- Today, I'm gonna be looking at some of the most iconic
VMA moments.
- We are going to throw it back to the 1980s.
- To the '90s.
- 2000s.
- And the 2010s.
- Are you ready?
- Let's do it.
- Personally, if you look into my music history,
it's only the 1980s.
- I love the vibrance of the '80s.
The colors and the over-the-topness.
- When I think about the '80s,
I gotta be frank,
'cause I was born in '89,
so I came in at the tail end,
but, obviously, there was a lot of lit things
going on before I was born,
and I came in just in time
to catch the rest of it.
Okay?
♪ I made it through the wilderness ♪
Cake will never be the same.
- I'm wearing this to my wedding,
is what you don't understand.
I'm wearing that dress.
- Oh, it's a mannequin.
See, that's how I like my men to just,
sit there and hush.
♪ Love me ♪
♪ Oh oh ♪
Now, she's having intercourse with the stage.
It's honestly a mood.
- That's so interesting that that was
the very first performance,
I feel like it was lit because
she wasn't worried about being compared to nobody else.
If anything, people had to be compared to her.
♪ Jungle ♪
♪ Welcome to the jungle ♪
♪ Watch it bring you to your ♪
♪ Na na na na na na knees ♪
♪ Knees ♪
- Welcome to the jungle,
ha da da da da da da knee?
- Welcome to the pharmacy.
I need some pain meds.
I got a headache.
- Here is Jasmine Guy, and "Weird Al" Yankovic.
- Whoo!
Whoo!
- I can feel what Jasmine is going through because
my best friend is always hooting and hollering
everytime we go somewhere,
but that's just, she's a Leo,
that's just her nature.
- This award goes to the best v-
Whoo!
- I think maybe I should start doing this
when someone goes, "Oh, Boman, can I have a picture?"
I'm just gonna go, "whoo!"
- This is a dream come true.
- I had no idea that Will Smith was
the first-ever to win a rap award for the VMAs.
To this day, he is still very much so relevant.
So, let's just say he's legend.
Every pun intended.
- The hair.
This is the hair that I see when I think of the '80s.
She got her booty cheeks out!
- Her and Madonna had cakes, just different types.
♪ Oh baby ♪
- What are they doing with the sheet in the background?
Oh!
Oh, wait.
She's in the middle.
Interesting.
They really planned that out, okay!
- What are the numbers on the par-
I'm tryna figure out the parachute situation.
- Oh, that's a one, two!
Oh, that's a six!
It's a clock!
♪ If I could turn back time ♪
- It's the yodel for me.
It's the (vocalizes)
That is just really doing it for me.
- Part of the reason why I love '80s music
is just like, the flavor of it all.
The way that they dress,
the way they shoot their videos,
all of the aesthetics.
It's just so cool.
Personally, I love the 1990s.
It was such a fun time for music videos.
- When I think about the '90s,
I think about real sharp lip liner.
- I think about windbreakers.
- Tupac.
- And calling in to the radio,
to hear a good song.
- And being born.
'Cause I was born in '94.
And I been keeping it real since '94.
Marie!
- That waist is snatched.
If I was in a dress like that,
I would probably faint.
- She had a whole bustier and a waist trainer,
that's how them breasts was up there like this.
♪ Come on ♪
♪ Vogue ♪
- Hey!
- This is how I imagine Versailles to be.
If I was in Versailles, this is how I be behaving.
I just be, lettin' people fan me and,
you know.
Just doing the most.
- Yes, Madonna!
That was good.
Ooh, that was good!
- Oh my god, I love him so much.
And the splits into the standing, he is so cool!
- I don't know how tall Prince was,
but if I had to guess, I would say he was probably like,
5'4" or something because,
the way he could also always get to the floor
and get up so fast, was miraculous.
- Oh, this is hellfire and brimstone.
My pastor would not like this.
- Everybody seems to be really in the mood.
♪ If you was thinkin' the same ♪
♪ We could continue outside ♪
- Oh my god, and the-
The, the butt!
- I knew the cheeks was out!
Yes!
- I don't really know how they pitched this to MTV.
"Do y'all mind if I have my ass cheek out
while everybody else on the stage is having sex?"
And MTV's like, "Sure! Why not?"
It's the '90s.
- That was probably the most talked about performance.
I mean, you don't know whether you was going to hell
or whether you was going to a freakin' porn store,
but you got a little bit of everything that you needed.
♪ I killed you ♪
♪ I'm not gonna crack ♪
- Like, what are the lyrics to this?
He threw himself into the stage!
No, he's doing it too!
Don't!
- If I was in the audience and somebody jumped on me,
I would not catch them.
Unless it was like, Beyonce or something, but ...
I'm sorry.
- Oh my god!
