Highlights of the BET Hip Hop Awards Show

In the famous lyrics of the old school group Soul II Soul, looks like it's "Back to life, back to reality!"
Just touched back down in Louisville, Ky. today from the ATL...fresh off of the BET Hip Hop Awards! If you don't want to know what happened and wait for it to come on T.V., I would recommend that you not read this and other blogs and stories online already published. But if you do, let me give you my personal opinion about the awards show: 



From a rating of 1 to 10, I honestly give it about a 7 in my book, which is still considered good to me. Rick Ross, Diddy and Dj Khaled opened up the show with a hot performance of "B.M.F." and "MC Hammer." But guess who stole part of their shine, Hammer did! Right after Ross, Diddy and Khaled stepped off stage, in comes Hammer and the crowd went wild! As usual, he had his backup dancers (not 20 like back in the day, but around 4-6) and performed "Too Legit 2 Quit." Now if you are 25 and up, you remember that this song was crazy popular back in the day! And, I must say, he hasn't lost any of his dance moves. Ross' and Hammer's performance really started the show off right in a major way.

Then, in comes Mike Epps strolling on some roller skates doing his famous retarded "chicken arm" impression. He was a very good host and kept the crowd entertained with jokes about Kat Stacks, Kim Kardashian, Soulja Boy, and a host of other celebrities. He also joked about Rick Ross being the new Barry White, which I thought was funny.

A major "No-No" I think they had in the show this year were the cyphers, which has always been my favorite part of the show. However, this year's show had a total of seven cyphers, and most of these rappers were up and coming artists or no-names that not even the crowd recognized. Standouts in the cyphers were Toronto, Canada's own Rema Major. I called her the total package...she is like a Nicki Minaj and a Lil Kim combined! Kanye surprised everybody by joining the cypher, alongside his artists from his G.O.O.D. music label such as Common and Pusha T. But I must say that the best cypher everyone enjoyed at the show was the father and sons connect of Ice Cube and his two sons, Doughboy and OMG, and Rev. Run and Diggy and JoJo Simmons. Cube's sons surprised me, in a good way, and Cube did his thing as well. Rev. Run....well...I believe everyone applauded out of respect...I mean, he is a reverend after all. The crowd went crazy when it was Diggy's turn to go and he didn't disappoint. As usual, JoJo received little or no props at all for his bars.

Other highlight performances included Gucci and Swizz beats performing "Gucci Time...." J. Cole with "Who Dat".....Soulja Boy's "Pretty Boy Swag"....B.O.B. with "Don't let me Fall"....which was incredible because of the way he can sing, rap, have a drummer, background singers and play his guitar at the same time....Waka Flaka did his thing with "No Hands".....and the Dipset Reunion was pretty descent as well. I'm an old school kind of guy, so one that I thoroughly enjoyed was Digital Underground. After Cali Swagg performed "Teach Me How to Dougie," Digital Underground's Shock G came on the stage and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! They taught ya'll how to Dougie, but we taught ya'll how to do the Humpty!" The crowd went crazy again and everyone got out of their seats to do the Humpty dance. The Underground also performed "I Get Around" in dedication of Tupac. "We always got to see the thug side of him, but we never got to see the fun side of him," said Shock G.





Antoine Dodson, famously known for being gay and a white guy turning his news interview about his sister being nearly raped in the projects into a song (Hide Ya Kids, Hide Ya Wife), came out and performed. He also came out dressed like Punky Brewster...You don't know who that is, google her, lol. You can tell he was very nervous and damn near didn't wanna sing it. But it was one of the highest selling ringtones on iTunes and it did buy him a house for him and his family to move out of the projects sooooo....lol

TV talk show host Mo'Nique presented Salt N' Pepa with the "I Am Hip Hop" Award, which they were very deserving of. And Mike Epps had few more funny moments...when he came out in a Shiny Suite dancing like P. Diddy (we knew him as Puff Daddy back then, lol.) He also came out with the New Boyz dressed in tight skinny jeans and a skinny t-shirt. "What the hell ya'll lookin' at, I ain't gotta wear these tight ass jeans everyday," he said. "Jeans so damn tight I can see ya blood pressure in' em." Oh yeah, and a special tribute was made to Gangstarr member Guru, who we recently lost to cancer. DJ Primo, Guru's son and nephew honored him.



AND THE WINNER IS................



Just like last year, it was another good year for Young Money. Nicki Minaj racked up about four awards and Drake took home a couple as well. On the male side, Rick Ross and Jay Z pretty much dominated....sorry 50! LOL...here are some of the awards and winners:

Rookie of the Year....Nicki Minaj

Best Collabo.....Jay Z ft. Alicia Keys "Empire State of Mind"

Best Club Banger.....Rick Ross "B.M.F"

Lyricist of the Year.......Eminem

Producer of the Year.....Swizz Beats (hasn't won an award since 1998)

DJ of the Year.....DJ Khaled

Best Hip Hop Blogsite.......Worldstarhiphop.com

MVP of the Year.......Drake "Find Your Love"

Hustler of the Year.....P. Diddy "Hello Goodmorning"

Made You Look Style Award...Nicki Minaj

People's Champ Award.....Nicki Minaj