I’ve seen a few of these one take videos, but this one might be the best yet. The University of Kentucky athletic teams joined forces for this cover of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” and it turned out both corny and dope at the same time. LOL @ Terrance Jones though, cot damn.
Shout to the kids who clearly messed up in the video too. “50 grand I get this on one take…Hov!”
If you aren’t familiar with her work on the recent Foreign Exchange projects, YahZarah is one of the illest singers out right now. When the big homey Phonte hit me up to be a part of this promo video for her upcoming album, The Ballad of Purple St. James, it was an honor to help out. Granted, I didn’t realize I committed to lip syncing her rendition of “Dedicated To You” (a classic jazz standard), but I’m just thankful you only get to see my ugly mug for a few seconds. Let’s hope the outtakes never make it out the vault…
Hmmm. I love this record…well, like 75% of it (sorry Tim)…but this video doesn’t do much for me. Seeing Timbaland lip sync Drake’s lines just reiterates the fact that Drizzy completely carries the song. I believe this is what they call “pulling a Birdman.” I.e., riding Drake’s coattails for dear life to remain relevant in hip-hop. Shrug.
If you’d like an alternative, be sure to peep the mix I did including Lupe…
(Yang Peiyi on the left, Lin Miaoke on the right. Both look adorable to me.)
I’m really enjoying the competition so far, but stories like this and the racist Spanish basketball advertisement are starting to take away from the Olympic spirit. Granted, there are also the tiiiiiiny issues of human rights abuse, pollution, and censorship that the Chinese government has failed to address, but is that really surprising? Not so much. This, however, is.
China’s made no secret that the 2008 games are their welcoming party to the table of world superpowers. To that end, they’ve controlled every last aspect of the presentation, crafting the exact image they want to project to the world. This happens everywhere – currently evident in Vancouver’s ongoing efforts to force their homeless outside of the city in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics – but it’s almost always troublesome. In this situation, the Chinese deemed a 7 year old singer named Yang Peiyi “not suitable” to perform at the opening ceremonies, even though they wanted to use her voice in a key part of the festivities. Apparently she wasn’t cute enough to represent the country on the world stage. So what to do? Simple, they found 9 year old Lin Miaoke to lip sync the song. Miaoke has since gone on to become an international celebrity, while the controversy over the decision just broke in the press. You can read the full story here.
At the moment, both girls and their families seem to be ok with the whole situation. That’s good, and I hope they continue to feel that way, but it doesn’t fix the larger problem here. The fact that a country would blatantly attack the self-esteem of one girl, and consequently, a whole generation, is appalling. China has all the tools to be a world leader, but there are certain areas where they’re failing miserably.