10 Things I Liked About The 2010 BET Awards

06/28/2010

Aight, so… a year ago, I dissed BET for puttin’ on a half-assed show that was advertised as “a tribute to Michael Jackson“. I’ve prob’ly referred to BET in a shitty light a number of times on other occasions too. But as much as I dis them for their wack shows and their overall lack of givin’-a-shit, I can also admit that they came correct this year. I wasn’t gonna watch the BET Awards, because I usually don’t, but Twitter fukked around and pulled me in. I figured “ay, what the hell- at least if it sucks, me and my Twitter fam will provide quality jokes and observations”. Lo and behold, these niggas put on the best one I’ve seen since ’03. Well I’ll be damned.

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24 Comments | DanjSometimesLovesThe2000s, Nuff Respect Due, This Is TV! | Tagged: , | Permalink
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Livin’ For The City

09/09/2009

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Not sure how much of a news flash this is, but yeah, BET is ass. It’s even been confirmed as recently as yesterday by people who decided to go against their apprehensions and try to help change things from the inside. I can’t say that it was ever some kinda cornerstone of Black America or anything like that, but it’s progressively gotten more and more steeped in what-the-fuckery over the last few years.

That said, I’d be a got-damn lie if I said BET didn’t play a serious part in my teenage years as a big music freak. As I’ve said before, there was a time when I watched that ONE station all day long with a tape in the VCR and a hand on the remote. I still remember all the shows- Video Soul, Video Vibrations, Jam Zone, Planet Groove, etc. But the one show that was unconditionally my shit, without doubt, was Rap City.

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Around early-’92, after years of wanting cable but never being able to get it (it was unavailable in our apartment complex), we moved to a place where cable was available. One Wednesday afternoon, I came home from school just as the United Artists Cable of Baltimore truck arrived in front of my house. Being that this was a couple years before the first time I crushed some pink cookies with my building, I didn’t think I could get more excited about something. Later that afternoon while jumping thru each and every channel, I got to BET, which was playing a video called “Hickeys On Your Chest” by Little Shawn.

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From there, I was stuck on watching Rap City every afternoon. It didn’t have the production value of a Yo! MTV Raps, and the yellow-and-purple lettering on the video descriptions made it look even more cheesy. It was almost like public access TV, and it managed to look even more low-budget than BET itself was. Almost to a fault, they played damn near any rap video that was sent to them, no matter how low-quality it was. But for those same reasons, that show was right up my alley, especially since Yo! started getting its time cut by MTV around that same time.

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Despite my moms thoroughly disliking Rap City, I couldn’t get enough. Every other day, I’d hear complaints of “the same damn videos everyday with the same ugly-ass people”, but you couldn’t tell me it wasn’t the shit. It was the show to watch because more often than not, they ran the entire spectrum of what was out there. Whether it was Snoop, Lost Boyz, Master P, Common, Bone Thugs N Harmony, The Boogiemonsters, Fat Joe, or MC Eiht- all that shit could be seen in the course of those two hours and it didn’t seem strange to have all those different types of artists thrown in together.

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I can’t even count how many artists I saw for the first time ever on Rap City, or how many songs I remember STRICTLY because of how much the videos got played. The best thing about it was that they gave exposure to a lot of shit that was otherwise not being played, even on BET’s other shows. Even a video by the most underground rapper on the most random label could get regular play and possibly become a favorite. There were songs that were “hits” on the show that weren’t actually hits on any other level. In some cases, there were songs that later became huge pop hits getting play on Rap City months before everyone else caught up. It had little to do with who directed the video, or who the artist ran with- it was more about the music.

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This year, Rap City would’ve officially been on the air for 20 years, but it ultimately got canceled last October. Of course it was bound to happen, because video shows don’t nearly mean as much to stations (or viewers) as they did pre-Youtube. In true BET fukk-up fashion, the “Grand Finale” of the show was aired randomly as all hell for an hour on a Saturday night. Lame as that was, it was cool to see all the old hosts (Chris Thomas, Dajaur, Joe Clair, Big Lez, Tigger) come back for the last time. The brief montages they showed throughout the hour reminded me of why I used to anxiously wait for it to come on every afternoon at 4:30.

