers and social media celebrities; he spent over $32,000, including sneakers for all his bandmates, putting him in the show’s top 10 all-time spenders. The day after the V.M.A.s, the show’s host, Joe La Puma, sent him a gift: a rare pair of 2005 Cinco de Mayo Nike SB Dunks in the colors of the Mexican flag.Peso’s path to the MTV stage was nonlinear, and also improbably fast. He released a pair of albums in the early 2020s, just as the corridos tumbados scene was being established. And he began working extensively with other artists — the majority of his earliest songs to chart were collaborations, including with Natanael Cano and Fuerza Regida, some of the young performers who established the movement just a few years ago. (Cano’s 2019 collaboration with Bad Bunny on the remix of “Soy El Diablo” was one of the first crossover moments for corridos tumbados.)Some of Peso’s songs tend to the romantic, some are boastful, and some are in the vein of narcocorridos. (These are the songs that have led to the reported threats against him.)The young stars of corridos tumbados initially received a cold welcome from the older, more established traditionalists of Mexican music. “I know it’s not envy, I know it’s not any of that,” Peso said graciously. “It’s just they weren’t sure about how to react.”But while he has been able to befriend and continue to collaborate with Cano, there has been rumored tension with Jesus Ortiz Paz of Fuerza Regida, one of the scene’s most prominent acts. (Peso largely declined to discuss any friction he’s faced: “I feel everything that people say, but I try to focus on the positive things, not the negative.”)Peso plans to release a reggaeton EP soon, and following that, strategic collaborations with American rappers.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesIt has provided a story line for the media outlets that document the scene, including the Agushto Papa podcast, which has been enthusiastically covering the rise of Mexican music for the past two years.“I think that he has pushed how these artists do concerts a lot,” said Angel Lopez, one of the show’s hosts. “I don’t think they’ll ever admit it. But after seeing how Peso Pluma performs, everybody had to step their game up. They can’t just stand there in front of a microphone, play their instrument, or sing. They need to add more.”Onstage, Peso is loose and a little eccentric, always shimmying; his band also moves with controlled jubilation. Jason Nunez, one of the other hosts, added, “Another thing too is the dances — no one danced like that. And even if people thought it was weird, they would hate on it and it would just make him bigger. And also, I feel like it’s like a small thing, but it still matters — the hair.” (The hair does matter. Peso has a rangy mullet that’s become a style marker, and is in perhaps unconscious dialogue with the mullets of Morgan Wallen and various K-pop stars.)The speed of Peso’s ascent has been dizzying and disorienting. “A lot of people don’t know that I have anxiety breakouts,” Peso said. “It is very important for people who have mental issues to be treated and to talk about it.”The Tijuana show was eventually canceled out of safety concerns, even though the police had yet to publicly confirm the authenticity of the handwritten banners. “There’s a lot of things that is fake and a lot of things that is not,” Peso said.Prajin, his manager, said the team had to take every threat seriously. “I want to make sure that not only is he secured financially, but that also we take care of his mental health and his physical health,” he said. “And of course, his security. He can’t go anywhere without having a bunch of security — I won’t let him.”A couple of weeks after the cancellation, Peso announced shows in three other Mexican cities. “I do feel safe,” he said. “Being close to God is the most important thing. And I think that’s why I feel safe. It’s more of a spiritual thing for me.”Prajin suggested that Peso’s subject matter might evolve as he became better known, and his musical footprint widened. “He’s never going to stop singing those songs because that’s what he grew up with, the culture that he grew up around,” he said. “But I do see that he’s definitely going in a different direction in terms of the music that he’s singing. There’s a lot of love songs, a lot of different fusions.”Given Peso’s popularity, the collaboration requests are coming in fast. “You have no idea of how many rappers, how many country singers, R&B singers are connecting with us,” Peso said.He plans to release a reggaeton EP soon, and following that, strategic collaborations with American rappers. Prajin said conversations had already begun with Cardi B, ASAP Rocky and Post Malone.These new pathways, he hopes, will be available not just to him, but to Mexican artists who might follow in his footsteps. And thanks to his success, more new doors are open to Mexican performers beyond just the V.M.A.s.“I saw Taylor Swift moving her head, dancing to my song yesterday.,” he said, marveling at the unlikeliness of it all. “That, we couldn’t even imagine.” More

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    MTV Video Music Awards Recap: Taylor Swift, Doja Cat and More

    Nicki Minaj hosted and helped close out a nearly four-hour show heavy on performances and reaction shots of Taylor Swift in the audience.The MTV Video Music Awards returned to the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday night, as Nicki Minaj hosted a nearly four-hour show that included the members of ’N Sync coming together to present a Moon Person trophy to Taylor Swift (who gushed directly to the boy band, “I had your dolls”) and Sean Combs receiving a global icon honor (and telling the crowd his career had humble beginnings, as a paperboy). The Brazilian pop star Anitta delivered one of the event’s most solid one-liners — “I want to thank myself because I worked so hard,” she said in an acceptance speech — which she also proved onstage, performing both a solo medley and a collaboration with the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together. At the end of the night, the following five moments stood out.Most Memorable Performance: Doja CatOne of pop-rap’s most unpredictable voices turned out the night’s most polished and high-concept performance, capturing the anxiety of return to office in a look perhaps best described as “business sexual” while surrounded by dancers doused in ghoulish red paint. The audience looked confused and a little terrified as Doja Cat glided around the stage nailing her marks, the calm in an increasingly hectic storm.Most Memorable Fake-Out: Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” video dramatizes an awards show performance gone wrong, and though it has 54 million YouTube views, none of those evidently came from V.M.A.s audience members like Selena Gomez, who looked stricken when Rodrigo partly recreated the clip Tuesday night. After the song’s first section, lights seemingly burst onstage and a curtain fell as a “stagehand” ushered the singer away — only to return seconds later grinning and performing another song from her new album, “Guts,” the bouncy “Get Him Back!”Most Memorable Return That (Likely) Didn’t Attract F.C.C. Attention: Cardi B and Megan Thee StallionCardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s first televised performance of their hit “WAP” came at the 2021 Grammys, and their salacious choreography caught the attention of over 1,000 viewers who complained to the Federal Communications Commission, Rolling Stone reported. The duo reunited last week with a fresh collaboration called “Bongos,” and played it relatively safer on the V.M.A.s stage. The censors caught most of the profanities and the audience camera caught one of the night’s many shots of Swift dancing along.Most Memorable 10-Minute Performance Involving Knives: ShakiraPerforming a mega medley to celebrate receiving the video vanguard award, the Colombian pop star didn’t appear to be doing much live singing, but her lengthy number included plenty of choreography, hair flipping, microphone stand tossing, guitar playing, a quick wardrobe adjustment, crowd surfing and a lift bringing her high above the crowd. But a truly eye-grabbing moment came halfway through, when she wielded two knives, dramatically running one across her torso before tossing them aside.Most Memorable Flashback to MTV’s Past: Hip-Hop Anniversary MedleyThe Grammys went big with a tribute to 50 years of hip-hop earlier this year, but MTV’s celebration of rap’s anniversary had some highlights, too: After Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh gave the crowd a lesson on the genre’s beginnings, Minaj emerged with “Itty Bitty Piggy,” one of her beloved early mixtape tracks, then reunited with her mentor Lil Wayne for “A Milli.” LL Cool J commanded the stage for two of his own songs, then went (shell) toe to toe with Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels on “Walk This Way.” (The performance mostly elided the 1990s, but Diddy’s eight-minute performance earlier in the night covered that era.) It was a reminder that MTV was once the home of “Yo! MTV Raps,” and used to spend a lot more time on music. More