Rip the Runway

Rip the Runway is an annual fashion show and music show broadcast by BET, held at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.

2005

The first Rip the Runway show was hosted by Fonzworth Bentley and Eva Pigford.

2006

The 2006 Rip the Runway show was hosted by LL Cool J and Gabrielle Union.

2007

The 2007 Rip the Runway show was hosted by Ciara and Chris Brown.

2008

The 2008 Rip the Runway show was hosted by Nelly and Lauren London.

Performers

2009

The 2009 Rip the Runway show was hosted by Derek Luke and Joy Bryant.

Performers

2010

The 2010 Rip the Runway show was hosted by Nicki Minaj and Pooch Hall.

Performers

2011

The 2011 Rip the Runway show was hosted by Mehcad Brooks and Selita Ebanks.

Performer

The Magic Numbers

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The Magic Numbers are an English pop rock band comprising two pairs of brothers and sisters from Hanwell. The group was formed in 2002, releasing their debut album titled The Magic Numbers on 13 June 2005. Their follow-up album, Those the Brokes was released on 6 November 2006, The Runaway was released on 6 June 2010, and their most recent album Alias was released on 18 August 2014.

The Magic Numbers consists of Romeo Stodart (lead guitar, vocals), his sister Michele (bass guitar, vocals, keyboard), Angela Gannon (melodica, percussion, glockenspiel, vocals) and her brother Sean Gannon (drums). The band are managed by Stephen Budd and Al Lavelle.

History

Backgrounds

The Stodarts are the children of a Scottish father and a Portuguese mother and were born in Trinidad in the Caribbean, where their mother was an opera singer and had her own TV show. When the family fled an Islamic coup attempt there in 1990, they were raised in New York. In the mid-1990s, when Romeo was 16 and Michele was 10, they moved to London.

Ludacris

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Christopher Brian "Chris" Bridges (born September 11, 1977), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Ludacris has won Screen Actors Guild, Critic's Choice, MTV, and Grammy Award awards during his career. Along with fellow Atlanta based rappers Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential Dirty South artists to achieve mainstream success during the early 2000s.

Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludacris moved to Atlanta, Georgia at age nine, where he began rapping. After a brief stint as a DJ, he released his first album Incognegro in 1999 followed by Back for the First Time in 2000, which contained the singles "Southern Hospitality" and "What's Your Fantasy". In 2001, he released Word of Mouf, followed by Chicken-n-Beer in 2003 and The Red Light District in 2004. He took a more serious approach with his next two albums, Release Therapy (2006), and Theater of the Mind (2008). His next record, Battle of the Sexes, was released in 2010 and featured the tone of his previous albums. Ludaversal was released on March 31, 2015. As an actor, he has appeared in films including Crash (2004), Gamer (2009), and New Year's Eve (2011), but is best known for playing Tej Parker in the The Fast and the Furious film series.

Nicki Minaj

Onika Tanya Maraj (born December 8, 1982), professionally known by her stage name Nicki Minaj, is a Trinidadian-born American rapper, singer and songwriter. Born in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago and raised in South Jamaica, Queens, New York, Minaj earned public attention after releasing three mixtapes between 2007–09. She signed a recording contract with Young Money Entertainment in 2009.

Minaj's debut studio album, Pink Friday (2010), peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and spawned the top-five single "Super Bass". During that time, Minaj became the first female solo artist to have seven singles simultaneously charting on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012), also topped the chart and its lead single, the pop crossover "Starships", peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. Minaj's third studio album, The Pinkprint (2014), was preceded by its second single, "Anaconda", which peaked at number two on the Hot 100 and is her highest-charting single in the United States to date. Minaj made her film debut in the 2012 animated film Ice Age: Continental Drift, and also had a supporting role in the 2014 film The Other Woman. In 2013, she was a judge on the twelfth season of American Idol.

Hammerstein Ballroom

The Hammerstein Ballroom is a two-tiered, 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m²) ballroom located within the Manhattan Center Studios at 311 West 34th Street in Manhattan in New York City. It is known for its elegant appearance and excellent acoustic design. The capacity of the ballroom is dependent on the configuration of the room; it seats 2,500 people for theatrical productions and musical performances, and several thousand for events held within a central ring. The two main balconies—which are unusually close to the ground and gently sloped—seat a total of 1,200. There are six shallow balconies which are normally used for celebrity guests. The floor slants down to the stage area to enable those in the back rows to see easily.

History

The Manhattan Center was constructed in 1906 by Oscar Hammerstein I as the Manhattan Opera House, the home for his Manhattan Opera Company, an alternative to the popular yet comparatively expensive Metropolitan Opera. In 1910, the Metropolitan Opera paid Hammerstein $1.2 million to stop operating the Manhattan Opera House as an opera venue for ten years. This led to the elaborately decorated theater being used for a variety of events, including vaudeville.