OUT 289--SPOT BITZ-THE TOP 10 ENTERTAINMENT STORIES OF 2016

From The St Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles to rapper Tupac Shakur and musician Nile Rodgers being inducted into the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to the sudden quitting stunt from Tom Joyner Morning Show co-host J Anthony Brown to the death of actor Alan Thicke, and of course the rise of Apprentice star Donald Trump becoming the President elect of the United States,  2016 has been a topsy turvy year in the arts and entertainment field namely rooted in politics and making history. Below are the ten entertainment stories that made an impact this year.

10.JESSE WILLIAMS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH AT BET AWARDS

Actor Jesse Williams broke the Internet with his Humanitarian Award speech at this year's BET Awards.His four minute speech talked about  the indictment of systemic racism, cultural appropriation, white supremacy and privilege, blacks focusing on commercialism over activism was well received by the audience giving him a standing ovation. Many have  heralded him as the next Harry Belafonte with Ebony Magazine recently featuring a cover and photo spread of Belafonte passing an actual baton to Williams in a mock racial progress relay race.

9.#OSCARSOWHITE

The big talk this year was the   backlash that The Academy Awards received when the nominations were announced and all of the nominees in the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress were of Caucasian descent. (#OSCARSOWHITE) for a second year in a row. There also was debate on whether its host Chris Rock should step down as the host to protest  and celebrities complaining of specific actor snot being nominated (e.g Jada Pinkett Smith on her husband Will smith not being nominated) . He eventually decided to go ahead and host and revise his opening monologue. Although his topical monologue was mixed  and was the highlight of the show (and the ballyhooed appearance of Stacey Dash) the Oscars drew the lowest viewers in eight years.

8.SUMMER OLYMPIC STARS

The Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro had its challenged even before the festivities started with the huge Zika Virus scare. Nevertheless, the show went on for two weeks many of the success stemmed from various athletes making history. The stars like Michael Phelps who  added No. 22 Gold medal to his collection by winning the 200-meter individual medley;  Simone Biles took the gold in the women's gymnastics all-around competition becoming the first woman in 20 years to win back-to-back world and Olympic all around titles;  and, Simone Manuel won the gold becoming the first individual swimming medal for an African-American woman ever. Despite the historical moments, The games end as the lowest-rated and least-watched Summer Olympics since 2000.

7.BEYONCE'S FORMATION VIDEO  CREATES CONTROVERSY

It was a great year for singer Beyonce with the release of her sixth No. 1 "Lemonade" and receiving nine Grammy nods for it but the year started off a bit rocky when she released the video for the song, "Formation." The video gave images of New Orleans culture focuses on the Black Lives Matter motif and the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Along with the  visual social messages, Bey added her now Queen Ratchetness with the song itself involving hot sauce in purses, taking her boo to Red Lobster after good sex and creating bamas from mixing Negro and Creole. And what you have is a gumbo of But of course, involving all these components, controversy followed led by former Mayor Rudy Guiliani who went on air to say that the video was anti-police.

 

6.BIRTH OF A NATION'S BIG DISTRIBUTION FAILS AT BOX OFFICE


This film made news and controversy at the same time. The fictional story of the rebellion of Nat Turner was the highlight of this year's  Sundance Film festival  that was financed, directed and acted by  Nate Parker. It received rave reviews from critics and made news for it making history of being bought by Fox Searchlight for distribution rights for 17 million. However, the film's director's shady past came to revisit him when the alleged and closed rape case of the woman who was allegedly raped by Parker committed suicide. Parker refused to apologize and was blackballed from his attitude. When the film was eventually released, it did not meet expectations at the Box Office raking in only 7 million its first weekend.

 

 

5.CELEBRITY DEATHS
This year was a whirlwind of shocking deaths from several prominent celebrities which started Jan 1 when we found out that singer Natalie Cole died of health complications, then a succession of entertainers died including David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Maurice White. But the two that really received huge press was the passing of uber music star Prince in April and boxing legend Muhammad Ali in May (SEE RIP BITZ BELOW).

4.THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WIN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP

Although the Golden State Warriors eclipsed  Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls 72 game streak win by winning  its 73rd game winning over the Memphis Grizzlies, that record was shadowed when they played against the Cleveland Cavaliers at the NBA Finals. The Cavs came back from a three game deficit and won the NBA Finals  upsetting the defending champion Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena  in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. As far as the ratings, ticketing, and betting during Game 7, the Cleveland Cavaliers clincher scored 30.8 million total viewers — the biggest tune-in for championship series since Michael Jordan last won a ring in 1998. The championship was the first major professional win for the city since 1964. Cleveland held a rally and parade for LeBron James and the Cavs with a crowd of approximately 1.3 million attended.

3.CHICAGO CUBS WIN WORLD SERIES

The curse was over for The Chicago Cubs when they won the World Series against the Cleveland Indians winning their third trophy within a span of 108 years since the second one.  The Chicago Cubs dramatic, 10-inning, 8-7 victory over the Cleveland Indians  was the most watched game World Series Game 7 in 25 years raking in 40 million viewers.  It was the best any baseball game has done since 1991. The parade had taken place at Grant Park where 5 million people attended as well as its biggest fan, comedian Bill Murray. The love was also given the Cubs when three of his players  outfielder Dexter Fowler, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, and now-retired catcher David Ross made an appearance on Saturday Night Live on several sketches.

