And VIBE's Person Of The Year Is...
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15. Person: Dave Chappelle
Personality: Like a hippy CIA agent, Chappelle is a free spirit that won't be compromised.
Year-in-Review: The win was big for Dave Chappelle because the stakes were high. Nothing worse than a comeback that comes up short (See Mason Betha). When Chappelle made like Nas in Belly and went to Africa for a couple weeks he was on an artistic high. Ditto for his bank account. But in past years we all feared the comic genius was going the way of Lauryn Hill (Something went wrong at that Hartford show?).
Radio City proved otherwise. His routine was tight and had moments that felt like impromptu conversation. The ticket prices were steep—so he could disappear, again, he joked—but watching an in standup-shape Chappelle, along with guests like Nas, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Premier and Janelle Monet, was worth the ticket price.
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14. Person: Kim Kardashian
Personality: Proudly vain and formerly passive aggressive. Ask Adrienne Bailon.
Year-In-Review: Way before Kanye West put a ring on it, Kim Kardashian was a walking bag of money. The reality TV empress has made bank off season 9 of E!'s Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a book of selfies (dropping April 28, 2015) and a game app where socialite-wannabes have to work for fame. (#Levels) The latter even raked in $200 million.
When she's not snapping cell-phone portraits, Mrs. Kardashian-West is grooming her one-year-old daughter, North, to be a paparazzo magnet (See front row at 2014 Fashion Week). Kim's influence IRL even translates better online, where her wedding photos set an Instagram record for photo with the most likes (1.92 double taps) and her oily physique on the cover of Paper mag left the Internet in shambles.
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13. Person: Serena Williams
Personality: Competitive alpha-female.
Year in Review: We’ve grown so accustomed to Serena Williams winning that her one grand slam title this season seems like a dreadful year. She’s won so much in her career that finishing the season ranked No. 1, capturing her third straight U.S. Open championship and winning seven tournaments in one season is pretty much meh.
The woman behind the Drake and Common rap war has convinced us she woke up like this: a champion. At 33-years-old, Williams is in career cruise control. Just adding trophies to the mantle and making her mountain top harder for the next great tennis player to climb.
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12. People: Black Twitter
Personality: Vocal, timely, and a perfect mix of sophistication and ratchetness.
Year-In-Review: Black Twitter has its own Wikipedia page. The domain name “www.blacktwitter.com” is on the market for over $2,500. The good folks at USC are so intrigued by the social media collective that they have begun a study on it.
Like it or not, Black Twitter is a thing—and it has quantifiable influence. Equally responsible for awareness in the deaths of Eric Garner and Mike Brown, as well as the dragging of that disastrous Aaliyah movie, Black Twitter has made for strides and laughs in 2014. And they ain’t got no award for that (yet).
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11. Person: J. Cole
Personality: Enlightened, self-proclaimed B-list celebrity still rooted in his past and the plight of his people. Also, chronically sick with rap flows.
Year in Review: On January 28, 2014, J. Cole performed for a packed Theatre at Madison Square Garden and was surprised on stage by his mentor/idol Jay Z with a sentimental-yet-sparkling 29th birthday gift: Hov’s original Roc-A-Fella chain and pendant.
From that point on, you might expect the MC from N.C. to be filled up with octane, head too gassed up to acknowledge mere peasants. Instead, Cole proved himself a true man of the people. He was prompt in protesting with New Yorkers following the grand jury decision not to indict Eric Garner’s murderer and among the first entertainers to visit Ferguson after Mike Brown’s murder (his genuine “Be Free” response record is a time-encapsulating soundtrack).
When it came time to promote his masterful surprise project 2014 Forest Hills Drive—arguably the year’s finest rap work—Cole skipped a conventional marketing plan and reached out to fans directly for one-on-one listening sessions and visits at his childhood home, scoring 2014’s quickest selling hip-hop album.
But he did glean something from that Roc chain, though. Like Shawn Carter, Jermaine Cole inked an imprint deal for his own Dreamville Records with Interscope, and went on to release two dope LPs from signees Bas and Cozz.
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10. Person: Chris Rock
Personality: A realist with a great comedic brain. Like one of the best ever.
Year in Review: Top Five brought in $7.2 million its first week. It was a clear win for Chris Rock who, for all his comedic accolades, had fallen short in Hollywood. Sure Pootytang is a sub-cult classic (Louis C.K. on the pen) and The Grown Ups franchise is a descent comedy powered by Adam Sandler, but Pookie needed a hit (crack pun intended).
Chris’ sly salute to hip-hop is smart and colorless while being unequivocally Black. Maybe it’s the tanning of America. But between that film (which he also wrote and directed), a risky monologue on SNL and one of the greatest press runs we’ve seen by a celebrity (See Hollywood Reporter and Vulture interviews), Chris’ candid racial diagnosis on the US couldn’t have been more timely.
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9. Person: Lupita N’yongo
Personality: Confident, passionate, fashionable and regal.
Year-In-Review: N’yongo was “stunting on stage after 12 Years A Slave” when she earned her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award at the top of the year, but her shine didn’t stop there. The Kenyan actress furthered her influence by impacting the world of beauty and fashion.
Gracing the cover of Vogue, snatching up a Lancome USA endorsement and being crowned People magazine’s “Most Beautiful Person,” N’yongo killed red carpets and shifted mainstream's beauty standards in 2014 at the same damn time.
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8. Person (Calling an audible): All The States That Legalized and Decriminalized Marijuana in 2014
Personalty: High.
