Here we got the BET Hip-Hop Awards from the year 2019, so a relatively recent edition. This aired in October when corona was already approximately half a year away. Or the first escalation/wave I should say and this is why the room was still packed with people back then. Also it means this is not even 15 months old now. Or it probably is, depending on when you read my review. I will start a bit ith the basics here: This awards show runs for minimally under 100 minutes, but this is the duration without commercials, so the original back then when it aired for the first time was probably at least half an hour longer, most likely more. The music genre you can read in the title here already. This is where the focus is on. I think watching this will not turn you into a hip-hop fan. Some performances were tolerable, but nothing blew me away or anything. There are two directors here and Jonte was the more experienced from the two, but the other, Iren Brown, was also not a rookie or anything. I still find it strange honestly when directors or non-actors have aliases. Then again, I also find it strange with actors kind of. Never mind. The number of writers here is pretty gigantic, however, almost double-digit figures. And this was not a three-hour show or anything. So I suppose we have a prime example here of too many cooks spoiling the broth because, as you can already see from the rating I gave this one, I was not well-entertained at all. First of all, we have one key problem here that is sadly almost always the case with awards shows these days. Too much music, too many performance and not enough awards. It is an awards show. Let's be really clear here. This is not a concert DVD or anything. Maybe the people right there loved it, but those for audiences at home, it feels like quite a stretch. Oh well. Maybe it's just me, but I kinda doubt it. I mean when one performance is over and we have the next announcer showing up saying two sentences and then the next performance starts right away, then it is only in theory an awards show. Not in practice. Disappointing. As for the awards itself: Many artists here I did not even know one bit. What I saw and heard in terms of performances did not impress me much. The good thing is that there were no upcoming elections here, so at least they kept it unpolitical. This should not be taken for granted. I really don't like it when musicians show up with "Go vote!" shorts or even tell audiences whom they must vote. In my opinion, this should not be a part of any awards show. But the liberal film and music industry loves doing this. Oh wait, they did not keep it entirely unpolitical. I think that on at least one occasions, somebody was still whining about Obama not being president anymore and this is from three years after he left office. Come on! You're better than that. Also Black men don't cheat? Hear, hear. I think this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but again it's positive discrimination (also it is as untrue as it gets, I am sure millions of people that got cheated on by Black people sexually or in other ways beg to differ) and positive discrimination is nothing to be proud of. Everybody cheats anyway. Color (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with it. It's a despicably human trait. Anyway, I am drifting a bit away now. Luckily, politics were not an issue here like I stated, so it is a bit pointless anyway. One thing I did find a bit strange here honestly is what some of the categories are named. Hot Ticket Performer? Hustler of the Year? Impact Track? Made-You-Look Award? MVP of the Year? Best International Flow? Hmm, sometimes less is more and they were trying a bit too much here perhaps to come off as really edgy. Also I find it a bit sad honestly that there are almost only African American artists are featured in here. Would have been nice too with some more Caucasian, Asian... performers. I am not really sure if the reason is that the best are Black artists right now or if they just included those more for political reasons and shut out everybody else. I hope it is not the latter. Exclusing people for their ethnicity is never an accerate solution, no matter who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. But this has a touch of BEt Awards honestly. So I was glad it stayed considerably under the two-hour mark.
