MTV is evolving from music videos to full-fledged metaverse entertainment as it plans to host a virtual performance by Snoop Dogg and Emenim as part of this year’s Video Music Awards.
The two artists will perform “From the D 2 the LBC,” nominated in the Best Hip-Hop category, on Sunday night as part of the MTV Video Music Awards, highlighting the best songs, albums, and artists in the music industry every year.
Viewership for the VMAs, which debuted in 1984, has been steadily declining. While the show attracted a record 12.4 million viewers in 2012, according to Billboard, last year it failed to break 1 million viewers.
The network appears to be banking on the rappers’ metaverse performance, the first collaboration between the two artists in more than 20 years, according to the Hollywood Reporter, to change that. Neither has performed at the VMAs in more than a decade.
The Otherside metaverse platform is still under development but has already sold more than $500 million worth of “Otherdeeds,” or NFTs linked to virtual land within the metaverse platform, in an auction earlier this year.
The virtual world centers around Yuga Labs’ portfolio of NFT collections, including its most famous, Bored Ape Yacht Club. Although only “Otherdeed” land owners can currently join the platform’s demo, some believe it has the potential to attract a large audience because of the dedicated communities behind some NFT collections.
Eminem and Snoop Dogg’s performance will serve to show off the capabilities of the Otherside metaverse, Yuga Labs and Bored Ape Yacht Club cofounders Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow (a.k.a. Gordon Goner and Garga) told Fortune.
“With everything from food trucks, to jewelry collabs, to TV shows, we think we will continue to see the NFT community really embrace decentralization, personalization, and utility in new and exciting ways. The creativity of this community knows no bounds,” Solano and Aronow said in a statement.
MTV has gone all in on the metaverse with the VMAs this year, adding an award for Best Metaverse Performance along with traditional categories such as Artist of the Year.
It also created its own VMAs-themed metaverse in the virtual world game Roblox especially for the event, complete with a digital red carpet and three music and dance games.
