BET SUSPENDED THE SOUL TRAIN AWARDS AND BET HIP HOP AWARDS INDEFINITELY

Fat Joe’s comments about the BET Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train awards caused quite a stir. Did he make some valid points about what led to the cancelation? Yes. Bob Johnson taking the check and selling BET to Viacom in 2000 was where the channel’s direction took a turn for the worst.Yes we still had great programs such as 106 and Park, Rap City, The Parkers , Girlfriends, and we can even probably through BET Uncut on there for comediec purposes They also excelled at the reality TV lane with TV shows such as College Hill and American Gangster. But with that came alot of cuts. Video Soul was axed, Teen Summit was axed, Hits From The Streets was axed, and Access Granted which gave you a journey behind artists artistry and their lifestyle were all gone.

Many could also say that Fat Joe himself deserve alot of the blame as the host and that he was used as a pawn to “gentrify” black people out of their proper due as being sole creators of hip hop. Boston Rapper Benzino also jumped into the discussion and openly criticized Joe by saying that ratings tanked terribly since he became a regular host of the BET hip hop awards. All have vaild arguments but whom is to really blame for these prestige shows getting canceled? We have to blame ourselves.

The LACK of R&B in today’s musical landscape.

Hip Hop has became such a dominant force that it literally forced R&B artists to either conform their own style and start rapping(Chris Brown, R.Kelly) or they would have to literally feature mostly rappers on their first singles or in most cases entire projects. Another problem is the R&B artists today only understand hood culture and didn’t really receive the proper training to really carry their notes. They seen the successes of Nate Dogg, Kokane, Devin the Dude, Butch Cassidy and saw how mixing gangsterism with distinctive crooning. The difference between those guys and the talent of today is that those guys also sung in the church. They came from a religious background. They have gospel/soul singers in their bloodline, The culture today rejects spirituality, rejects understanding knowledge, and the concept of god. Without the church background and proper voice coaching and understanding how to pick meleodies. You have a bunch of people with bad voices relying on autotune.

THE BIG DOGS NEVER SHOW UP I remember a time where the BET Awards/ The Source Awards, The Vibe Awards brought out ALL the A listers from the Culture. We didn’t fit in with the grammies, Billboards, the Oscars, or wanted to be apart of MTV’s world so we had our own shows for our own culture. We didn’t expect Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston, and those whom were mega stars to show up but we had our own… All the rap stars from the 80s and 90s made sure to either perform, show support, or represent for the culture then. Anybody that didn’t but sold a million records and didn’t show up was as Suge Knight would say “Hollywood Bitch Niggas”,

In the later years you had none of the A listers whom would win awards on these shows every year never show up. They never perform, They never make their presence felt but always made time to show up to “their” award shows. This resulted in ratings tanking lower and lower every year . If there isn’t no big draws to bring no eyes on the prize How are you gonna draw the casuals?

The LACK of focus on building new stars.

People always focus on the least talented or spending energy reposting “wack rappers” and “bad singers” but never focusing on the newer talent that have a potential to be the next great one. For music to grow, We have to focus on new blood. The problem is the people whom are in charge with these show cases and labels don’t understand black culture or care to understand it. They only understand anaylitics, tik tok views, and numbers. They don’t know anything about artist development, sound development or coaching. Building shows around people such as Roc Marciano, Griselda, Larry June, G Perico, H.E.R., Ella Mae, SZA, Summer Walker and others would bring new viewers. Especially since alot of the legends are cosigning them.

The CHICKEN COMING HOME TO ROOST This is a prime example of the chickens coming on to roost why? Because BET was censoring many artists and blackballing artists themselves. Yes you heard that right. BET was censoring artists. Here was the list of artists BET put on the chopping block: Kool G. Rap Craig G MC Lyte Buckshot Kool Keith A Tribe Called Quest A+ Jeru The Liks The Artifacts AZ Bad Seed Bahamadia Da Brat Goodie Mob Bone Thugs N Harmony Black Moon Methodman E-40 Canibus Afu Ra Cappadonna Channel Live Cocoa Brovaz Freddie Foxxx GZA El-P D.O.C. Diamond D Dead prez De La Soul MF Doom Camp Lo Geto Boys Brand Nubian Boot Camp Clik KRS One Black Sheep Raekwon 4th Avenue Jones Heather B Jayo Felony Killah Priest Lil Cease McGruff Mic Geronimo Monie Love Mos Def Ice Cube Hieroglyphics Inspectah Deck Jean Grae Nate Dogg O.C. Onyx You cut off artists whom preach empowerment, artists who preach about activism or artists whom are willing to talk about bucking the status quo You’re gonna have a lifeless culture because hip hop was always about pushing the envelope and asking questions. Them banning many artists alleged as the ones above is apart of the main problem. So now it looks like karma has came through with a wrecking ball and literally chopping down that corporate tree. Can BET bounce back? Will we see a new form of leadership going forward? We will see..