While still being one year short
of running for two full decades, the Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Awards presented by the Viacom-owned pay TV channel for the African-American
audience has been shaping up to be a major player in the non-big 4 awarding
circles. They certainly spared no expenses with this year’s ceremony held
Sunday evening at L.A.’s Microsoft Theater, considering this is the channel’s
last awards night for the 2010s. With Regina Hall as host, the BETA quickly
went through honoring the best African-American and other minority
personalities in the entertainment scene, from movies to music and even sports.
Entertainment Weekly has it that the 2019 BET Awards saw as its
most-nominated name being the very opening act of the ceremony on Jun 23.
Rapper and TV personality Cardi B teamed up with her husband and fellow rapper Offset
for a set combining two of her songs (“Clout/Press”). And as it turns out, she
would be nominated seven times before the night was over, with her taking two
of them home: Best Female Hip-Hop Artist and Album of the Year (Invasion of
Privacy). It is however a smaller haul compared to her 2018 (4) and 2017 (5) BETA
appearances.
The next most-nominated for the
2019 BET Awards after Cardi B was Drake, though he only won one of them Sunday
evening, and a shared award with Travis Scott for Best Collaboration (Sicko
Mode). When it comes to music, it was a great who’s who of performers who
received nominations and got the BETAs: Beyoncé as Best R&B/Pop Artist,
Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover’s “This is America” as Video of the Year, and
(surprisingly) Snoop Dogg with Rance Allen for the Dr. Bobby Jones Best
Gospel/Inspirational (“Blessing Me Again”). Though in hindsight, Snoop Dogg did
rap as Moses in the online video series “Epic Rap Battles of History,” so it
fits.
BETA for 2019 also had a somber
element, with the ceremony also paying tribute to recently-murdered rapper
Nipsey Hussle, even using his signature blue color for the carpeting rather
than red. He was nominated for and posthumously won Best Male Hip-Hop Artist, plus
a Special Humanitarian Award on top of it. Other special honorees included Mary
J. Blige for Lifetime Achievement and Tyler Perry as Ultimate Icon. In terms of
the Best Sportsman/Sportswoman Awards, Stephen Curry of the (bravely defeated) Golden
State Warriors and tennis darling Serena Williams won respectively.
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