He chucked that shit up at the air,
and knocked himself out!
- He threw his guitar at the drums.
- Why did the rock stars always tear the set up?
- Period, period, period.
Break the stage!
That's so punk!
That is insane.
- Come on, Whitney.
Come on, Mariah!
Ooh, ooh!
Wait a minute!
- They got on the same damn outfit.
- Uh-oh. Somebody's gotta change.
- Fortunately, I come prepared
for situations like this.
Try in on me!
- Oh, she ripped it off!
- I can do it better.
- Whitney then ripped her thing off.
They gonna be naked before we know it.
- Alright now, that's a page-turner.
- No, you look good!
- That is a moment.
It's showing women empowerment,
it's showing women supporting each other.
If they can do it, the two queens of shade.
Anybody can do it, okay?
- This look is iconic.
- The pasties on the arm are a nice touch.
- Is the whole dress a pasty?
Who knows!
Is there a zipper?
Or is it a big sticker?
Come on, Diana Ross.
- Ooh!
She just made sure it was still, you know,
alive and kickin'.
- That moment will forever be amazing.
These girls were everything.
- You know what?
They don't perform like that anymore.
The choreo isn't that fun anymore.
It's fun, but it's not TLC fun, I'll say that.
- When I'm watching performances from the VMAs
and they do like, really good dance numbers,
I'm like, up!
I'm lit.
- Yes Chilli!
Mmm!
Yeah!
- Hey!
That was me bringing back the dance floor.
- I think "No Scrubs" is such an iconic song
that's still relevant today.
Because men ain't what?
Ain't shit.
- I miss the '90s, even though I wasn't alive.
- '90s was just so much like, pushing the envelope.
- Ooh! If we could go back to them times.
- In the 2000s, I was very much a child.
- Wait a minute, I wasn't even born!
So ...
I think this is gonna be like a new experience.
- I think of all those pop princesses
coming through and really tearing up the scene.
- I think of low-waisted jeans.
- Let's see what we can get into.
- Please.
May I have your attention please?
- Will the real slim shady.
- Wait, let's think about all the other Eminems.
It's like, millions of them. Wait a minute.
Honestly, that's kinda trippy.
Imagine them like, backstage.
Like, you wouldn't really know who the real slim shady is.
♪ Yes I'm the real shady ♪
- If I was bombarded with lookalikes of myself
I would probably be like, wait a minute.
They don't make 'em like this too often,
where are y'all coming from?
- Ever since I was little, I was always like,
if I ever win an award one day,
Kobi, my brother, I'm gonna bring you,
and like, to see her bring her brother up on stage,
it is so sweet.
- My brother, Rashad, I love you.
You're my everything.
- I think that's so cute
that she brought her brother on stage
to share this moment
and she kept it short and simple.
That goes to show how close they were.
♪ I know I may be young ♪
- This is an iconic moment.
Everybody and their grandma has seen this.
- The suspended girls.
Yes!
- Oh my god, she's so hot.
- What's behind her?
Is that a whole tiger?
- I just love her so much.
- That is a snake!
- How would I feel if Britney Spears
dangled a snake in my face?
Honored.
- How fast she takes that snake off of her shoulders
and gives it away to somebody else.
- She said, you know what honey,
we just gon' go for it today.
No one gonna beat this.
No one gonna have a snake and a wild animal behind me.
It's a bride.
- Come on, Britney!
It's Britney, bitch!
- We're going back to the '80s now,
we're recreating Madonna's performance
of "Like A Virgin."
- They said stop, drop, and roll.
- Here she comes, here she comes!
Here she comes!
- And there's Madonna.
- And she takin' the slow two step down
'cause she don't wanna break her neck.
I get it.
- Here it comes.
Mwah!
- Oh my god!
I love it!
- That is a moment for the books,
for the decades, for the eons!
- See, this is my day and age.
The celebrities from the early 2000s, it was just iconic!
You got Paris Hilton sittin' in the audience,
watchin' lesbianism go down on the stage.
I love it!
- She starts the performance jumping on a bed.
She looked like she was going to fall.
- She was in a whole hotel room.
Did she didn't annoy any of the people, like,
downstairs or anything else?
- But I think it really speaks to Rihanna
because she's so not afraid to bend genres
and to like, toy with the idea of like,
you know, where do you fit into music?
Like, that just doesn't exist for her and I love that.
- A lot of people wouldn't put
Fall Out Boy and Rihanna together,
'cause they wouldn't think it works, but it does!
It's like chicken and waffles, like,
you wouldn't really put them together but,
it goes together!
They work wonders together.
♪ I never thought that I'd get hit ♪
- I could start sobbing.
Joe Jonas made me realize I'm a woman.
♪ And now I'm ♪
- Whoa!