Alright, a few more words on certain aspects of the show. I mean it is debatable if a freestyle contest is something appropriate for an awards show (again), but it is still better than one stage performance after the next and it was a bit of a creative and daring inclusion. Initially, I did not like it much, but the idea grew on me and I would say it is one of the better aspects of the night. Nothing truly great though and "better" in this context also means that I only thought so because almost everything else was really poor and disappointing. And even during these freestyle battles, some things just did not feel right at all. Like sometimes the performers weren't good at all, but they pretended that they were. Or also the big lemonade ad in the baclground was nothing to be proud of. I mean I am sure this show was stuffed with commercial breaks and then they still include stuff like that. Clearly, this show was never about the talent, but much more about making as much money as possible with the broadcast and this is of course the death for every show in the long run. Or they just keep going with it when they should have stopped long ago. It feels a bit like that I must say. I would not miss this awards show if they skip it in 2021 and afterwards. Still, I will admit that maybe I will keep watching because I have hope things can improve again. At least they cannot get really worse with "artists" like Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B or Nicki Minaj (not this year) winning key categories to be honest. And if the winner of the icon awards (basically the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award) is one that they say about that she paved the way for all these singers, then there is nothing to be proud of. I am talking about Lil' Kim here. Don't see anything in her at all and I have known her for a long time. Her style (hair, clothes, how she expressed herself) did nothing for me, even if that is of course subjective taste. The only thing I liked is that she mentioned God, but also this felt rather rushed-in and pretentious and not humble in an authentic manner. As for the artistic side, i.e. taking a look at her body of work while listening to "Lady Marmelade" in the background, it becomes inevitable clear that the exact award she received is one where future recipients can#t be really proud to be in such company. Fairly terrible to be honest. Okay, I think all this sounds really harsh, but sorry, it's true. Most of it and I would be pretty surprised if people tell me that they found this to be a good awards show. Most of all because it barely is an awards show. And when it is, the recipients do not feel pretty creative or deserving to me. And when it is not, then same is true about the majority of performers. Two specific awards I want to mention though. Nipsey Hussle won MVP of the Year. May he rest in peacse. he was probably not among the least nominees and winners that night. And "Old Town Road" even won two big awards that night and these were two awards with accurate category names, which makes me even happier. It already makes me happy because I like the song quite a bit. I don't care about the performer's sexuality one bit (for all I care, there was no need really to go public about it) and I am also not always that big on Miley's dad, but here they came up with something pretty spectacular. I am not sure if it's great music, particularly challenging, but it's a pretty nice and catchy tune and this way far better already than basically every single other song featured during that night in October 2019. Alright, I think I will leave it at that. So I kinda ended the review on a positive note, but that is the only positive note really and you should not be fooled and mistake this for a remotely good show. Also not for a mediocre show. And it is not a weak show either. "Horrible" is the appropriate adjective. One can really only hope that this gets better for future editions. My expectations are as low as it gets though. And still, they were maybe even higher than the 2019 outcome quality-wise. Absolutely not recommended.
Alright, a few more words on certain aspects of the show. I mean it is debatable if a freestyle contest is something appropriate for an awards show (again), but it is still better than one stage performance after the next and it was a bit of a creative and daring inclusion. Initially, I did not like it much, but the idea grew on me and I would say it is one of the better aspects of the night. Nothing truly great though and "better" in this context also means that I only thought so because almost everything else was really poor and disappointing. And even during these freestyle battles, some things just did not feel right at all. Like sometimes the performers weren't good at all, but they pretended that they were. Or also the big lemonade ad in the baclground was nothing to be proud of. I mean I am sure this show was stuffed with commercial breaks and then they still include stuff like that. Clearly, this show was never about the talent, but much more about making as much money as possible with the broadcast and this is of course the death for every show in the long run. Or they just keep going with it when they should have stopped long ago. It feels a bit like that I must say. I would not miss this awards show if they skip it in 2021 and afterwards. Still, I will admit that maybe I will keep watching because I have hope things can improve again. At least they cannot get really worse with "artists" like Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B or Nicki Minaj (not this year) winning key categories to be honest. And if the winner of the icon awards (basically the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award) is one that they say about that she paved the way for all these singers, then there is nothing to be proud of. I am talking about Lil' Kim here. Don't see anything in her at all and I have known her for a long time. Her style (hair, clothes, how she expressed herself) did nothing for me, even if that is of course subjective taste. The only thing I liked is that she mentioned God, but also this felt rather rushed-in and pretentious and not humble in an authentic manner. As for the artistic side, i.e. taking a look at her body of work while listening to "Lady Marmelade" in the background, it becomes inevitable clear that the exact award she received is one where future recipients can#t be really proud to be in such company. Fairly terrible to be honest. Okay, I think all this sounds really harsh, but sorry, it's true. Most of it and I would be pretty surprised if people tell me that they found this to be a good awards show. Most of all because it barely is an awards show. And when it is, the recipients do not feel pretty creative or deserving to me. And when it is not, then same is true about the majority of performers. Two specific awards I want to mention though. Nipsey Hussle won MVP of the Year. May he rest in peacse. he was probably not among the least nominees and winners that night. And "Old Town Road" even won two big awards that night and these were two awards with accurate category names, which makes me even happier. It already makes me happy because I like the song quite a bit. I don't care about the performer's sexuality one bit (for all I care, there was no need really to go public about it) and I am also not always that big on Miley's dad, but here they came up with something pretty spectacular. I am not sure if it's great music, particularly challenging, but it's a pretty nice and catchy tune and this way far better already than basically every single other song featured during that night in October 2019. Alright, I think I will leave it at that. So I kinda ended the review on a positive note, but that is the only positive note really and you should not be fooled and mistake this for a remotely good show. Also not for a mediocre show. And it is not a weak show either. "Horrible" is the appropriate adjective. One can really only hope that this gets better for future editions. My expectations are as low as it gets though. And still, they were maybe even higher than the 2019 outcome quality-wise. Absolutely not recommended.