by Charne Graham
The act of cozying up on the couch to watch aspiring superstars perform from the comfort of your home has persisted for nearly 72 years. The Original Amateur Hour, one of the first audition-based music competitions, aired on television in 1948. Hosted by Ted Mack, the televised version of what was originally a radio show featured legendary acts like Pat Boone and a young Gladys Knight, the only Black person on the show at the time. At just 7 years old she charted the course for Black women and Black people as a whole to participate in music competitions on television, a space that would showcase Black talent and shape music television for years to come.
Musical competition shows have dominated television for years. BET’s 106th and Park hosted a segment titled Freestyle Fridays that premiered in 2000, a segment that allowed aspiring, up and coming rappers to battle in front of the audience and three judges. Prior to the NY-based countdown show was another legendary program that happened further uptown, Showtime at the Apollo. Apollo, which aired late Saturday nights from 1987 to 2008, allowed artists to perform for the theater’s crowd, in the hopes that they would receive praise instead of “boos” and being dragged off of the stage by The Sandman.
The timeline of the emergence of Hip-Hop as popular culture and shows that placed the culture at the forefront coincided. But while CBS’s Star Search-the renowned program that featured contestants like Aaliyah and Destiny’s Child-existed as the premiere music competition show, there was not much of a focus on the genre emerging that was shaping the culture at large. In fact, music competition television went years without a show dedicated to finding the next big superstar artist in Hip-Hop. So while the shows existed as a site for potential stardom, a space to build a relationship with viewers, and the opportunity to find professional guidance and feedback from industry professionals as judges, Hip-Hop was virtually missing from the music competition lineup during primetime.
On September 28th, 1998, the first episode of The Cut premiered on MTV. Airing right after the network’s illustrious music video show, Total Request Live, The Cut set a precedent for music competition shows to come. Hosted by the late rapper of the multi-platinum selling group TLC, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes brought with her a charisma and quirky supernova style that gave The Cut a unique edge. Not only did she style herself in some of the most innovative fashion, makeup and hairstyles each episode, but she also brought with her a level of honestly and support that could only come from an artist themselves-and a Black woman more specifically.
The 30-min show consisted of 4 musical acts, with more than half of the featured musicians coming from Hip-Hop or a sub-genre inspired by it. The performances varied from solo to group acts, after which a panel of 3 alternating judges record industry executive professionals and one entertainer-would give scores based on what they would. “hear and see.” The scores were given on a scale of 1-10 and would decide the winner. The person with the highest score at the end of each episode would also advance to the finals. The overall winner of The Cut would receive an undisclosed record deal along with a $5000 sponsored wardrobe and a music video funded by MTV that would be put into Heavy Rotation.
The Cut introduced the world to a few contestants who later continued to pursue a career in music. R&B singer and songwriter Ne-Yo who then went by his first name Shaff performed in a group called Envy. The third-place winner of The Cut finals singer and dancer Anastacia later got a record deal after the show aired. The grand prize winner of the show was a Bay area Black female rapper and singer by the name of Silk-E, who performed alongside her hype man G-Nut. She impressed the judges so much that the celebrity judge KRS-1 offered her a record deal on the show if she didn’t win. She released her debut album Urban Therapy in 1999.
The Cut made history with MTV being one of the first reality music competition shows airing primetime, with a Black woman host and Hip-Hop at the forefront. Audiences got to see another side of Left Eye outside of being an artist, music industry feedback and backstories. With Hip-Hop artists like KRS-1 as judges, audiences also got to see a Black woman rapper like Silk-E win the competition with a major artist co-sign. Moreover, the show was conceived by a Black woman, Edna Sims-Bruce, who knew that The Cut’s structure was unlike anything that had ever been seen on television:
The backstories give you a sense of who you're seeing and what they're like outside of the music. Having the judges tell them why they scored something can give the kids and the audience tips on things that can really make a difference in advancing their career. Yes, judging is always about people's opinions, but all of the judges are music-industry professionals.
There was a special kind of care and attention paid to the artists, that one can argue dissipated as more and more shows hit our television screens.
After the first season of The Cut wrapped, Adam Tyler wanted Left Eye to return as the host. She declined as she was in the midst of working on TLC’s Fanmail album in addition to her solo debut album Supernova, and as a result, the show never returned for a second season. In the new millennium, we were introduced to music competition shows like American Idol, Making the Band, P. Diddy’s Starmaker, The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott, The Voice and America’s Got Talent. Although it had only one season, The Cut became the very first of many shows that gave us an origin story of the contestants with Hip-Hop and R&B/soul backgrounds along with celebrity judges and hosts. The Black woman-created show opened the doors for Hip-Hop and many other different styles and genres to be featured in primetime television talent competitions, and put one of our most beloved Black women rappers at the helm. On the show, Sims-Bruce told the Star-Bulletin:
I want to teach the kids that the music industry doesn't just consist of a record company and the artist. The artists who judge have been where the contestants are, and a lot of times they're harder judges than the industry representatives because they know what it takes to make it in the music industry.