Are those all fans?
- You can tell those are real fans,
there's like, desperation on their face.
Gotta get to the front of the stage!
- Wow, they were really that band.
- Come on, Kevin!
- The fact that there were zero phones
throughout this whole performance.
Except the one whole flip phone, is insane.
But at that time, you just had to live
in the moment of things.
- Ooh, and the fall into the audience.
Joe Jonas had touched me on my Christian arm.
- Kermit the Frog!
- Oh, hi there!
- You are a married man, Kermit.
Mm-mm.
- Miss Piggy has been sending me
some pretty funny text messages.
She was wondering if it was gonna be another late night.
- Gaga and Kermit the Frog's
headed back to the hotel room!
- But Gaga and I, we're just friends!
You know, we're not, yeah, we're just friends.
- Kermit is a very typical man.
She thinkin' that they datin'
and he sayin' we just friends.
Gaga just showed, you can't date a man,
you can't even date a frog.
- I think the 2000s were just ...
A gateway drug into what the 2010s were gonna bring.
So I'm lookin' forward to it.
When I think of the 2010s, I think of middle school,
and I think of high school.
So a lot of these moments
were probably burned into the back of my brain.
Permanently.
Permanent damage.
So, I'm excited to revisit them.
- This is gonna be real nostalgic for me.
- Oh ...
My goodness.
- I remember my dad being like,
"Who's that Gaga girl?
Why's she wearing meat?"
- I wonder if it was actual meat.
- That was real, raw, cold, wet meat.
- That was real meat?
- And she touched Cher.
That's bold.
- That right there, that was a moment.
- I never thought I'd be asking Cher
to hold my meat purse.
- I like the blue in the hair,
touch of like a ice, like a meat locker.
- Is it cold? Is it warm?
I mean, it's meat, so like ...
Did she cook it after?
Like, can you smell it?
Was it seasoned?
So many questions.
Does she still have it?
- Why would you do that?
Gaga, why?
- I would've tried to smell it.
Oh, wow!
Look at his mama!
- Dang, he was supposed to bring her,
she jumped out like, "Bring me, son!"
He was like, "Stay back there, mom."
- I really can't believe I'm here right now.
- Aww!
Aww, look at his mom!
- She was sayin', thank you Lord, thank you Jesus!
She was up in the sky while he was still
talkin' up on the stage.
- I'm 'bout to cry.
- But this was raw emotion.
- For all the kids that's watching,
you could do this yourself, be-
Thank you.
- He's so hot.
I have forever and always been a JT stan.
- So fine, that's some white chocolate, okay?
- The only one I know is Justin.
- You see how some of 'em are stiffin',
Justin was just movin' all the hips like crazy.
- Oh, they into it!
- Yes ...
Yes, yes, yes!
And see, it's perfect because they are all
in sync with each other.
- Oh! Okay!
Hey!
Look at One Direction!
- Not One Direction, please not One Di-
I'll have a full-blown panic attack,
I can't even talk.
Y'all did not just show me Harry Styles.
- Now where's their reunion?
- Recently, I was driving my daughter to school.
- Aww, look at her daughter!
- She said, "I'm the ugliest girl I know."
- Uh!
- And I said ...
- What?
- Huh?
And she was like, "Yeah, I look like a boy, with long hair."
And I said, "Well, what do you think I look like?"
And she said, "Well, you're beautiful!"
- Aww!
- And I was like, "Well, thanks."
When people make fun of me, that's what they use.
They say that I look like a boy, or I'm too masculine-
- I be gettin' that sometimes, too.
- I said to her, I said, "Do you see me growing my hair?"
She said, "No, mama."
I said, "Do you see me changing my body?"
"No, mama."
"Do you see me changing the way
I present myself to the world?"
"No, mama."
"Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?"
"Yes, mama."
- She's gonna watch that when she's 18
and sob her eyes out.
- Y'all gonna make me cry!
- And you, my darling girl, are beautiful!
- Kids need to learn,
you are beautiful and gorgeous, just the way you are,
you don't need to change for anyone.
- To have so many eyes on an award show like that,
and to have that sort of message to spread to the world,
that is so important.
Good on P!nk!
Oh, this might be everything!
I might like this by accident.
She's givin' the camera the eyes.
- Wow, look at the set!
Wow!
I know "Señorita", you know,
it kinda get a little bit,
little bit raunchy.
Mmm.
That's, mmm!
Oh!
- Get a room!
- Whoa, wait a dang minute!
That wasn't just acting now!
- Oh, that was cute!
Okay, that was cute.
I'm not gonna sit here and act like it's not.
I don't know, that was a lot.
I feel like I was intruding!
A lot of these performances are, like,
defining moments in these artists' careers.
- I'm ready to go on to the next decade!