Here we have the BET Hip Hop Awards 2008 and this title includes three key information. First would be the this is an awards show, second would be that this is from 2008, so over a decade old already now and finally BET is behind all this. This is not really a good thing in my opinion because I find it not accurate in times like these (and also not in 2008) to make program almost exclusively featuring Black people and for Black people to watch. This is only gonna create more tension in my opinion and I think it would be a good thing if BET had never existed or would be discontinued, bu not a chance this gonna happen anytime soon in the age of positive discrimination. So yeah, this awards show here fits right in in terms of quality. It runs for 1.5 hours and this does not include commercials, so overall probably two hours. The director is Glenn Weiss (not Glen Rice, sorry just had to) and he is somewhat of an icon and legend when it comes to directing awards shows. However, despite all his wins, his body of work is far from perfect, but no surprise that with all these projects he has been a part of, not every single one can be a winner. This one here is the exact opposite. A massive loser. I will get into detail later on what I thought was really worrying and disappointing from this show. As for the writers, they got an interesting combo here I'd say. Three of them are credited. Not sure if they came up with the entire show together or if some worked on speific segments and who did what. Jesse Collins is a prolific writer, but an even more prolific producer and he scored his first Emmy nomination not too long ago. He worked on many of these awards, was also part of the team in charge of the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards for example. 2021 he will work on the Oscars for the first time and back in 2008 he had been active too already for almost a decade. James Davis was not a rookie back then, but also not experienced at all. Since 2008, he has worked on several awards shows really and mostly for BET. What is maybe more interesting than his work behind the camera are his acting credits. Not sure if in a positive way though. And finally Buddy Johnson: You'd think that, as he already wrote awards shows back in the old millennium, he would be more prolific now and also in 2008. Not the case. But what immediately catches the eye are his Scary Movie contributions. Now that was unexpected. No too common for writers to do both, awards specials and movies and he also worked on television in addition. A multi-talented man. Maybe. Or just one who tries a lot, but never really delivers in any department. Now let's move in front of the camera. The host is T-Pain. I probably heard the name before, but other than that I am not familiar with him at all. Hated how he praised himself before his performance with the contortionist there on the piano. Felt a lot like style over substance to me here with his outfit. Surely a mix between chameleon and enfant terrible. And as we don't see his face behind these glasses, he also could have been 50 or so, but truth is he just turned 23. Now that I did not expect. He's younger than me. But maybe also less talented. And yes I know that he took home an award with Kanye that night. So much for the basics. I will not go into detail about every single "cast member" here, but instead elaborate on some moments I found memorable, sadly almost all of these for the wrong reasons. It was not a good show.
The biggest deal breaker for me here was politics. It was sad to see how this turned into a political event quickly. Artists telling the audience to vote was still tolerable. Oh well, not really. Maybe if it had been said once or twice. But not 20 times. The next step was a guy coming on stage with a picture that had Obama's head on it, relatively near the end already. But the moment that really was the worst of it all were Salt-n-Pepa and their song dedicated to Obama and also to Michelle as they said. I think they were the ones who also said Obama will be the next president as if it happened already and when they performed, Obama's head was seen on a gigantic screen. I found it really cringeworthy honestly. I think politics should be kept out of the entertainment industry, but honestly I am not one bit surprised this show was all about it from beginning to end. Liberal entertainment industry at its most unbearable. And yes, I would say the same if McCain had been promoted this heavily at a country music awards show or something. It just felt so wrong. I think there is also some rapper dishing out disrespectful verses against Sarah Palin. No excuse there. She did not deserve it and as McCain as an American (war) hero, he also did not deserve the way politics were handled that night. The worst was maybe that Obama indeed got elected a few weeks later. Alright, this shall be enough with politics. As for the entertainment factor, it was also disappointing. I mean at the BET Hip Hop Awards they often try to go back to the roots and show aspiring and established rappers alike outside doing freestyle. I like this idea in general, but when the quality of the rapping (not just the Palin defamation) is as low as it was during this edition, they should skip it. Like everything else. Skipping the entire show might have been the best choice. A very common problem for music awards shows also applies here, namely that there was way too much (forgettable) live music and the awards certainly only played second fiddle. And when people actually won or gave out awards, it got political, so I cannot even say that I would have liked more of that. Although I should say so. Or actually, I shouldn't because these guys should not have messed up this much in the first place by moving the focus so far away from the awards. Maybe I can be happy that at least they did no constantly insult McCain as they did with Trump for over five years now. Oops sorry, politics again, but yeah, don't blame me. Blame those who included all these politics in here. As for the winners, I don't have the biggest respect either. I guess Lil Wayne is still better than DJ Khaled, not that it takes much for that, but also not a fan there. Then again, hip hop has never been one of my very favorite music genres. Here it would have been nice though to have a bit more diversity. Like there are literally zero White rappers part of this show. Or Asians, Indians etc. Not cool. But expected with BET. I mentioned all the music already, way too many performances for the running time. It felt like a concert DVD for the most part. Very disappointing, but the worst is these performances are not even particularly good at all. And I am still struggling with a category named "Hustler of the Year", even if I respect P. Diddy basically more than everybody else who was part of this show. Except Weiss maybe. Kinda telling that the only White man here was maybe the biggest legend th event had to offer, but was not seen during the ceremony. He never is. Well, almost never. Charity videos are also sometimes a thing for this show. I appreciate the effort, but it so has nothing to do with an awards ceremony that I think they should do without it. At least, there wasn't too much in here. Just Lil Wayne in one little video I believe and some completely unknown female student. Black of course. The advertizing here was way more crucial and annoying however. Like they literally included letters on the screen for the entire show about a new episode from a documentary series being show later that day. Besides, there was also a pretty long collection of scenes from a new The Notorious B.I.G. movie. BET clearly pushed their agenda here. Shameful and I am saying this as somebody who likes Biggie. Maybe even more then Tupac, who also got included briefly during the second half of the show. But none of did justice to these artists. The only thing it did was it made me a bit sentimental looking at who dominated hip hop back then and how the current generation back in 2008 was almost as clueless already as the one in 2020. Even people I normally like, such as Ice Cube, were impossible to appreciate for me here with how at least partially cringeworthy their inclusions felt. Russell Simmons got the icon award back then, not unusual for them to honor people that you do not see as often as they are no recording artists, but I can accept it. Probably my loss that I didn't know he man before as he already worked on stuff for decades back then, so probably also better stuff than featured on this show in 2008. He's still alive today. Good for him. Okay I think this is it. It is really enough anyway. You are getting my point. Highly disappointing awards show and it could have needed a lot more diversity and tolerance, which is genuinely ironic because the ones you see during this broadcast are the ones who ask for it the most in other situations. Absolutely skip the watch this time. Only somewhat positive thing to say is that BET awards shows today and not considerably worse than a decade ago. This mess here is the evidence. Luckily it did not ran for another hour.
