BET Awards Recap
So I live-blogged the BET Awards last night on my Iphone so here is my play by play:
(CLICK HERE TO WATCH ALL THE PERFORMANCES)
New Edition: Overall good job but was the tongue sticking out really necessary Bobby? It’s always good to see New Edition performing together and I’m glad they went old school to start of the tribute portion. I can tell already that the sound is going to be a problem tonight (AS ALWAYS).
Jamie Foxx’s opening monologue: Hilarious without crossing the line. Loved the moonwalk!
Lebron James tearing up while accepting “Best Athlete” was touching…class act in the face of the rowdy LA crowd chanting Kobe Bryant.
Keri Hilson: Whoa when did she learn to dance like that? Surprisingly hot performance…she looked beautiful, danced better than ever, and sounded fantastic! The last little a-capella part was a tad bit awkward but she still killed it.
Ne-Yo: Beautiful voice and great rendition of “Lady of My Life”.
Sidebar: Whoa Joe Jackson in the audience? Pretty unexpected but perhaps seeing all the love for MJ is therapeutic.
Keke Palmer sounded good singing MJ go girl!
Jamie Foxx- Blame It: LOVE the song but the auto tuner sounded terrible! Snoop Dogg was pointless even though the mix with “Drop It Like Its Hot” was hot. I hate to say it but Jamie proves that it takes skill to use Auto tuner as good as T-Pain. Speaking of T-Pain please sit your coon ass down with that “Big Ass Chain “. The rock remix was overkill but I love me some Travis Barker.
Sidebar: Why in the hell do people think getting knocked up by a famous rapper makes them interesting? The Tiny & Toya show is the most pointless show thought of since “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”.
Nice shot out to the 3 brothas who made a pack to get educated and become doctors.
Beyonce: Singing “Ave Maria” and she sounds amazing but looks utterly ridiculous. I’m not sure what she was going for with the background graphics and the choregraphed movements and facial expressions but it was very awkward. There is no denying Bey’s talent but this was not her best performance.
OMG a Wanda & Sheneneh movie? Please tell me they aren’t joking! That would be hilarious!
Mary Mary: The song is hot but they sound hella shaky! Don’t know if it’s bootsy ass BET’s sound system or they are just not ready for prime-time. However, I’m gonna need the BET crowd to get just as pumped about “The God In Me” as they were about “Blame It On The Alcohol”. Queen Latifah livened things up! Overall, decent performance that could’ve been a lot better if the vocals were on point.
Lmao at Zoe Saldana trying to explain that Nichelle was in the bathroom! Talk about awkward. Anyway nice to see someone genuinely excited to win an award…Taraji Henson is so cute (even if her hair wasn’t).
Jamie Foxx & Ne-Yo: Thank you Jamie for just singing. Ne-Yo is having a totally on point night vocally. The ballet dancer is an odd choice. Fabolous’ voice sounds off but I love his glasses! Lol@ Jamie’s ad-libs (”Take me out in this recession”). Overall a very lackluster and unnecessary performance.
Bringing out big male acts from the past didn’t seem as natural as Alicia Keys and the girl groups. But Keith Sweat was cool.
Oh shit the original Guy?! This is what VH1 should have done for their tribute to New Jack Swing instead of having T-Pain and Keyshia Cole butcher their songs. Too bad they sounded dreadful!
Bel Biv Devoe on the other hand sounded a lil better. Seriously though why does BET have 3 days of rehearsals but can never get the sound system together!
Ciara: Thank you for proving my point that you can do so much better than showing off your T&A. Lovely rendition of “Heal The World”.
Keyshia Cole & Monica: Whoa is Keyshia wearing Capri pants? Anyway…she keeps getting better and more solid vocally. I’m so happy to see Monica back on the main stage. The set really did a huge disservice to their performance (WTF was up with the spinning circle and all the walking up and down the stairs?) but they still managed to do a great job.
Jamie Foxx led Beyonce to her seat for something “big” and then introduced Jay-Z. Why didn’t I see that coming? Funny Hov is singing “DOA” when half the show’s performances featured auto-tuner. Although I must say the show made a strong case for why he may have a point. Great performance by Jay-Z. (Did you guys catch Jamie on the after-party show saying “Jay-Z ain’t talking about me, I’m doing great with the auto-tuner and I got some more stuff I’m gonna be doing it on” lmao).
