INDUSTRY NEWS: BET AWARDS 2010

So twitter was off the chain last night. I even got put in twitter jail from too much tweeting, and it was all because of the 2010 BET Awards. This was the tenth anniversary of the Black Award show, and it was decent. Admist the Pre-Show, all I heard was talks of "this years coonery," but I must say the show was entertaining and better than the Grammys. There were performances from Kanye West, Drake, El DeBarge, Alicia Keys, Monica, Diddy-Dirty Money, Ludacris, Nicki Minaj, and tributes to Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Jackson, and Prince.

Queen Latifah served as the host of the show, and had several costume changes as she reprised some of her most famous roles like "Cleo" from "Set It Off." She did a decent job.

Kanye West opened the show, performing his new song "Power." The tapping of the performance was cool, but the song is just okay to me. At this point, West seems washed up to me.

T.I. also gave a lacluster performance, but his music has always been hit or miss to me.

Alicia Keys performed a medley of her hits as BET made a special recognition that she was crowned Billboards top R&B and Hip-Hop artist of the millennium thus far. However, I feel like Usher would have recieved that nod. He has sold more albums and has had just as many number one hits, if not more. Nonetheless, her performance was solid, and her new single "Unthinkable (I'm Ready)" was performed in full.

B.o.B, Keyshia Cole, and Eminem performed together. At that point, I wanted to change the channel.

Diddy-Dirty Money gave an amazing performance of "Hello Good Morning." They included a never before seen strobe light effect on television which was top notch. To me, that was the most interesting and artistic performance of the night in terms of special effects.

Monica performed her hit song "Everything to Me," and brought out Deniece Williams and she flipped the song into "Silly." It was brilliant.

Usher gave a legit performance of "There Goes My Baby."

Trey Songz performed "Yo Side of the Bed," and flipped it into "Purple Rain," during the segment preceding the Prince tribute. Prince did not seemed pleased.

Following, El DeBarge performed his forth song of the night. Then, the Prince tribute began with a foreward from Stevie Wonder. Janelle Monae gave the first performance followed by another up and coming singer. Then Alicia Keys took to the stage and wowed the audience and even Prince himself. Then Patti Labelle took to the stage to perform "Purple Rain," which had already been done by Trey Songz in his performance. It's stange that Stephen Hill would have a repeat occur, considering the Prince tribute was relatively short. Production wise, most contemporary artists have a Prince-esque song so there should have been more performances. I plan on discussing the Michael Jackson tribute 2.0 at the Award show in another post but i just feel like the night was not about Prince and BET should be ashamed. Lastly, Chaka Khan presented Prince with his Lifetime Achievement Award to Prince, and he gave a heart felt speech.

Here is the winners list from last night's award show:

Centric Award: Monica

Best Female R&B Artist: Alicia Keys

Best Female Hip-Hop Artist: Nicki Minaj

Best Hip-Hop Male: Drake

Best Collaboration: Jay-Z & Alicia Keys – ‘Empire State Of Mind’

Best Male R&B Artist: Trey Songz

Humanitarian Award: John Legend

Best Video: Beyonce & Lady Gaga – ‘Video Phone’

Lifetime Achievement Award: Prince

Viewers Choice Awards / Best Song: Rihanna – ‘Hard’