2009 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors Wrap-Up

2009 marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most important labels of all time, Def Jam. To celebrate the 25 years, VH1 decided to make Def Jam the center of its 2009 Hip-Hop Honors.

During the two-hour show, there were tons of highlights, but for every highlight there seemed to be huge misses.

The show definitely started off on a high note, by bringing out DJ Jazzy Jeff, The Roots, and Eminem to perform LL Cool J’s classic, ‘Rock the Bells.’ Jazzy Jeff was superb, plus he was rocking a DJ AM shirt. Eminem seemed like the Eminem of old. Between this and his verse on ‘Forever,’ I might be ready to say Eminem is back. There was something about seeing Black Thought and Eminem go at together on the mic that made me extremely happy.

I have to admit, I was actually quite worried that the show would skip honoring the Beastie Boys, since they left Def Jam on a sour note. However, when Kid Rock was behind the tables, he went on to introduce Wale, KRS-One, and Gym Class Heroes to perform ‘No Sleep Til Brooklyn.’ This was probably my favorite performance of the night. Beastie Boys are one of my all-time favorites. Put that alongside Wale rocking a Mickey Mouse hoodie and a flipped up brim on his hat (Travis McCoy did the hat flip too), it was just a top-notch performance. Oh, and I can’t forget KRS-One shouting out, “Adam get well soon.”

Performances weren’t the only highlight of the night. There was some amazing commentary provided by the likes of Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and Lyor Cohen. Plus an AMAZING story by LL Cool J. First, here’s the LL story.

Before this show, I had no idea how big of a badass Lyor Cohen was.

I always thought Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons made quite the odd couple. They are adorable together, as this video shows.

Like I said earlier in the post, there was a lot of good and a lot of bad. I can’t stand Rick Ross, so I was disappointed he was there. I felt it odd that Ja Rule and Ashanti performed, but I can see why they did. As much as I don’t like them those two tore up the charts together earlier in the decade, so it’s hard to ignore them. I thought Tracy Morgan, who I usually think is pretty funny, fell flat as the host.

All in all, it was a great two hours of television, even with the odd moments. I’ll now end the post with an amazing story from Brett Ratner about Redman.

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3. Our Oscar Wrap-Up
4. Top 5 Hip-Hop Albums of 2009
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under Entertainment, Features, Music and tagged with Ashanti, beastie boys, Brett Ratner, Def Jam, DJ Jazzy Jeff, eminem, Gym Class Heroes, Ja Rule, Kid Rock, KRS-One, LL Cool J, Lyor Cohen, Redman, Rick Ross, Rick Rubin, Russell Simmons, The Roots, VH1 Hip Hop Honors, wale. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.