HOLLYWOOD─Another day, another award show. When I heard a week ago that the BET Awards would still host its 20th anniversary of the show, while also highlighting its 40th anniversary on the air, I was baffled to figure out just how they planned to make it happen. Low and behold the network still held the awards show, but it was vastly, and I mean vastly different than those iconic, hilarious and sometimes jaw-dropping opening acts we’ve witnessed in the past.
For starters, the show kicked off with a newly minted version of the Public Enemy hit “Fight the Power” with a host of famous names in the video. Of course it was to address issues pertaining to race relations and the Black Lives Matter movement that is taking place in our country right now. Amanda Seales, one of the stars of the HBO series “Insecure” and one of the hosts of “The Real” played the Master of Ceremonies. I love Amanda, the woman delivers poignant dialogues about issues in our country, but her attempt to deliver jokes just did not land.
You really have to feed off an audience when delivering jokes, and doing it virtually just doesn’t work people I’m sorry. I wish it did, but it doesn’t. She did a fine job considering the circumstances people. However, any music awards show is all about the performances and there were a ton of them. Again, I just wish we had them with an audience. A performance can really escalate when it has the opportunity to feed off of an audience people and none of these musicians really got the opportunity to do that during the ceremony.
I mean vocally John Legend, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson (whew I can see an Oscar nomination in her future for her performance of the Queen, Aretha Franklin) were powerhouses during the 3-hour event. As well as Wayne Brady, who delivered a tribute to the creator of Rock n’ Roll by many, Little Richard. We’ve lost many great icons over the years and to be honest it sucks greatly. Other performers included Chloe x Halle, DaBaby, D Smoke, Megan Thee Stallion, Kane Brown, Lil Wayne, Usher, Wayne Brady, Summer Walker, SiR and Roddy Ricch.
Roddy Ricch was a big winner of the night taking home the Best New Artist prize, as well as Album of the Year for “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial.” Dj Khaled, John Legend and the late Nipsey Hussle won Video of the Year for “Higher.” Megan Thee Stallion took home the award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, while DaBaby was victorious in the Best Male Hip-Hop race. Lizzo continued to prove her presence winning the BET Award for Best Female R&B/Pop Artist, while Chris Brown won Best Male R&B/Pop Artist. Brown also won for Best Collaboration for the song “No Guidance” featuring rapper Drake. Migos won Best Group, while Megan Thee Stallion won the Viewer’s Choice Award for “Hot Girl Summer.”
Other winners of the night included Kirk Franklin, Beyonce, LeBron James, Simone Biles, Issa Rae, Michael B. Jordan and Marsai Martin. Beyonce Knowles was honored with the Humanitarian Award courtesy of former First Lady Michelle Obama. I will admit it was nice to see the Queen Bee back on the TV screen. With this quarantine, I hope when new music does come out we are blessed with some inescapable hits people.
If what we’ve witnessed with the Daytime Emmy Awards and BET Awards are any indicator, perhaps we should scrap any upcoming award ceremonies until we can have an actual audience and GIVE out the awards to people. The problem is with the spike in COVID-19 cases, I have no idea if that will be feasible in the near future.
