Prince Tribute
The BET Awards went down last night in Los Angeles at the Shrine Auditorium. In my opinion, this was a great show!!!! So many great moments, some WTF and then there was Chris Brown!!!
The show got off to a great start as the host, Queen Latifah, performed a witty, musical re
partee which poked fun at some of the guests including Drake, Alicia Keys and her baby daddy Swizz Beatz. Other highlights of the evening included Kanye West on top of a snowy mountain wearing an uber over-sized Pharaoh – didn’t get that one! Jada Pinkett was in attendance (promoting the second season of her new show HawthoRN). She looked cute with her kids in tow but did Will see her leave the house in those pum pum shorts????
Then, as expected, Nicki Minaj won the BET Award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist (was she wearing a wedding dress?). Also, no surprise that Drake won for Male Hip Hop Artist.
While I’m on the subject of Nicki Minaj….Nicki since you are repping Trinidad, please use your pull, connects, Young Money power to convince BET that Caribbean music including soca, reggae and reggaeton need to be recognized at the BET Awards. This is supposed to be “our” awards show but BET is excluding and isolating an entire genrre of music by “our” people. Ok, I’m onto the next thing…
Monica’s performance with Deniece Williams was pure magic. Usher, Jeezy and T.I. also showed out and repped for the A! Diddy and Dirty Money needed a firetruck for all that damn smoke (WTF?). Visual effects are necessary to the visual appeal of a performance however, in this instance, it was overkill! Somebody said they didn’t want to see Diddy dancing anyway….it wasn’t me!
As the evening progressed, it was clear that BET was going in for the kill! They pulled out El DeBarge! I like the way he combs his hair and the stylish clothes he wears! He is now and forever a classic! But why did BET after having him give an awesome performance then have El DeBarge return as an “up and coming” artist??? WTF? Didn’t get that one either.
The two biggest moments of the night were certainly Chris Brown’s Michael Jackson tribute and the Prince tribute. Chris Brown channelled Michael Jackson as he moonwalked across the stage wearing the MJ sparkling glove and black fedora. The performance was riveting and spot on! And, just when we thought we had seen it all, Chris Brown had an emotional breakdown on live television. It occurred during his rendition of “Man in the Mirror”. How fitting a song for that moment in time. Kudos to BET for allowing Chris Brown to perform when no one else would take that chance. He made a huge mistake and will pay for it for many moon(walk)s to come but we all deserve forgiveness and a second chance.
The crowning moment of the night was the tribute to Prince. The performance included a piano climbing preggers Alicia Keys and was capped off with a shoe-kicking Patti LaBelle! Prince caught the shoe in left field and gave a very humble acceptance speech. What a show (loved the baby pictures)! How will BET top this next year???
For a list of all the winners, click here.
Editor’s Note – Alicia stay off them dang pianos before Swizz’ baby drops out!!!!
Photos: Courtesy of PictureGroup/BET Networks
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