Let's admit it: the MTV Video Music Awards often have more to do with the outrageous moments that occur during the telecast than actual music. So it's easy to forget that the awards show also typically produces some stellar performances from artists, like Sunday's appearances by top-selling musicians including Drake, Paramore, Eminem and Taylor Swift.

"You have to be very balanced to perform at the VMAs. This stage is not any regular stage," B.o.b told us outside on the white carpet before heading into the Nokia Theatre to perform his hit single "Airplanes" with Hayley Williams. "It's like an environment, it's like a real interactive stage. It's got like, couture to it, so you have to be very balanced and a well-seasoned performer."

Travie McCoy, meanwhile, was trying to be calm about performing his song "Billionaire," which will be sung by the cast of "Glee" on the first episode of the hit show's new season. "I'm always relaxed, you know. This stuff is fun," he said, showing off some grillz on his bottom teeth. "I get a little nervous right before things go down. But other than that, I'm cool. Chillin'."

Deadmau5, who was the house artist spinning popular tracks throughout the telecast, also appeared laid back -- though of course we couldn't really tell, since he was wearing his trademark mouse head (of which he said he owns about six).

"This particular project gave me enough freedom and stuff where they were just like, 'Well, we want your interpretation,' " he said. "So we're not gonna send it back and forth a million times...it didn't happen like that at all. So it was really good, for a change."

For more video interviews with Bruno Mars, Robyn and Sean Kingston, go beyond the jump.

 
Four years ago, J.R. Rotem made a pivot from straightforward, trunk-rattling gangsta rap productions to helming saucy mainstream pop tracks. The switch worked. His hit tracks for Britney Spears and Rihanna vaulted him from rap’s A-list into the clouds of frothy club-pop, with the attendant tabloid attention – including a quick-burning relationship with Britney that he vividly (he says jokingly) detailed in a notorious 2007 Blender Magazine article.

His extracurricular exploits threatened to derail Rotem the musician. So, in 2007,  he re-calibrated his production goals and established Beluga Heights, a label imprint where he could cultivate new vocal talent. Sean Kingston, the teenage Jamaica-via-Miami singer, hit first with “Beautiful Girls,” one of the defining songs of that summer.

That tune set a template of Caribbean-inflected, beat-driven synth-pop for Rotem that, three years later, has sneakily become one of the dominant sounds of pop radio. His latest project, the debut from young singer-songwriter Jason Derulo out today, sports two sleek and absolutely inescapable singles in “Whatcha Say” and “In My Head,” while he simultaneously led Iyaz’s breakout track “Replay” to No. 2 on the Billboard's pop chart.

It seems like Rotem’s finally made a second major move in his music career, having become one of a select group of producers who spin singular chart gold out of completely unknown artists.

“That’s what’s becoming our forte, identifying raw talent,” Rotem said from the minimalist, workmanlike lounge inside his Mid-City recording studio. “My brother Tommy does our A&R and he spends an awful lot of time on MySpace.”

If only we all had a brother like Jason Derulo to pick up the pieces when we made a mess of our love lives. The Miami-raised L.A. transplant's hit "Whatcha Say" -- currently lurking in striking distance of Jay Sean's "Down" at the top of the Hot 100 -- is a shimmering entry into the canon of R&B apology songs, penned after his wayward brother was caught stepping out, and needed a bold intervention to keep his relationship together. To judge from "Whatcha Say," nothing short of a vocoder-heavy Imogen Heap sample and piano-and-808s balladry from producer J.R. Rotem (himself enjoying a second chart wind after helming the rise of Sean Kingston) would be sufficient. Did it work? We asked Derulo about make-up etiquette, being "soul mates" with Rotem and what a lovelorn pop star can learn from Shakespeare.

"Whatcha Say" comes from a long lineage of make-up songs. Did it do the trick?

My brother called me one day to tell me he'd cheated on his girl, but that he felt terrible and really wanted to stay together. I told him, "Tell her this!" That feeling was so real, people go through it every day. So I wrote the song, and he played it for her, and now they've got a beautiful baby.

I guess it worked then. Speaking of interpersonal chemistry, you're doing your debut album entirely with J.R. Rotem. That must take a lot of trust, to work so closely with one producer on your first-impression record. Why him?

Our energy and connection was like nothing I'd ever experienced. We have a chemistry like Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones; we're really like soul mates. We've done something like 300 songs together. I'd always wanted the usual prospects to work on my record, like Timbaland. But I've got so many influences -- rock, country, rap -- that I really needed someone special. I didn't want to come off as an R&B artist just because of the color of my skin. When you hear the rest of the stuff, there's rock guitars, there's live drums, there's even banjos. I've studied classical music and jazz, and ballet and tap dancing and musical theater and Shakespeare, and I wanted all of that in there.