My POV: The 2009 BET Awards

Listening to: "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson (I've been blasting him and bawling since the 25th, RIP MJ! We love you and miss you!)

So the 2009 BET Awards were very special this year because it was mostly a tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, who'd died suddenly only about two or three days earlier. I understand that BET's staff had to scrape and scramble to make those accommodations at the eleventh hour, and I've tried to keep that in mind as I review the awards show.

New Edition did a few Jackson Five favorites, but they were a little sub-par for me. They all seemed really hoarse. Maybe their prime is over. Jamie Foxx wore a couple of Michael Jackson outfits and made remembering him a celebration instead of mourning his death, which was great. He told jokes, of course, but some fell flat, and it seemed at times that he didn't really know what he was doing or what was next. Keri Hilson performed. She sounded really good until she kind of messed up during "Knock You Down" when her real voice didn't synch with the background vocals, but I think she still did well and had a cool but subtle tribute to Michael Jackson (in the song "Knock You Down", Kanye raps, "This is bad, real bad, Michael Jackson"). At the end of her performance she mimicked him at the end of the "Bad" video where he taunts Wesley Snipes. One of my favorite performances was when Ne-Yo sang an excerpt of "Lady in My Life", one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs. This is when I started to cry. He did a phenomenal job. 

Maybe I'm a Beyonce hater but I didn't really care for her performance. I thought it was a little boring and randomly over the top. Maybe that performance would have been good for something more elegant like the Grammys, but this is the BET Awards; Lil Wayne is going to perform here. There's no need for the opera antics. Jamie Foxx had an okay set, performing "Blame It" with T-Pain (who was weird all night as usual) and, randomly, Snoop Dogg. Maybe it's because I love the song but I was really excited when Jamie and Ne-Yo teamed up for "She Got Her Own". Afterwards Ne-Yo did a really cool set where he brought out old school artists to perform, kind of the way Alicia Keys did the year before. He brought out Keith Sweat, Guy (this is where I nearly died), and Bell Biv Devoe. It was one of the highlights of the night. 

I might be going to hell for this but I'm not a huge Mary Mary fan. However, their performance of "The God In Me" was really great, especially when they brought out Queen Latifah (who looked gorgeous!) to rap on the track. One of the (unintentionally) funniest moments at the show was when The O'Jays were going to receive their Lifetime Achievement Award and Don Cornelius, who was introducing the award, was taking a little too long to land his plane, if you know what I mean. I swore they were going to give him the "hurry the heck up" music. He told some weird stories that nobody got, and finally The O'Jays took the initiative to accept their award and cut his slow ass off. Eddie Levert of the O'Jays said the s-word which was hilarious because I thought these shows were edited or had some five-second delay or something. They performed some of their best songs (I love "Monay monay monay mo----nay.....mooooooooonay!" and "They smile in your face, all the time they wanna take your place, them backstabbers!") and the set was awesome. Before they received the award and before Don's long ass speech, Tyrese, Johnny Gill, and Trey Songz covered some O'Jay songs. Trey Songz looked really sexy. Just had to point that out. 

It was also pretty funny when Jamie Foxx and Martin Lawrence did a faux film trailer for a movie about their respective characters, Wanda from In Living Color and Sheneneh from Martin, being bank robbers. Jamie's character said told Sheneneh that "she" was pregnant by Chris Brown, and she knew it was his because "it keep kickin' me!". I must say, I died laughing. 

Taraji P. Henson, Tyrese, and Ving Rhames did some lame Baby Boy reunion skit thing, too. UGH. 

Drake performed his hit "The Best I Ever Had" sitting on a stool because he tore his ACL, but he looked sexy and I definitely look forward to seeing him and Lil Wayne and everybody else this August in concert! After his (shortened) performance, Weezy and the rest of Young Money joined him for a little "Every Girl". It sucked a little and Jamie Foxx's daughter and Weezy's daughter were on stage dancing, which I thought was weird. Hello? He's talking about borking every girl in the world...children shouldn't be dancing to that. Okay, Mom Mode over. Anyway, after that unfortunate piece of boiling trash performance, Birdman joined them onstage to perform "Always Strapped", a song I love. Poor Birdman. If he didn't have Weezy on every track nobody would ever like his songs. 

Another highlight of the night was when an emotional (and fur-clad--really? In June? In L.A.?) Janet Jackson came on the stage and thanked everyone for their support. It was truly sad to see her like that. The night ended with Jamie Foxx and Ne-Yo performing (again), singing "I'll Be There". It was a beautiful way to end the night.

However, overall, I must say the BET Awards are always poorly put together. My older brother said that's the "charm" of the show, but I call B.S. BET, can we get our act together? Someone's always messing up, nobody seems like they know what they're doing. It's like a bad church talent show where the Master of Ceremonies just can't get it together. You can see stagehands in the background and everything. It's pretty bad in my honest opinion. BET, please let's make these awards shows a little tighter and better executed. I'll give you a pass this year because of MJ.

I probably forgot some performances and highlights (I totally missed The Dream's performance, which I hate!), so I'm inviting you to share you opinions, other things I missed, whatever. 

Ta-ta,

BC