Rap City is another one of those things that I can gladly say I was able to experience firsthand. It may seem like no big deal to someone who didn’t come up in that era, but it was practically required viewing for anyone who was a hip-hop fan in the ’90s.

-D!

17 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheVideos, My Life, This Is TV! | Tagged: , | Permalink
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Nah, I’m Sayin’… You Know You Done F**ked Up, Dont’cha?

06/29/2009

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Alright, so… let’s say your name is Debra Lee, and you are the president and CEO of BET. The icon of icons has died three days prior to your channel’s award show. This artist is one whose music was not only once EXTRA-prevalent on your station, but has also influenced half of the people whose videos CURRENTLY air on your station. Although you only have three days to change things around, and no one expects you to perform miracles, you still have a chance to provide a fitting tribute (especially with more people probably tuning in than ever and all kinds of media outlets covering your event). Do you:

A) Deliver on your words, which were “this show is all about Michael“?

B) Include a tribute segment here, but opt to do a better-planned full-on tribute show at another time?

C) Put on an already half-assed show as planned, and add to its half-assedness by half-assing the tribute at that?

Two of those options would’ve been all good. But ultimately, Option C seems like the one they chose to run with. Good God Damn.

Don’t get me wrong, New Edition started things off right with the Jackson 5 medley. Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo closed out on a high note with a performance of “I’ll Be There”. Even better than that, Janet Jackson herself came out and spoke briefly to the audience prior to the final performance. Everything between that was just a bunch of mambajahambo and WTF moments. I knew going in that it wasn’t gonna be a 100% MJ show… but I didn’t expect a 15% MJ show either, especially after it being specifically noted that it was now going to become a tribute to him. In fact, I wasn’t even gonna watch the shit under normal circumstances, and I’m sure half the people who did weren’t going to either.

The one thing about this, from a personal standpoint, that gets me is that it’s BET. It’s the station that always prides itself on the legacy of not only “Black Entertainment”, but especially “Black Music”. In fact, until recent years, all it really was (90% of the time) was a music video channel. If the people who work there are able to believe today that Michael’s legacy (as well as BET’s) was properly honored last night, then so be it. Closer to the truth, BET was a better station when they were in DC with a shoestring budget and the cheapest-looking shows ever than they are today with muhfukkin’ Viacom backing them. At least then, you could expect that they’d be on their A-game, even if it wasn’t so much as a got-damn tribute to Marlon Jackson.

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Speaking of Viacom, the craziest part of this is that MTV and VH1 will probably top this shit without half-trying- the same way they do with the hip-hop retrospectives and even the damn reality shows. Because even with a heightened popularity, and better production value than they used to have, BET has been substandard-as-fuck for years. They have more TV shows, more viewers, more media coverage… and yet they still manage to be hot garbage in their presentation. They’ve had their moments, but they’ve been increasingly far-and-few between.

Again, my gripe is not with the fact that they didn’t give us an “OMG Michael Jackson All-Out Extravaganza Featuring Every Single Person You Can Think Of Doing A Stellar MJ Rendition!” given the time they had. It’s moreso with the fact that a semblance of that was advertised and they couldn’t even deliver that. What we did get was four mini-performances of MJ songs, a tribute to the O’Jays which was BETTER than the ones to Michael, and other things too random to remember. Worst of all, we got a (turrible) Drake/Lil’ Wayne/etc. performance that resembled four niggas rapping in a living room with their kids as the backup dancers. And THIS is the show dedicated to Michael Jackson.

BET can fix this… maybe. They can put together a well-planned show that properly pays respect to the man who made it possible for most of their current favorite stars to step on a stage. Given the time to do so, they could probably do it better than any other station would. Unfortunately, it’s probably not gonna happen that way. They’re likely fine with it how it was, especially since the ratings were great.

-D! (aight… back to business as usual tomorrah. The healing process has started, haha)

8 Comments | Hatin' On You, Huh?, SMH, TV, Wiggedy-Wack | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

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