The BET Awards: Watching the Pageant So You Don’t Have To
For this year’s BET Awards, I assembled my dream team:
* Lashanna, 28, mother of two
* Trina (not to be confused with the "Best Female Hip-Hop Artist" nominee of the
same name), 31, mother of…
* Imphamous a.k.a. Imp the Pimp, 14
* Nastalja, 10
This literally mixed bunch is a perfect pack of purebred mongrels, as willing and able to hold forth on the suspicious enterprise of race-based marketing as they are to clear the couches for a communal limbo at the least hint of Flo Rida’s ubiquitous “Low.” On the home front, plenty of what transpired would be inappropriate to repeat here, but a few highlights from the show merit mention.
Usher opened the show. He hardly sang, though, apparently too busy prancing the stage and only occasionally planting his feet to gesture as if jack-hammering his own pelvis.
D.L. Hughley took less than 30 seconds to drop his first white joke, an occasionally repeating ruse that only once aroused laughter among our party, when Niecy Nash (of Reno 911) cited Madonna and Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt’s well-publicized and mutually congratulatory adoptions as a call for the audience to start adopting more white kids. To avoid any confusion, Nash brought a few out on stage with her, names of Marquis, Clidell, and “Little Raineesha.”
“These kids are great for my credit score!” she exclaimed.
For the night’s second performance, Keyshia Cole waltzed straight out
of a pseudo-Herb Alpert album cover and into a serviceable song that sadly devolved into a
duet with Lil’ Kim, signaling a tailspin that lasted half an hour, punctuated
only by the conclusion of Ne-Yo’s performance when a pack of dancing masked mimes
popped onstage like the Phantoms of the Hip-Hopera.
By way of passing irony, Flo Rida’s “Low” was choreographed for the most fabulously costumed awards-show performers in living memory, female dancers on stilts with long, flowing, puffed white pants that were a whipped-cream reprise of Keyshia’s Cole confectionary ensemble.
Gospel heavyweight Marvin Sapp sang amidst a surreally conceived staging that might quietly go down in history as the first mash-up of Mandela, Jesus, Obama, and spandex.
Chris Brown almost put on the performance of the night, helped along by a gorgeously cascading waterworks show, but the evening's apex came with the presentation of the BET Lifetime Achievement Award to Al Green.
“I am so honored and humbled by the Academy… of the BET Awards,” Green began. Nervous chuckles begat uncomfortable laughter from both the audience in Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium and the peanut gallery in my living room, but the immediate impression of late-stage senility vanished when Green sang, a doting but nevertheless inspired rendition of his famous "Let's Stay Together."
Like most such big-budget industry circle jerks, the BET Awards were largely predictable and 50% too long, and I ran out of professional interest before the show ended. Without further ado, then, the winners:
- Best Female R&B Artist: Alicia Keys
- Best Male R&B Artist: Chris Brown
- Best Group: UGK ... Highly recommended!
- Best Gospel Artist: Marvin Sapp
- Best Female Hip-Hop Artist: Missy Elliott
- Best Male Hip-Hop Artist: Kanye West
- Best New Artist: The-Dream
- Video of the Year: UGK featuring Outkast, "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)"
- Best Collaboration: Kanye West featuring T-Pain, "Good Life"
- Best Video Director: Erykah Badu and Mr. Roboto
- Viewers' Choice Award: Lil Wayne featuring Static, "Lollipop"
- BET J Award: Raheem DeVaughn
- Best Actress: Halle Berry
- Best Actor: Denzel Washington ... What is this, the 2002 Oscars?
- Female Athlete of the Year: Candace Parker
- Male Athlete of the Year: Kobe Bryant
For a comprehensive spread of the nominees, performers, honorees, and related artists, click
this red carpet.
Until next year,
Your ChordStrike BET Awards Correspondent…
--Jason Kirk
Pundit Joe on June 26, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Jordan -
Dutch and British are nationalities. While they were, at one time, defined by genetic heritage - they are now defined by allegiance and a common set of values. There are now British and Dutch of all colors. Divisions of ideology and values are real, divisions because of skin pigmentation are illusion.
Sadly, racism seems perfectly acceptable to many blacks in America today, as evidenced by the BET Awards. Many folks were excluded, not because of a lack of merit, but because they lacked some magical amount of pigment in their skin.
Rewarding excellence should be just that... rewarding those that excel in their given field. Skin color does not make a person more talented, more skilled or creative, so why is it a factor in recognizing excellence or achievement?