Side-eye @ Day 26. Those guys are just way too goofy and totally un-serious. Don Cornelius is classic but damn he sure is getting old! Bless his heart though A for effort.
O’Jays tribute performance: BET always manages to find the MIA for these tributes and Tevin Campbell is a prime example. Not quite sure why they chose him though. Trey Songz, Johnny Gill, and Tyrese looked and sounded great. I loved the choreography. Those fellas came out their and sang their hearts out…in the midst of the wonderful tributes to MJ it’s nice to see that these guys took their job of saluting The OJays seriously and did them justice. Absolutely stellar!
Sidebar: Did Don not get the memo that this is a timed event? LOL…poor thing is just rambling and nobody has the heart to tell him the show needs to go on. Eddie Levert cussing and shit on national tv and the other guy digging for gold in his ear= Not ready for prime-time but hilarious.
The O’Jays still got it! “For the Love Of Money” never gets old!
It’s nice too see Alicia Keys and Wyclef Jean getting recognized for their humanitarian works. Perhaps some of the acts in the audience will take a page from their book.
LOL at Taraji & Tyrese reprising Yvette & Jody. Hilarious! Um ok now with Ving Rhames it went from funny to coonery. SMH.
Maxwell: Great performance, but honestly by now I’m sick of the show and ready for it to be over.
Drake: He picked a wrong time to tear his ACL because it is utterly impossible to command the stage sitting on a stool the entire time.
Young Money: Wow…this is HORRIBLE! What in the hell would possess BET to have these guys up here singing this absurdly vulgar song and running around like idiots in a show that has mostly been devoted to honoring Michael Jackson? I guess this is more like what the show would’ve looked like if they weren’t forced to revamp it. Disgraceful and literally nauseating. The entire world is watching the tribute and this is the kind of garbage that they put on stage. Oh yeah and the parents of the little 12 year old looking girls dancing on stage to “Every Girl” need to be slapped. Horrible on every level.
Janet Jackson makes a surprise appearance in what is perhaps one of the most gut wrenching scenes I have ever witnessed on an awards show. Her presence brings so much credibility to the tribute and it is absolutely amazing to see her up there. She looked beautiful and her strength and love for Michael radiated through the screen.
Jamie and Ne-Yo close the show with an emotionally stirring performance of “I’ll Be There”. Janet and this performance are a magnificent way to close the show.
Overall…in spite of some serious lapses in judgement for performance choice, the BET Awards did a great job of revamping the entire show in 3 days. Was it a complete tribute? No…but it was a remarkable thing to be able to turn things around in such a short time frame. I suspect that in the future that when the people closest to him aren’t still in a state of shock and grief they will be able to put together a bigger and better tribute.
What do you guys think of the awards show? What was your favorite performance?
Posted by Reecie
I’ll try to keep it concise even though there is a lot I would love to say
-The MJ tribute..the timing was totally off. Why they would choose to place it right after the foolishness and embarrassment that was Young Money I’ll never understand. They should’ve placed it a little bit earlier in the show, so that way the show didn’t end on such a somber note. Secondly, I have no idea why they choose to use Jamie and Neyo, they performed numerous times in the show. I found myself asking “is this a tribute to MJ or a tribute to Jamie and Neyo” because the show was mostly about them. If Janet hadnt come out prior to Jamie and Neyo singing “I’ll Be There” I think it would’ve just been another solid vocal performance but nothing special. Lastly, no dance tribute?? what?? Just call up some of the groups from ABDC, I’m sure they would’ve threw something great together even with 3 days to prepare. Personally, my idea of a tribute with only a few days to prepare would’ve been to have a video collage, then have Janet come out, and then have a few artists sing one of Michael Jacksons more socially conscious/heartfelt songs. That would’ve been the minimal even if they couldnt do anything else.
-The flow of the show was so unorganized. And I’m not buying the whole “oh they had 3/4 days to prepare” they could’ve easily kept it simple and I think most people would’ve respected BET for making a conscious decesion to do it that way.
-False Advertisement. They used MJ for ratings. BET said that certain artists including Usher and JT were trying to get last minute plane tickets to come and pay tribute to MJ..come to find out Ludacris tweeted last night that he was in France with Usher.
-Tiny & Toya…WOW they’re show preview was not what I expected. It was emotional and showed a certain side that I didnt expect. I’ll actually be tuning in to see the full show. BET needs to change those advertising commercials for the show ASAP because they sound so simple, when there really is more to them.
