Hip-Hop Reacts To The 88th Academy Awards

Around 34 million people tuned into the 88th Academy Awards last night, marking an 8-year low for the prestigious award show. Many attribute the ratings dip to the controversy surrounding the lack of diversity within this year's class of nominees and the resulting Oscars So White protest.

Many who did tune in, though, including those in the hip-hop community, enjoyed much of the Hollywood spectacle, particularly Chris Rock's job as host and Leo DiCaprio's big win for his leading role in "The Revenant," his first golden statue in six nominations and an acting career spanning nearly 25 years. 

As host, Rock was put in a precarious position, and many felt he put all doubts to rest with his opening monologue, with jokes that exposed the absurdity of the whitewashed award show without trampling too heavily on its deeply entrenched prestige.

Past Oscar winner Juicy J thought Rock's opening monologue was hilarious, though singer/actor Tyrese felt the comedian crossed the line when he took a shot at Jada Pinkett Smith and her pledge to boycott the award show. "Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties," joked Rock. "I wasn't invited!" 

"Did you really use your STAGE to tear down and diminish one of the strongest most fearless black women IN this town as the world watched???" Tyrese wrote in the caption of an Instagram response video. Also in the video, he expressed his happiness to see Leo grab his first award, a sentiment shared by many stars, including Kanye West. 

"Finally!!! Our guy!!! We're so happy for Leo!!!" wrote Kanye in one of his least controversial tweets in recent weeks. 

Another guest whose efforts were widely lauded was The Weeknd, who performed a theatrical rendition of his "50 Shades of Grey" single "Earned It," which ended up losing to Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" for Best Original Song. Despite the loss, his performance was among the night's most scintillating moments, and though he's been on the main stage of the entertainment world's two biggest award shows in the past two weeks, he's still gonna be the target of unforgiving memes until he gets that creature off his head. 

As for the most cringeworthy moment of the night, that dishonor goes to Stacey Dash.