Year-In-Review: After decades of struggle in the fight to legalize marijuana, activists helped push for revisions to the archaic laws on pot. Colorado and Washington kicked it off as the first U.S. states to sell legal cannabis for recreational use, and medicinal marijuana was approved in Maryland, Minnesota, and the Empire State.
By August, Colorado raked in $34 Million in legal weed sales—giving other states their very own greenprint to follow.
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7. Person: Shonda Rhimes
Personality The Sole Proprietor of Thursday Nights. An extreme giver.
Year in Review: Before Shonda, Thursdays were a tease. It was the proverbial third base in a long work week, and all any of us really wanted was for Fridays to hurry up and come.
That’s all changed since Shonda got to Shonda-ing. The result? Engulfing all fifty-leben of her viewers in a wickedly passionate threesome with her creations, Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. For three hours, Rhimes satisfies all of our nighttime television desires. She entices, titillates and excites as well as runs the gamut of human emotion, never shying away from inconvenient truths, harsh realities and amazing us with moments of complete wonder. Complex, multi-dimensional female leads with half-black surgeon sisters, presidential boyfriend and hitman bae’s and a sex-crazed murderous husbands is kinda her thing and you know what? It’s kind of our thing too!
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6. Person: Drake
Personality: A posturing pretty boy who's in touch with his feelings yet always in on the joke.
Year in Review: Seen Drake lately? Of course you have. In 2014, hip-hop’s most ubiquitous superstar became a pop culture staple, from his hilarious Alex Rodriguez and Katt Williams impersonations on Saturday Night Live to being Wendy Williams’ on-screen side dude in Think Like A Man Too, to trolling a forehead smooch out of baller crush Skylar Diggins while hosting the ESPYs.
Every week there was a different headline. Throwing fisticuffs with Puff. Lyrical blows with Hov. Bringing the pain on tour with Lil Wayne. Lint-roller renaissance. Oh-that’s-ya-girl? disrespect. You simply couldn’t avoid the guy. Yet Drake was more than just 2014’s biggest drama king. Without an album release, the Toronto Raptors ambassador ruled hip-hop via on-fleek freebies (“0-100/The Catch Up,” “Trophies,” “Days In The East”) and projects from his own OVO artists Majid Jordan, PartyNextDoor and OB O’Brian.
Did y’all boys not get the memo? Drake is 2014’s most important rapper, period.
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5. Person: Mo’ne Davis
Personality: Feminism in the form of a fastball.
Year in Review: Talk about fast-tracking. Mo’ne Davis, 13, has already been named Sports Illustrated Kids’ “Sports Kid Of the Year.” This after her scorching performance this summer as the first girl to ever pitch a shutout in Little League World Series history. Oh yeah, she also throws a 70mph fastball.
Davis earned more national attention when she became the first Little League baseball player, male or female, to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. ESPN features and shout outs from people like Kevin Durant and Michelle Obama soon followed the South Philadelphia native. Barely a teenager, Davis, who also plays first, third and shortstop, has redefined the phrase “throws like a girl.”
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4. Person: Pharrell
Personality: He'll never be square. No matter which corner of space success propels him to, the otherworldly artist and father of one finds his groove outside of the box.
Year-In-Review: At 41 years young, Pharrell's To-Do list is endless. His viral Despicable Me smash "Happy" easily found the short-term cure for depression while landing him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an Oscar nod. He also bagged his own apparel line with Adidas and inspired a parody account on Twitter with an oversized Vivienne Westwood hat.
Pha Real's shiniest contribution of the past 365 was his sophomore LP G I R L, an ode to the ladies of all races. He even shed some tears on Oprah Prime, with the humblest of humblebrags, saying, "I could just be a guy with the demo but for whatever reason, the people hoisted me so high that I know what the top of the clouds look like."
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2. Person: Malala Yousafzai
Personality: More courage than Simba.
Year in Review: The problem is you know her name. You’ve seen her round face, full brown eyes, and some of her dark wavy hair peek through her hijab. Malala Yousafzai wasn’t supposed to survive the bullets aimed at her from point blank range, one of which, hit the left side of her forehead, traveled under her skin through the length of her face and then went into her shoulder.
If Yousafzai was playing by The Taliban’s rules, she was supposed to die and bring with her any desire a Pakastani girl wanting an education might have. But just like hope springing high, still Malala rise. Her unshakeable courage garnered her global attention as she went onto become an education and human rights activist for women. Then in October, at 17 years old, Malala became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate for her advocacy work.
So you see, you know her name and you know her story. Malala didn’t follow protocol. She didn’t do as instructed or react as planned, and for them, that’s the problem.
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1. People: Michael Brown and Eric Garner
Personality: Two vastly different men connected by seismic tragedy. Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old from the suburbs of Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Garner, an unarmed 43-year-old black Staten Island, New York family man choked out by Daniel Pantaleo, a white cop. Both polarizing deaths would jolt America from its post racial sleep walk emboldened by the history making Presidency of Barack Obama.
Year-in-Review: For many African-Americans, it wasn't the untimely loss of life of Brown and Garner that was shocking. It was the decisions of the grand juries not to indict the police officials connected with their deaths that proved to be a devastating punch in the collective gut. And the world was watching. Already a powder keg from decades of racial inequity, Ferguson exploded following the announcement, igniting days of protests, violent clashes with a militarized police force, burning and looting. In the case of Garner, who was targeted by cops for selling untaxed loose cigarettes, his heartfelt final words caught on video ("I can't breathe...") became the rallying cry for the voices against police brutality.
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