Taylor Swift and Shakira triumph at a female-dominated MTV Video Music Awards gala

2023-09-13 07:37:00

Tylor Swift swept this Tuesday at the 2023 MTV Music Video Awards, emerging as the most awarded artist: she won nine of the eleven awards she was up for, including Best Artist of the Year, Best Video of the Year, Best Song of the Year and Best Pop Song and Best direction. The other main protagonist of the gala was Shakira, who was honored for her career with the Video Vanguard Award and gave a ten-minute performance.

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Further

Thus, the evening was dominated by women, hip-hop anniversary celebrations, and a last-minute mix-up. The great event hosted by the Prudential Center (New Jersey, USA) concluded after four hours without announcing the winners of several categories, which were later updated on Twitter and on its website without addressing questions from the media.

Swift, who is killing it with her tour The Eras, also won the title for Best Album of the Year, Best Show, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. She was one of the female artists who, for the first time, won all the nominations for Best Artist of the Year. Specifically, Latinas like Shakira, Karol G and Anitta monopolized the stage, collecting their respective decorations and performing.

Sending MAJOR congrats your way, @taylorswift13!!

Anti-Hero just won the #VMA for Best Direction ✨???? pic.twitter.com/e8ubbxVnKC

— Video Music Awards (@vmas) September 13, 2023

The VMAs also hosted meetings such as those of the pop ‘boy-band’ NSYNC and the rock group Fall Out Boy, who contrasted with more current names, such as Doja Cat, Peso Pluma, the Mexicans The Warning and the Koreans Stray Kids.

Latin power in music

The Colombian Shakira won an award in tribute to her career, the Video Vanguard Award. “This is for you, my Latin American people, inside and outside this country: thank you for inspiring me, giving me strength and the desire to move forward,” she said. She later picked up another one of hers with her countrywoman Karol G for her collaboration TGQin which they remembered Barranquilla and Medellín, their cities.

The interpreter of Hips don’t lie He starred in one of the great moments of the gala: he compressed his hits into a ten-minute medley in which he had time to dance, ‘surf’ over the audience and climb a podium that rose into the air. There were no shortage of hits like Loba, Monotonía, Objection, Wheneven Wherever and one of the themes of the year, Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.

Also notable were the shows by Anitta, who first offered Brazilian funk and then a collaboration with the K-pop group Tomorrow x Together; Cardi B, who reunited with Meghan Thee Stallion; and Karol G, who made reggaeton resonate in the room.

Additionally, Fat Joe and Thalía presented the Latin category award, in which Anitta repeated for the second year with Funk rave, and they pointed out that “Latin music reached 1 billion dollars” in 2022, a growing popularity clearly reflected in this MTV gala.

I can confidently say that everyoneee was on their feet during @karolg’s #VMA performance ???????? pic.twitter.com/YdXTbOz3Bk

— Video Music Awards (@vmas) September 13, 2023

hip-hop anniversary

Hip-hop was another of the stars of the night, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the genre. The gala closed with a concert featuring pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash, LL Cool J, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj, who won the award for best video clip in this genre for Super Freaky Girl.

Minutes before, P. Diddy, who received the Global Icon award, reviewed his most popular songs, such as I’ll be missing you y Last night, in which he was accompanied by Keyshia Cole; and there were other notable names such as the young rapper Ice Spice, Best New Artist.

Shout out to all of these artists for putting together the PERFECT tribute to 50 years of hip-hop ???????????? pic.twitter.com/pwuBet95pU

— Video Music Awards (@vmas) September 13, 2023

MTV gave out several awards by musical genre and this year it premiered the “afrobeats” award, which went to the Nigerian singer Rema for his song Calm Down together with the American of Mexican origin Selena Gomez and which he dedicated to Africa.