Hip Hop Awards of the Year 2011

Awards are Important

HEY YO! Without major awards and honors and other ratings how would we, the masses, know what to like? How would I know what to like and review? We wouldn’t and I wouldn't! Grammar time. What I'm trying to say is that we could always check out the dozen songs on the radio but WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT? NOBODY! We don't have time for anything and we don’t know anything at all! We don't know where to look. We need major music industry awards! We need reviews. I can officially say that this blog loves all the major awards. How could we pick a favorite? These honors make a big difference in our lives and let us know what trends to keep our eyes on! Let’s see who’s the best in the AWARDS, HONORS, AND REVIEWS game for 2011.

The Tortoise General Blog Presents:

THE 2011 MAJOR MUSIC AWARD OR REVIEW SCORE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Let’s check out the nominees (in no particular order):

Two Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards

Let’s start with the Elephant in the room. The grandmaster flash of music awards: The Grammy. A global phonemenon. This is arguably the most coveted award in all of music, and hip hop is even recognized in its own categories. Sometimes hip hop even breaks out into the mainstream categories and contends with the biggest stars on the planet for the highest honors of all time (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, that kind of cool cool stuff)!

So here are the winners for whatever year this is:

• Best Rap Solo Performance: Eminem “Not Afraid”
• Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group: Jay-Z & Swizz Beatz “On To The Next One”
• Best Rap/Sung Collaboration: Jay-Z & Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind”
• Best Rap Song: Jay-Z & Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind”
• Best Rap Album: Eminem “Recovery”
• Nominated for Record of the Year: Jay-Z & Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind”
• Nominated for Album of the Year: Eminem “Recovery”
• Nominated for Best New Artist: Drake

THEY NAILED IT! That's a lot of hip hop and just a perfect list. That list is going to be hard to beat! We couldn’t stop listening to Drake, “Recovery”, and "Empire State of Mind" this year. 



The Best of the Best

The Source “Mic Ratings”

What is a better place to get your hip hop information than the Source Magazine or Website or whatever the hell it has evolved to now? Actually, is the Source even in business anymore? I don’t know. I guess not. It's still a nominee though. Why not? Good luck Source!

What an Honor

Rolling Stone “Stars”

I would say that Reviews by the Rolling Stone Magazine are just as important as the Grammy’s. A five-star review instantly lets the reader know what's important and what’s the best music! If Rolling Stone sees that an album worthy of five stars then you can BET THE MANSION that it's going to blow your mind. Kah-PLOOW! Hip hop is regularly reviewed and awarded stars in these prestigious pages, and although no rappers pulled five stars this year (not even Tyler, the Creator OR Raekwon who both pulled 3.5 stars (as did everyone else almost)) the Beastie Boys managed to WIN EVERYTHING with FOUR STARS for their album “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”.  WOW! :)!

 

What size is your album?

XXL "Shirt Sizes"

YESSS. Double-X L SON. The other hip hop magazine which I guess is a website now or something. Some albums get a "S" size for small and some get the big prize "XXL" size, that's large son, extra-extra large. Well, no album has recieved the coveted "XXL" size rating since Kanye West and whatever album he released before the one with Otis and Jay-Z, but it looks like 90% of the albums are honored with the "XL" size award! So good system, and great award.

 

Six Dots!

Spin "Ten Dot Scale"
Spin magazine is yet another magazine that reviews music, and since hip hop is  a legitimate form of music it sometimes gets reviewed there! The highest honor that the magazine can bestow is the TEN DOTS OUT OF TEN, which is very similar to the system that we use here at the Tortoise General Blog, so they are already looking like a frontrunner in this competition. Now it looks like J. Cole managed to pull 8 DOTS, that's a lot?

Delighted

 BET “Shooting Star Trophy”
Let's be honest, BET should have the win. The awards are mostly hip hop, they know what they're doing in the category, and they had Warren G perform (in 2011)! So the overall winner was Chris Brown with his song Look at Me Now featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes. Those are rappers. Good Choice? Niki Minaj and Kanye West won best artist awards, and Wiz Khalifa won best new artist. Tyler, the Creator wasn't even mentioned. What? Now this award show goes way above and beyond music and also awards movies and acting, and Michael Vick (who won the coveted "Subway Sportsman of the Year" award). That's great.  I wish the Tort Team had thought of that award.

