While
watching the 2008 BET Awards last night, I was praying that they would actually
have a good show this year. When I say a 'good show' I don't mean entertaining,
but rather a well produced and well rehearsed show. The BET Awards are always
entertaining, but often times there are a lot of miscues that are obvious as
day and look really bad on television. This
year was no exception to the trend. The show had some really good performances
and nice moments, but still the BET Awards had some moments that had me
thinking WTF?!
Chris Brown, T-Pain,
Alicia Keys, Lil Wayne, NeYo & Al Green all had standout performances last
night. Neyo's performance of "Closer" was especially entertaining
because of the unexpected appearance of last year's America's
Best Dance Crew champions, the Jabbawockeez. Although there were good
performances, there were also bad ones. Usher's opening act was disappointing
to say the least. Instead of performing part two of his smash hit "Love in
This Club" with Beyonce and Lil Wayne, he simply danced while singing the
original.
Another performance that
should have been better was Young Jeezy's. Jeezy took the stage with Kanye to
perform the hood anthem "I Put On" which should have been a
performance full of energy. Although I love the song, I found myself twisting
my face up at the screen and bored by the effort given by Jeezy and Ye'. Keyshia
Cole was another artist whose performance was subpar. Keyshia's voice sounded
off when she performed her single, "Sent from Heaven". The
performance went from bad to worse when a sea-creature dressed as Lil' Kim got
onstage and rapped Kim's verse to "Let it Go". Halfway through the
performance someone informed me that the thing onstage actually was Lil Kim'. I
didn't eat anything for the rest of the night.
One
positive message that the 2008 BET Awards did deliver to its audience is that
reading is fundamental. Besides not being funny at all, D.L Hughley managed to
call gospel recording artist Marvin Sapp Warren Sapp. I know Marvin Sapp isn't
the smallest man alive, but there's no way you can mistake him for an NFL
defensive tackle. Rapper M.C Lyte also had a mix-up with names. Instead of
pronouncing Cuba Gooding Jr.'s first name like the country, she introduced him
as Cooba Gooding Jr. Cuba probably didn't hear her anyway since he looked like
he had too many drinks before coming onstage.
One of the girls from BET's "Baldwin
Hills" read and pronounced all of her words correctly. In fact, she was so
good and had so much fun reading that she decided to read the production notes
on the cue cards as well. While telling the viewers who was performing after
the commercial break, she read the ellipses out loud saying "dot dot
dot". Hopefully at that point in the show, all of the responsible parents
watching the show with their kids turned off the TV and made their children
pick up a book.
The
part that I was really looking forward to seeing was Barack Obama's appearance
at the awards. Allegedly, he was supposed to be there to address the audience
and viewers at home. I didn't expect him to be there long, but I did expect him
to at least make an appearance and say something. By the time Lil Wayne took
the stage for the last performance of the night, I realized that there was
going to be no Obama. That honestly was the biggest disappoint to me. I can cut
BET some slack on the Obama appearance because I can understand that he's a
very busy man these days. The entire night presenters were shouting out Obama,
so I was sure he was going to pop up at some point. I was wrong and Obama never
showed. All I can say is McCain in 08'!
As I
expected, the 2008 BET Awards were entertaining but failed to compare to MTV's
award shows. I'm not saying that they have to spend their entire budget on the
show to get fancy special effects, but I do think they can clean it up a little
bit.