Rich Homie Quan has received considerable heat for his lyrical blunder at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors earlier this week. He seems genuinely contrite, and it's one more than likely that no one will remember this a month from now. Quan's forgetful ways provide a useful juncture at which to look back at hip hop history and remember the times when hip hop artists failed miserably in a public setting, as well as the time Ghostface Killah allegedly threw 50 Cent down a flight of stairs. Even if that's not actually true.
Click through the gallery to revisit five public moments of notoriety, from Drake to Lil Mama to the worst/best rap battle of all-time.
Drake injures his knee while skipping | Camden, NJ, 2009
Drake was on doctor's orders to take it easy the night he injured his knee while skipping. He had torn his ACL several weeks prior, and he was playing extra-limited sets on the America's Most Wanted tour to avoid aggravating the injury.
One night in Jersey, he was in his element, feeling himself, entertaining the crowd with a rousing rendition of "Best I Ever Had" alongside Lil Wayne when he skipped jovially across the stage and suddenly crumpled into a sodden heap. Concerned stagehands quickly carried him away.
Lil Wayne threw up his hands from the other side of the stage -- sources say he attempted to quell the awkward pall suddenly cast over the room by remarking, “Damn, I knew that nigga’s knee was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad! I thought he was just in a wheelchair on TV."
Lil Mama crashes Jay Z and Alicia Keys' performance | 2009 VMAs
Jay Z and Alicia Keys were wrapping up their performance of their #1 hit "Empire State of Mind" at the 2009 MTV VMAs when poor Lil Mama thought it would be a good idea to hop on stage with her fellow New Yorkers and ham it up for the crowd. While Keys flashed her a smile, Jay Z ignored her and told her to stand back with a subtle flick a da wrist.
Nobody was pleased in the aftermath -- fans, Hov, least of all Mama herself.
"It hurt,” she told Complex several years later. “It took a lot of mental strength, spiritual strength, and physical strength, not to want to hurt others, not to want to hurt myself. A person could be damn near suicidal. A lot of people felt like they didn’t want to take a chance on me with certain things because it might have made Jay Z or Alicia Keys not want to work with them."
Iron Mic: Eli Porter v. Envy | Chamblee High School, Atlanta, 2003
Humanity is still coming to terms with the rap battle that went down between Eli Porter vs Jonathan "Envy" Hodges at Atlanta's Chamblee High School in 2003.
Rapping in front of a panel of three student judges, Envy kicked things by making fun of Eli's leg condition: "Yo, the boy has got you talking cripple. My advice to Eli is to start rapping, stick to walking cripple."
The battle went downhill from there and culminated in Eli's devastatingly bad rejoinder, "I'm the best, man, I diiiid it."
The rap battle became so notorious that it inspired a Kanye West lines on "H.A.M.", as well as a 2011 33-minute documentary in which the student judges, faculty members, and Eli himself recounted the events that occurred that fateful day.
Miguel puts two girls in a body bag with epic leap | 2013 Billboards Music Awards
Miguel's otherwise spectacular rendition of "Adorn" at the 2013 Billboards Music Awards was marred when he attempted to jump from one stage to another, a risky maneuver that required clearing a crowd of 25-some fans. Not only did Miguel fail to clear the gap, but he landed with his right leg pinning one woman's head to the stage and the rest of his body on top of another woman's arm. He put his arm around a smiling, confused woman, who had been unscathed by Miguel's leap.
Two years later, one of the injured women sued Miguel for medical expenses and lost wages.
KRS-One's crew throws P.M. Dawn off the stage | Sound Factory, NYC, 1992
P.M. Dawn was an early '90s R&B duo comprised of two brothers: Jarret Cordes and Prince Be. Prince Be had a Makonnen-esque mystique about him -- with sugary lines like "Eternity is holding a Rubik's Cube/And everything inside it seems to be nude," he was a lover, not a fighter.
During a 1992 interview with mens fashion magazine Details, Prince Be remarked that "KRS-One wants to be a teacher, but a teacher of what?" A few months later, P.M. Dawn was one of many acts performing at a show at New York's Sound Factory. During the duo's performance. KRS-One's Boogie Down Productions rushed the stage with the intention of engaging Prince Be and his brother in a rap battle, but the melee escalated and P.M. Dawn ended up getting unceremoniously tossed off stage and into the crowd. BDP took over the mic, and the crowd went wild.