-Beyonce was a let down. I was expecting something from her, not sure what, but I know that wasn’t it. Good vocals though.
-Jamie was a pretty good host. I thought he was mostly funny. I loved his first performance though. Snoop was indeed pointless, but I love Snoop so it didnt matter to me. And Travis..WOW..it would’ve probably been a whatever performance if Travis didnt come out.
-Joe Jackson…smh. Normally, I say things like “everyone handles things differently” but did this man really just promote his record production company on CNN. He was at the BET awards laughing and smiling. Janet was sincere, but I dont feel Joe is. I’m glad to hear that Janet was put in charge of Michaels estate, because I don’t think Joe really cares.
And I’ll leave it at that, overall poor show. I would say I’m going to boycott BET, but its hard to boycott a station that you don’t even really watch. But they just reaffirmed why I dont watch it anymore.
I was hoping for some kind of Usher perfomance of a MJ song. Maybe bring out all the singer dancers- Like O, Genuwine, Usher, JT or something like that. If they are true performers of the dancing caliber, they could have pulled it together in 3 days. The awards were just ok to blah.
@Katherine – I saw that CNN I thought t same thing. Your son died and you get on camera and promote your stuff (not a good look).
This is the most laudatory post about the BET Awards that I’ve read.
Nattedem…these are the comments I wrote as I watched the show…so they are my minute by minute reaction to the show. I actually enjoyed it for the most part even if by the time it got to Drake I was sick of the show and couldn’t wait for it to go off.
People get so wrapped up in criticizing BET that they don’t always acknowledge the individual performances…and a lot of people went on that stage and did an excellent job.
Reecie, your heard mase best I ever had remix?
http://www.zshare.net/audio/62014576b8984121/
Reecie,
Thank you for this. I basically live tweeted the awards as well as the rest of the world (twitter and fb statuses were changing in real time). I’ve never been BET’s biggest fan and have let them know through letters and chasing down Reginald Hudlin at alumni conferences. HOWEVER….knowing the hot mess that the BET Awards usually are, they did a solid job in trying to honor Michael Jackson as well. They added an extra half hour and used the people they had, plus New Edition …NeYo is one of MJ’s biggest swagger jackers so his performances were understandable. Usher released a statement saying he was trying to get a ticket to fly back but couldnt. Stevie Wonder and John Legend were in concert in Milwalkee and from what I hear Stevie did a great tribute at the concert.
I think they should have just cut some of the planned acts instead of adding time and there should never be ten year old girls dancing on stage.
I still think a proper tribute is necesary after the family has had some time to mourn in private. I’m not getting ito the issues of Joe Jackson’s presence: that’s the family’s choice. And Black Entertainment Television definitely needs time to honor an entertainer that changed so much for Black entertainers in the industry.
I still aint watching 106 and Park tho.
Kim
The thing about the show is that everybody signs contracts to perform way ahead of the actual show. In the midst of all that has transpired, we gotta remember that this is still a business. But if I were one of the performing artists, I would’ve felt compelled to at least give a portion of my set to singing an MJ song, if not a whole song, maybe a quick verse & chorus of one. And w/ some artists, they sign contracts to perform a specific song. Even if that were to be true, if I were BET, I would’ve asked all of the singers to come out at the end to sing a verse of “I’ll Be There”. These artists get paid to perform. Part of performing is improvising. Contract or not, performance wardrobe or not, I think it’s owed to MJ and to the fans to have done that if it was billed as a tribute, and if the lasting impression of the show was to have an MJ song be done. Televised shows take months to prepare, and I understand that, so I think it’s unrealistic to have totally revamped it. But there was enough talent on board to have more than Ne-Yo and Jamie Foxx on program all night. I blame BET for advertising it as a tribute to MJ, because it was far from it. They did an okay job in 3 days, but with the end product, I would’ve waited to have a whole program w/ nothing but MJ. BET cashed in on ratings and didn’t live up to the hype. If it were gonna be a tribute, it should’ve been a TRIBUTE. It was more “Reflections of MJ” than a “Tribute of MJ”.
BkQueen- They could’ve definitely cut out Lil Wayne/Drake and Soulja Boy!
Jonathan- Good point about contracts and the business side. I was a little surprised though that some of the acts didn’t incorporate a MJ song into their set. He has such an extensive collection there had to be a song that each person could use. Oh well!