VH1's 2008 'Hip Hop Honors': Pick the real winners and losers!
So did anyone else tune into VH1’s Hip Hop Honors last night? This year featured a cool crop of honorees — De La Soul, Slick Rick, Cypress Hill, Naughty By Nature, and Too $hort. And I didn’t notice any of the guest performers committing blogger-enraging mistakes, unlike last year. That said, at two full hours the broadcast still dragged a bit (just like every awards ceremony in the history of pop culture). Which means it’s time for us to mete out some honors on top of the Honors…
Best Dressed: Slick Rick (pictured, left), far and away. The Ruler rocked a lime-green eyepatch during his interview segment, a sparkly silver one during the other artists’ tribute, and eventually a hot-pink patch for his own performance. Bravo! (Runners-up: Busta Rhymes, who oddly but stylishly wore a sky-blue eyepatch during the Slick Rick tribute, and Cee-Lo, who made a silver muu-muu look dope during the De La tribute.)
Worst Dressed: Fat Joe in an oversized-flannel-shirt-plus-bucket-hat combo during the Cypress Hill tribute. ‘Nuff said.
Best All-Star Tribute: The De La tribute wins hands-down, with segments from Q-Tip and Estelle; Mos Def and Public Enemy; Cee-Lo; and finally old-school heroes EPMD. Several of those artists have been honored at previous ceremonies, and the ones who haven’t surely deserve to be recognized in a future year (save Estelle, who’s still a newcomer).
Worst “All-Star” Tribute: The execrable Kid Rock opened up Too $hort’s tribute segment, which is more like an insult than an honor if you ask me. (Short Dawg’s dubious expression while Rock attempted to rap was kinda great though.) Follow-up performances by Lil Jon and Bun B weren’t enough to save it.
Best Cover Band: The Roots, backing Cee-Lo (pictured, right), Estelle, Scarface, Mos Def, Public Enemy, and more on the posthumous Isaac Hayes tribute.
Worst Cover Band: The non-Travis dudes from Gym Class Heroes, who continued to playinstruments for some reason after Cypress Hill came out to perform. No offense, but no one needed to hear what B Real sounds like over upstate-New York emo-rap grooves.
But that’s just my opinion. Would any of you choose different winners or losers? Kid Rock fans, start kvetching!
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