 

MTV = All Smiles

MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS (American) "Moon Man Statue Trophy"

The MOON MAN! A very important trophy, especially with the youth. Hip hop was well represented at this major extravaganza award ceremony, with the Beastie Boys being nominated for "video of the year" with Make Some Noise, which was a good song and thanks to the toady posers at MTV I know it was a really good song. Oh, and your favorite Tyler, the Creator was nominated for Yonkers, DUH (he won for best new artist, duh). Niki Minaj won the hip hop section, and clearly this is going to be tough to beat, awards-wise.

  

A European Rapper, Lol.

MTV “VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS (Europe)"
"European Moon Man Statue Trophy"
Okay, I know this one isn't going to win because it's really dumb and European, but we'll give it the fair chance that it deserves. Well, the Beastie Boys were nominated for best video EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE NOT EUROPEAN AT ALL, but they lost. Eminem won the hip hop category (also not European), and I'm sure nobody from our side of the pond showed up for any reason (they probably didn't want the plague). So I'm sure the ceremony was filled with languages that nobody understands, Bono, weird techno music, people without clothes, and terrible smells. So who ended beating the Beasties and winning the grand prize? These guys:
 

MTV Europe Best Artist 2011

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So those are our nominees for 2011!

Who will win our newest award? The

 MAJOR MUSIC AWARD OR REVIEW SCORE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Let's find out....We wanted to have someone special actually give out the award, so here is a photo of SNOOP DOGGY DOGG (act like he is the presenter).

Howdy!

And the Award goes to:

 THE GRAMMY AWARDS!

When it comes right down to it, "Empire State of Mind" won a lot, and that's a song we needed to know was the best. Thanks Grammy Awards. We #Salute you. Everyone congratulate our winners. After parties all around.

MAJOR MUSIC AWARD OR REVIEW SCORE OF THE YEAR AWARD Score 0/10

Trackmasters: Yo! MTV Raps Freestyle

It goes without saying that MTV is a joke and THE WORST and nobody likes it except for a few teenage shut-ins. They should really just drop the "M" right? That's what people say, "they don't even play music SMH." Well I say they should drop the M and the TV and then off the planet.  Anyway, they're a bunch of toady posers that put on  a bunch of shows about really dumb high school pranks and being pregnant as a teenager. So they got their LOLz and OMGs covered, right? WHO CARES? NOBODY AT ALL.

Okay, so long ago they had a show about rap music and it was okay. Really? Yep. But if anyone ever tells you that their show was "great" or "awesome", they've either been blinded by nostalgia, or they've got bad taste, because it wasn't that good. Ed Lover and Dre were good....and sometimes the videos were good, but not usually. It was all hit or miss. Anyway when the show got cancelled they had a freestyle farewell and it was ten minutes long and a lot of big names spit: Rakim, KRS-One, Erick Sermon, Chubb Rock, MC Serch, Redman, Method Man, Large Professor, Special Ed, and Craig Mack. Wow! Plus DJ Scribble was on the turntables. AND Flava Flav got placed. There is nothing better than hearing a lineup like that, no matter where it's coming from.

But why am I posting this? Well, this is from 1995, shortly after "Tical" dropped. Please notice how Method Man dominates his peers and superiors .This is the Method Man we were dealing with back then. He destroys some of the biggest names in rap...in a freestyle...with Rakim and KRS One. That's incredible. Great to watch, plus Erick Sermon killing it! Redman! This is just a good video: check it out.




Oh, 1995 Method Man, please come back to us. We miss you.

As a bonus I'm also throwing up an old ODB freestyle, also from MTV. Needless to say, it's a classic. O killing it. Look at how different this is from everything else ever. RIP to the grandmaster...MUCH RESPECT:



How about a little more Meth? Sure.


I can't stop. How about the Wu spitting over one of the best beats in history:


Living in Philly freestyles like this would come up from time to time on the radio or on street mixtapes. Honestly, it was Wu-Tang at their best. My all time favorite ODB verse was one he did for some radio station in New York (Hot 97 I guess) and somehow it made it on a mixtape I bought off the street in Philly, that shit never made it to any of his albums but it was dope. It was the best. Anyway, that shit doesn't happen anymore, Method Man is making candy commercials. 

MTV Score 0/10
MTV Raps Freestyle Score 7/10
ODB Freestyle Score 10/10
Method Man Freestyle #1 Score 10/10
Wu-Tang Freestyle Score 10/10

Thanks to Village Voice for the idea of blogging about some of these vidoes!