Together At Home
The One World: Together At Home special broadcast event united some of the biggest stars in music — including Lady Gaga, John Legend, Celine Dion, Pink, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift — on Saturday night in support and celebration of essential workers and the World Health Organization (WHO). It provided a collective moment for the world to join together in the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
The event’s musical moments spanned genres and traveled through eras, but all of the performances were connected by an uplifting tone and a spirit of resilience.
Live Verzuz
Who has the most number one songs? Who is the better beat-maker? With the absence of live shows, Coachella, music festivals and outdoor events owing to social distancing measures to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, music enthusiasts and fans worldwide have been treated to often friendly competitions by accomplished aficionados on Instagram live.
World class producers like DJ Premier and RZA, Ne-Yo and Johnta Austin, and Lil Jon and T-Pain went head-to-head in recent days by playing some of their most impactful songs in battles on social media, in more normal times.
Artists typically stream from their homes on Instagram Live, and the acts — a producer, recording artist or songwriter — must have a catalog of at least 20 songs that are considered hits to participate.
Swizz Beats and Timbaland kicked off the series going toe-to-toe in a showdown that lasted five hours, followed by other notable matchups like The-Dream and Sean Garrett, Ne-Yo and Austin, Scott Storch and Mannie Fresh, and T-Pain and Lil Jon, the most-viewed battle-to-date with more than 280,000 live viewers.
The next scheduled battle is today; Monday (April 20) at 9 p.m. ET, with love song legend Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds taking on New Jack Swing visionary Teddy Riley. The original battle has been delayed twice, first after Babyface, 62, revealed he tested positive for the coronavirus and after some technical issues on Saturday that forced the battle to be rescheduled for Monday evening.
Nigerian Music producers also hoped on the Challenge
Two talented Nigerian music producers, Sarz and Shizzi decided to hop on the production battle on IG live. Their session proved to be a proxy battle of the Wizkid and Davido rivalry.
Shizzi is the brain behind most of Davido’s earliest hits and even until recently. “Dami Duro” was the biggest hit that year and of course “Blow My Mind” topped every charts in 2019. Sarz has tons of Wizkid‘s released and unreleased songs on his PC, and other street songs like “Kondo” by Dagrin, “Diet” by DJ Enimoney, Slimcase, Tiwa Savage, Niniola & Reminisce, “Instagram” by Reminisce, Olamide and Naira Marley.
At the end of their battle which amassed 22.2k viewers, Sarz and Shizzi who showed love to each other nominated four producers to face off in two battles; Pheelz vs Masterkraft and Rexxie vs. Kel P who have all gone ahead to battle themselves to critical acclaim. Others who have hopped in on the challenge include Leriq and Chopstix, Ksolo and Terry G.
Tell us who your favourite performance is?