Normani Delivers A Slam Dunk With Old School Hip-Hop Performance At MTV VMAs

After seeing Normani at the MTV VMAs, everyone should feel ‘Motivated!’ After setting the red carpet aflame with a sequin gown, Normani brought some late ‘90s hip-hop vibes to the show.

Camila Cabello wasn’t the only ex-Fifth Harmony member lighting up the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards. Normani, 23, arrived at New Jersey’s Prudential Center on Aug. 26 and slayed the red carpet like a queen. Before she performed her new song, “Motivation,” in public for the first time, fans watched as she arrived at the music extravaganza in an outfit that channeled some major “Genie In The Bottle” vibes. Normani was part sequin fantasy, one part lava fire goddess, but all sexy. The sequin gown she wore showed off her incredibly toned stomach, her amazing curves and every inch of her legs! She also wore jewelry by Loree Rodkin. Even if she doesn’t leave the VMAs with a Moonperson trophy, she is a winner.

She definitely won the hearts of late 90s/early 2000s hip-hop fans with the debut performance of “Motivation.” After starting the song off in a basketball hoop, she kicked it old school with twerking, b-boys, and some wild dance moves that got everyone up on their feet. Has R&B found a new queen with Normani? The crowd at the Prudential Center certainly thought so.

Normani dropped “Motivation” on Aug. 16, releasing the single and corresponding music video on the same day. The video is a love letter the to late 1990s/early 2000s hip-hop, with odes to “Crazy In Love” by Beyonce, and Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real.” The bop was co-written by Ariana Grande, 26, who Normani opened for on Grande’s “Sweetener Tour.” After the single/video dropped, Ariana tweeted that she was “proud” of Normani. “i love you so much. Thank you for believing in me the way that you have sis and for being my biggest cheerleader,” Normani tweeted back.

“I shot the video a month ago with Dave Meyers while I was in the middle of the Sweetener tour with Ariana Grande,” Normani told Fader. “I flew in literally after a show — it had to be 2 a.m. in L.A. I only had like four hours of sleep, and then I had to do hair and make-up. I had five espresso shots from Starbucks and one day to do all that choreography that you saw in the video.”

“I was on the phone with one of my friends back in Houston, and he was like, ‘Did you actually mean to pay homage to every single artist literally in every scene?’ I was like, ‘Yo, I didn’t even think about it like that. But that’s really dope that it naturally just happened to be that!’ I just knew that I wanted an early-2000s music video,” she added. “I just told [the director] I wanted an early-2000s vibe because that was my favorite era of music. It made me fall in love with music the most.”

The 90s are certainly back in vogue, and the 2019 MTV VMAs reflected that. Missy Elliott was named the Video Vanguard award winner, and considering how iconic her videos were in the late 1990s, it’s a shock that it’s taken so long for her to win the award. On top of this, a supergroup of 90s superstars — Queen Latifah, Naughty By Nature, Redman, Wyclef Jean (and new-ish rap star, Fetty Wap)  — will close out the VMAs with a shoutout to the Garden State.