2.COLIN KAPERNICK CAUSE CONTROVERSY TAKING A KNEE DURING NATIONAL ANTHEM


If San Fransico 49ers' Colin Kaepernick wasnt known to those who don;t follow sports, knew exactly who he was outside of sports. During one of his team's preliminary games in August, he refused to stand during the singing of the National anthem by sitting down on the bench to protest the injustices of black people.. The sitting then changed to taking a knee after much negative hoopla about it.  His gesture caused waves with some of his teammates joining him and even local sporting arenas where players took knees to protest.
“At this point, I think I will continue to be taking a knee,” Kaepernick said. “As far as how long this goes, I’m not sure. I want to be able to effect change and I think there are a lot of others that want to as well.”
Kaepernick pledged to donate $1 million to communities for this cause. He is guaranteed $11.9 million this season. His gesture also was good business when his No. 7 jersey became the top selling jersey from No. 20 up to No. 1 at $99 a jersey.Later in the year he made the cover of Time Magazine who could have easily been Person of Year if it wasn't for the President-elect)/










AND THE NO. 1 STORY WAS:

1.SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE PARODYING THE HILARY V TRUMP DEBATES


The Presidential debates between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton was must see TV and was social media bait for the antics of Trump and Hillary's stone face responses to them. It was also parody fair for Saturday Night Live when it returned for its 42nd season with the debut of Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump and the very welcome return of Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton. Saturday Night Live opened its 42nd season on Saturday with a bang and  propelled the SNL Premiere to its highest ratings in 8 years. The cold opening of SNL continued the next two weeks as the ratings continued to rise to see how the show would interpret the parody within the parody of the real debates. Things came to a halt when Trump eventually won the election on Election Night and the following Saturday, McKinnon opened  SNL with a somber performance of her singing "Hallelujah and playing piano giving the most stirring TV moment of the year. It was also the same episode that was hosted by the comeback of comedian  Dave Chappelle whose colorful monologue and skits gave the show's biggest ratings since 2013.

THE FIT BITZ PIC OF THE YEAR 

This year, actress Elise Neal broke the Internet when she posted this pic of her during a swimsuit photo shoot.  Her taut body was wowing on social media and that she turned 50 years old made it even more jaw-dropping.  




                                                 
                                            THE WHO GOT STYLE PIC OF THE YEAR

We had to give it to the late style icon Prince who died this year. Not  only did he make a name for himself in music but he also was a fashion icon. Starting off his career wearing trenchcoat , bikini underwear and thigh boots to his iconic purple overcoat with ruffled shirt and  Jheri curl to his natted fro three eyes shades, His Royal Badness made a statement breaking, gender  roles  and looking great doing it.                                                                            

R.I.P.

JANUARY

Singer, Natalie Cole

Singer, William Guest (Gladys Knight and The Pips)

Singer, David Bowie

Singer, Glenn Frey

FEBRUARY

Singer/Producer, Maurice White

Singer-Cum-Evangelist, Vanity ( Denise Matthews)

STL radio personality Director Al Stevens

MARCH

Reality star, Andre Montgomery

Rapper, Phife Dawg
Actor, Ken Howard
Comedian, Gary Shandling  
Sports announcer, Joe Garagiola
STL community leader, Ida Woolfolk .

APRIL

Radio personality, Doug Banks

Singer/Producer, Prince

Singer, Billy Paul

MAY

Boxing legend, Muhammad Ali

Martial Arts/Wrestler, Kimbo Slice

JUNE

Singer, Christina Grimmie

News Anchor, Patrick Emory

Rapper, Attrell Cordes (of PM Dawn)

Musician, Bernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic)

JULY

TV/Movie Producer, Gary Marshall

TV Personality, Youree Dell Harris (aka Miss Cleo)

Sports Announcer, John Saunders

SEPTEMBER

Actor, Gene Wilder

Music Producer, Jerry Heller

STL community activist,Darren Seals

Female Impersonator/Actor, Alexis Arquette

Female Impersonator.ActorLady Chablis
Singer/Producer, Kashif

Rapper, Shawty Lo

OCTOBER

Baseball player,Jose Fernandez

Actor, Bill Nunn

Novelist, Gloria Naylor

Songwriter, Rod Temperton

Golf Legend, Arnold Palmer

Actor, Thomas Mikal Ford  
Radio legend, Herb Kent

NOVEMBER

Poet/Songwriter, Leonard Cohen

News Personality, Gwenn Ifill

Singer, Sharon Jones (of the Dap Kings)

DECEMBER

TV Producer, Grant Tinker

Actress, Florence Henderson

Actor, Ron Glass

Singer, Colonel Abrams

STL Radio legend, Richard Onion Horton 

Actor, Alan Thicke 

Sports Announcer, Chris Sager 

Hollywood Icon, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Singer, George Michael(ADD)
Comedian/actor, Ricky Harris (ADD)
Actress/writer Carrie Fisher (ADD) 
Actress, Debbie Reynolds (ADD)

Well that will do it for SPOT BITZ. After 11 years we have decided to discontinue posting the weekly blog. Since the days of journal entries without pics to reporting on the St Louis news scene along with going to every club party, it was time to end it. With the outburst of bloggers, vloggers, Instagram videos and hashtags, the blog scene has been a bit crowded especially with so many posters reporting the same stories but adding their spin to them. We think OUTTOWN/OUTSTAGN was one of the stalwarts in the game and created a niche in the world of social media driven journalism. 

But, its not all over.

We will still post on OUTSTAGN but not s often and we will focus on more project promotion for Maatology Productions, attending events still but more focused on fashion and theater and  expanding the WORDZ TO THE WHYZ focusing on trends in arts and entertainment. The posts wont be a frequent, but they will be posted when there is is definite relevance.

So, fellow OUTTOWNERS and OUTSTAGRS, see you sometime in 2017.

Ma'at Atkins
Blog Editor.