Segregation like this only serves to foster the idea that the color of a person's skin does indeed make a difference in their ability to achieve. If blacks and whites are just as capable of achieving then why have separate awards? Of course, people of all colors can achieve greatness, talent and skill is not a reflection of skin pigmentation, but having separate awards can lead folks to believe it might.
Roger -
The BET awards are not about celebrating African heritage - it is a “celebration of African-Americans and other minorities in music and other entertainment fields“. Follow the links in the original post for the quote source.
I have no problem with celebrating heritage - because that is mostly a focus on culture and values. Those things are real and serve valuable functions, but can the same be said about skin color? Did Africans develop civilizations because they were black, or was it their intelligence, values, and determination that allowed them to achieve? I say it was their intelligence, values, and determination. The same goes for any group of people…
jordan on June 26, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Roger, I see where you are coming from, but I don't agree.
Most African Americans' ancestors were forced to come to America in the slave trade, and many don't know what "tribe" they came from. Their common heritage mostly comes at the "African American" level--rather than the tribe level--because they lost that piece of their history.
A lot of things can determine what culture one identifies themselves with. I'm 1/4 dutch, 1/4 swedish, 1/8 creek indian, and then a bunch of other stuff.
However, I strongly identify with my dutch culture because of my dutch grandfather's influence on my life. I go to Dutch events, etc--and I don't find it AT ALL "racist" to celebrate my dutch heritage.
I don't see how it's any different for the black community to celebrate their heritage--including via a BET event.
Gigglestick on June 25, 2008 at 05:13 PM
Ugh! The BET Awards have become about as useless as College Hill, 106 & Park, and pretty much all of the programming that a once promising and relevant network has spiraled towards in these latter days. Whatever happened to The Tavis Smiley Show? Or BET News? Or even Teen Summit? Believe it or not, BET was once informative; not just to Black Americans, but everyone. Now it has become nothing more than a stereotype machine, with reruns of The Parkers and Different Strokes on Saturday mornings. Comic View isn't even funny anymore. It's just stupid and predictable. Where have you gone, Donnie Simpson?
roger on June 25, 2008 at 04:37 PM
jordan-
following your logic you would have to further segregate "african americans" by tribe as well. who knows if they're berber or ashanti or amhara or maasai, get the point? i know i'm english, irish, cherokee, choctaw, and german (but only because i have an aunt thats a genealogist) so how would i be categorized unless there was a mutt category?
Jordan on June 25, 2008 at 03:49 PM
I don't know. Racist is a kinda strong way to describe this. It's a group of people celebrating their collective culture.
African American is an American subculture--"white" is not.
If there were "Dutch" or "British" music awards (actual US subcultures), no one would be offended.
I think you guys are comparing apples to oranges.
Just my opinion, though.
Pundit Joe on June 25, 2008 at 01:02 PM
Do the folks at BET think it is okay to use the color of a person’s skin as a determining factor in recognizing excellence? Apparently so.
It breaks my heart to see so many people engage in such an obviously racist endeavor.
njckmiller on June 25, 2008 at 10:13 AM
tee hee is right; a WET awards ceremony would certainly have brought the not-so-good, bad and ugly out of the woodwork: tit for tat? now that would be stupid. will we (meaning everyone) ever come to the incomparable and luscious truth that we are all related?; not in my lifetime, but I'm always hopeful. God is good.
as for the BET presentation of last evening, I'm sorry to say that I fell asleep just before it came on. however I do both trust and enjoy the delicious appraisals of jason kirk and, yep, he sure does have an impressive dream team!
tee hee on June 25, 2008 at 09:26 AM
Ahh the separate but equal. i still laugh over and over- as an little mixed girl (african american/white mutt) about the uproar there would be if there was a WET awards ceremony. There would be cries from every which direction. there comes a times when things just aren't needed. an award ceremony for black people only- come on. we're past that. Now- most of the big awards shows are starting to award to african americans... just recently.
with all the obama talk (OBAMA '08!!!!) you would think that BET would say- hey yep it's time to change- we're just having an award celebration- white, black, brown, yellow, tan- we're just going to celebrate. All of our commercials, presenters and recipients don't have to be black....
i felt like watching the show was a guilty pleasure....i liked it- even caught myself dancing instead of walking around the house. the performances over all were pretty good.
jill scott has to work on her stage presence....
chris brown- brought the house down....
BET- get some better people to do your segways next year.
Paul A'Barge on June 25, 2008 at 07:42 AM
Did any white people win anything?
No? You don't say!
C.G. on June 25, 2008 at 05:43 AM
BET... segregating ourselves, so you don't have to. :/