If ever I besmirched the journalistic necessity of TMZ, I take it back. This week, they've unearthed some incredible treasure: an episode of a scrapped 2008 MTV game show called Bustas which, based on the out-of-context clip TMZ released, seemed to pit a few really lame guys against each other to see which one was most raplike. Contests included identifying a rapper by a close-up of his grill, determining whether a Rolex was real or fake, and a freestyle rap competition. What makes TMZ's clip exceptional, however, is that it features a teenage Tyga humiliating himself utterly and permanently.We all had a good laugh when footage surface of Game getting dumped on Change of Heart, but this is on a whole other level. Tyga claims to be from Compton now, but back in 2008 he was bragging about how he grew up in the Valley with Range Rover–driving parents. He manages to recognize a real Rolex, but fails to correctly identify a rapper by his grill; he's booed offstage during his freestyle rap segment, ultimately losing to a dorky-looking white dude.
Tyga, on film, lost a contest to see which busta was least of a busta. Now that this thing is out in the world, all he can do is be super nice to everyone and avoid confrontation at all costs — he just lost every beef by default, forever.
Pusha T has announced that his new album will be called My Name Is My Name. Pusha Tautology?
In news of an exceedingly ominous nature, billboard.com reports that Karmin and Will.i.am have met, exchanged numbers and had a nice chat, "possibly about a future collaboration." My time-travel agenda has been updated to reflect this artistic supervillainy. First priority: prevent Karmin/Will.i.am meeting. Second priority: smother Baby Hitler.
Oh, and the Killers have just released their seventh (ugh) annual (urrgghh) Christmas single. Third time machine priority: spare the world more of this by preventing the birth of Christ.
After holding out for years, AC/DC have finally made their valuable catalog available on iTunes. In their first week online, they sold 48,000 albums and 696,000 individual songs. The Aussie rockers have been notoriously shy about going digital, but maybe their hefty iTunes payday will convince them to sign up with services like Pandora and Spotify — if they can do the same kind of numbers over there, they stand to make upwards of 16 additional dollars.
Coming soon to your finest odor merchants: Katy Perry, probably in a playfully sexy lab coat, is nearly finished with the painstaking formulation of her third celebrity fragrance. The yet-unnamed scent will follow her smash-hit perfumes "Meow" and "Purr." No word yet on whether she'll be sticking to the kitty theme with something saucy like "Hiss" or "(graphic hairball retching noise)." Meanwhile, fragrance upstarts One Direction have just signed a deal with Olivann Beauty to create a stink of their own. Naturally, they're "really excited," and "closely involved in the creation," et cetera, which I absolutely always believe whenever I read it in a press release.
My big yearly roundup isn't until next week, but I'll give out one award early. The Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau of Mobile, Alabama wins the highly coveted Most Charming Shoehorning of a Band's Song Titles into a Press Release Award for their masterful work in "Giant MoonPie To Fall New Year's Eve in Mobile to the Sounds of the Commodores."
