2010 BET Awards

So the BET awards were on tonight and you know I had to tune in. They were honoring Prince with a lifetime achievement award, but more importantly, there was to be another tribute to Michael Jackson. No way I would miss that, but first things first.

If you missed the show and are going to watch a re-air of it, let me save you some grief – skip the first hour. Seriously. You might miss one or two people you’d have wanted to SEE but the performances were lackluster, at best, for the most part. It didn’t start getting good until Nia Long showed up on stage, reenacting a scene from Love Jones, with none other than Larenz Tate, lookin scrumptious beyond legal limits, I might add.

Then, an hour and a half into the show, Jermaine Jackson appears and introduced the MJ tribute. Who’s performing it, you ask? Why, Chris Brown, of course.

Now I know you all remember that Breezy was blackballed from a lotta shit last year, behind that altercation with Rhianna, and therefore, was unable to participate in the tribute BET put together for him last year. When I tell you that this boy killed it, I mean he KILLED IT!! I don’t care if you hate Chris Brown for the rest of your life, on account of him putting his hands on Rhianna, but nobody could have watched that dance performance and not given him his props. You tell me one other person who could have done it better – just ONE. Don’t worry, I’ll wait………………………….

**still waiting**

Don’t even waste your time.

Facebook was all abuzz afterwards, because after the dancing segment, he was supposed to sing Man in the Mirror, but he couldn’t stop crying long enough to do it. It took a minute to realize that he was crying, and not winded, but the big controversy online was whether his breakdown was real or not. Some said he was crying for real, but it was because he was trying to gain sympathy from the Rhianna fiasco. Some said the breakdown was contrived and that the whole situation was a set up.

COME ON SON!

Listen. This boy did something that we all agree he shouldn’t have. He paid for it legally, he paid for it professionally, and worst of all, he paid for it personally, not being able to participate in the original tributes that were put together on ANY show for the person that everybody knows was his idol. A YEAR LATER, he is finally allowed to do it, and is introduced by the man’s FAMILY, he, very visibly, leaves his heart out on that stage, and they expect the boy to be able to sing? I’m sure he did it in rehearsals, or they wouldn’t have kept it in the show, but don’t people think the magnitude of the night would come down on him come showtime? He wasn’t just crying, he was going through something, and you could SEE that shit. And Im not gonna say there wasn’t a little bit of redemption in it, but I think that’s warranted. You’re talking about a guy that could very well have become a casualty of his own stupidity, whose career could have been over, and for a while, Im sure he thought it was. In preparation, he was probably thinking to himself about the parallels between them – both being ostracized and alienated. At least, I would have. He’s paying tribute to his idol AND he’s being welcomed back into the fold, and the song he’s supposed to sing is Man in the Mirror, no less? Again….

COME ON SON!

Much better men would have broken down in that situation. Nevertheless, he was there to do a job, and he did the hell out of it. You couldn’t even be mad that he cried through the song. You just couldn’t. And to date, it’s the best tribute to Michael there has been, and quite frankly, Im not sure a better one is possible. I mean, unless somebody was gonna go dig Diana Ross outta the vault she’s been in for the last however long, nothing would have come close, IMO. But that’s me. Watch it for yourself, if you haven’t already.

Breezy stole the show, but there were definitely other highlights. Somebody went and dragged El Debarge outta the dungeons of has-been hell and OMG! Not only is he still a cutie, he still got the pipes. If Im not mistaken, he’s working on a new CD, and I don’t think Im mad at all LOL.

Contrary to Trey Songz’ efforts, the Prince tribute was all female, and a little disappointing. You know Prince aint having just no anybody perform his shit, but I think they get a big ole #FAIL on this one. Granted, Alicia Keys crawling her pregnant butt across a baby grand was interesting, and Patti did murder [the second half] of Purple Rain, but I definitely think it could have been a lot better. Prince was very gracious in his acceptance though, and kept it very brief. I like that.

Queen Latifah was an alright host, but I think it took the audience a minute to realize she was cracking jokes. They got it eventually. One thing I do need though, BET, is for yall to just let Mike Epps sit in the audience from now on. I love him in movies, but outside of those, dude is not funny. He’s just not. I want him to be, so bad, but he is corny as hell.

All in all though, it was a pretty good show, after the first hour. I think the tribute to MJ alone made it worth the watch. Way to man up, BET, and thanks for firing last year’s sound guy and getting someone who actually took a class or two. I appreciate that.