Long after I felt I had outgrown the show, “106" had outgrown its purpose. Occasionally I would tune in to see who was on the couch or performing, and when I wanted a dose of nostalgia, I’d watch for teens who now packed the audience and screamed for their favorite artists. The importance of maintaining a daily connection with “106” weakened after high school. Seeing Madonna or Tom Cruise or Lady Gaga or Will Ferrell on BET wouldn’t have been possible without “106 & Park.” “106’s” popularity reached beyond its niche, and it became a destination for musicians and celebrities across many genres and races. “106" was how I was plugged into the world. 11, 2001, would flash on the network on what was the show’s one-year anniversary. “106 & Park” is where I turned to grieve after Aaliyah’s death – her final interview was on that couch days before the 2001 plane crash that claimed her – and a month later images of the terrorist attacks of Sept. I rooted for aspiring rappers on Freestyle Friday (no other show would dare feature battle rappers, let alone weekly), and I witnessed the last run of Destiny’s Child and the introduction of Beyoncé as a solo star. POP NSYNC BET FREEThey became integral staples in your everyday life, and tears were shed during Colloway’s emotional announcement that he and Free would exit in 2005, five years into the show’s run. Their passion for the music showed and their chemistry was ferocious. Colloway and Free were fresh, edgy and embodied an effortless cool. While “106" stayed true to the video countdown formula, with interviews and performances spliced in-between, it did so with an unbeatable swag. Before that, “Video Soul” served as my earliest entry into what was happening in black music and the artists I didn’t always see featured on MTV. The station even had a sassy virtual reality character who served up videos with a constant dose of shade on “Cita’s World” (BET still doesn’t get credit for the ground it broke there). When “106 & Park” arrived, I knew what had been absent.īy then, BET had already been in the business of spinning videos. Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, 98 Degrees, Jessica Simpson - “TRL” fed my insatiable love of pop hooks and sleek videos.īut something was always missing. The MTV show was a can’t miss for a kid who fully subscribed to everything percolating out of the great teen-pop explosion toward the end of the millennium. “I was like, ‘Man, this track is slamming!” he says.As a black teenager with an affinity for pop music but raised on R&B and hip-hop, I considered BET’s “106 & Park” essential viewing.īefore “106 & Park” - which ended a remarkable 14-year run on Friday - arrived in 2000, MTV’s wildly popular “Total Request Live” was the go-to after-school fix. “’This is going to be the pinnacle.'” So Henson hopped on a flight to Vegas where NSYNC was performing at the Billboard Awards so they could play him “Bye Bye Bye” for the first time. “He was like, ‘No, no, no, you don’t understand you gotta do this song,’” Henson recalls. Henson told Wright he was pursuing acting and no longer choreographing, but Wright wasn’t having it. Henson - whose résumé boasts names such as New Kids on the Block, Britney Spears, and the Spice Girls - was actually on the brink of quitting the industry after losing out on a VMA for his work on Jordan Knight’s “Give It to You” when he got the call from NSYNC manager Johnny Wright. That unforgettable choreography was the brainchild of acclaimed choreographer (and creator of everyone’s favorite 2001 instructional dance VHS, Darrin’s Dance Grooves), Darrin Henson. “It’s funny how things come back to you so easily, but I guess if you did it, you know, five million times, it’s somewhere in your DNA.” “I feel like I’ve taught that dance to about 50 people this year alone,” says Bass, who remembers actually breaking his ankle while performing the routine on SNL shortly after shooting the video. If you don’t know the signature move to the “Bye Bye Bye” chorus, you’re too young to be reading this piece.
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