The biggest deal breaker for me here was politics. It was sad to see how this turned into a political event quickly. Artists telling the audience to vote was still tolerable. Oh well, not really. Maybe if it had been said once or twice. But not 20 times. The next step was a guy coming on stage with a picture that had Obama's head on it, relatively near the end already. But the moment that really was the worst of it all were Salt-n-Pepa and their song dedicated to Obama and also to Michelle as they said. I think they were the ones who also said Obama will be the next president as if it happened already and when they performed, Obama's head was seen on a gigantic screen. I found it really cringeworthy honestly. I think politics should be kept out of the entertainment industry, but honestly I am not one bit surprised this show was all about it from beginning to end. Liberal entertainment industry at its most unbearable. And yes, I would say the same if McCain had been promoted this heavily at a country music awards show or something. It just felt so wrong. I think there is also some rapper dishing out disrespectful verses against Sarah Palin. No excuse there. She did not deserve it and as McCain as an American (war) hero, he also did not deserve the way politics were handled that night. The worst was maybe that Obama indeed got elected a few weeks later. Alright, this shall be enough with politics. As for the entertainment factor, it was also disappointing. I mean at the BET Hip Hop Awards they often try to go back to the roots and show aspiring and established rappers alike outside doing freestyle. I like this idea in general, but when the quality of the rapping (not just the Palin defamation) is as low as it was during this edition, they should skip it. Like everything else. Skipping the entire show might have been the best choice. A very common problem for music awards shows also applies here, namely that there was way too much (forgettable) live music and the awards certainly only played second fiddle. And when people actually won or gave out awards, it got political, so I cannot even say that I would have liked more of that. Although I should say so. Or actually, I shouldn't because these guys should not have messed up this much in the first place by moving the focus so far away from the awards. Maybe I can be happy that at least they did no constantly insult McCain as they did with Trump for over five years now. Oops sorry, politics again, but yeah, don't blame me. Blame those who included all these politics in here. As for the winners, I don't have the biggest respect either. I guess Lil Wayne is still better than DJ Khaled, not that it takes much for that, but also not a fan there. Then again, hip hop has never been one of my very favorite music genres. Here it would have been nice though to have a bit more diversity. Like there are literally zero White rappers part of this show. Or Asians, Indians etc. Not cool. But expected with BET. I mentioned all the music already, way too many performances for the running time. It felt like a concert DVD for the most part. Very disappointing, but the worst is these performances are not even particularly good at all. And I am still struggling with a category named "Hustler of the Year", even if I respect P. Diddy basically more than everybody else who was part of this show. Except Weiss maybe. Kinda telling that the only White man here was maybe the biggest legend th event had to offer, but was not seen during the ceremony. He never is. Well, almost never. Charity videos are also sometimes a thing for this show. I appreciate the effort, but it so has nothing to do with an awards ceremony that I think they should do without it. At least, there wasn't too much in here. Just Lil Wayne in one little video I believe and some completely unknown female student. Black of course. The advertizing here was way more crucial and annoying however. Like they literally included letters on the screen for the entire show about a new episode from a documentary series being show later that day. Besides, there was also a pretty long collection of scenes from a new The Notorious B.I.G. movie. BET clearly pushed their agenda here. Shameful and I am saying this as somebody who likes Biggie. Maybe even more then Tupac, who also got included briefly during the second half of the show. But none of did justice to these artists. The only thing it did was it made me a bit sentimental looking at who dominated hip hop back then and how the current generation back in 2008 was almost as clueless already as the one in 2020. Even people I normally like, such as Ice Cube, were impossible to appreciate for me here with how at least partially cringeworthy their inclusions felt. Russell Simmons got the icon award back then, not unusual for them to honor people that you do not see as often as they are no recording artists, but I can accept it. Probably my loss that I didn't know he man before as he already worked on stuff for decades back then, so probably also better stuff than featured on this show in 2008. He's still alive today. Good for him. Okay I think this is it. It is really enough anyway. You are getting my point. Highly disappointing awards show and it could have needed a lot more diversity and tolerance, which is genuinely ironic because the ones you see during this broadcast are the ones who ask for it the most in other situations. Absolutely skip the watch this time. Only somewhat positive thing to say is that BET awards shows today and not considerably worse than a decade ago. This mess here is the evidence. Luckily it did not ran for another hour.
