2015 BET Awards Recap

Incredibly weird how these times roll around again and again so fast... I feel like I just did a review on last year's BET Awards (or maybe that was the BET Hip Hop Awards, I get them both confused way too often), but it appears that it's that time of year again, and the 2015 BET Awards certainly left people with many things to talk about, some good, and others questionable.
The performances were good, the awards were well deserved (some of them), and the honors were fantastic.

The performances weren't bad at all, if you could open up your show in the best way possible, who would you use to do it?  The answer to that question is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick set the tone of the show by opening it up with his very jazzy and turnt up TPAB jam "Alright" while dancing on a cop car. Is there any better way to tell people that "we gone be allRIGHT?" Absolutely not. Other key performances were Tyga and Chris Brown, The Weeknd brought along Alicia Keys for a song, Omarion performed "Post To Be" (although it didn't include my girl Jhene Aiko, so I was uninterested), Big Sean did a couple hits and brought out E40, some dude named Jidenna performed (by the way, who the hell is Jidenna?), Nicki and Meek put on a decent show, but the highlight performance of the night had to be the Bad Boy Records 20 year Anniversary performance. Diddy performed huge hits from back in the day and brought out Lil Kim, 112, Faith Evans, and how could you do a Bad Boy Records Anniversary performance without a tribute to the B.I.G(est) artist to ever appear on the label?  You know they had to do it right.

The awards given out weren't horrible either, Nicki Minaj took home Best Female Hip Hop Artist, Kendrick Lamar took home Best Male Hip Hop Artist which was no surprise, I mean really, who did you expect (and while we're at it, who did you expect other than Nicki to take Best Female Artist)?  Best New Artist went out to Sam Smith which was an interesting win seeing as he is not black, although it didn't matter as the always hilarious Anthony Andersen was there to collect the award for him (because Smith couldn't attend the Awards show), and also said he "accepts Smith as one of their own." Very classy move by Andersen.

Check out a recap and some highlights of Kendrick's opening performance below.

                                             (*I do not own this video, or the rights to it*)







         

"Hol' Up": Did Kendrick Kick A Girl Out Of The Studio?

As The Weeknd and Drake so eloquently put it; "This the shit that I live for!" I put in absolutely tireless work being the rap nerd that I am (for the most part), and being a rap nerd (not by choice, though I was CHOSEN), I definitely question and think about music and headlines a lot more than the average person. I have to admit I was a tad late to Kendrick's Section.80 train, and it's funny because listening to it as thoroughly as I have the past 2 or 3 weeks, I find I enjoy it more than Good Kid Maad City, and have it as a close tie with To Pimp A Butterfly (yes, that's right) as Kendrick's best album. Only minor things differentiate the level of music, lyricism and story-telling Kendrick shows in each album, but I won't get into that right now. Instead, I'm choosing to try and get to the bottom of something that I've been curious about since I first heard this song; why does Kendrick kick a girl out of the studio as he says in the song "Hol Up"?

                                              (*I do not own this song, or the rights to it*)

I have to say before I start my usual nerdy, superstitious rap rant that this song sounds like elevator music to me. Imagine you're in an elevator and it's playing music... couldn't you imagine this playing?  Of course you could... I rest my case. Either that or this song symbolizes Kendrick being high; Kendrick starts out the song by saying "I wrote this record while 30,000 feet in the air." He's high; literally. He's ELEVATING. Could he have smoked weed before he recorded it?  Possibly, though Kendrick had made it known on Good Kid Maad City that he doesn't smoke because his first blunt had him "foaming at the mouth." I wouldn't smoke either, good reason not to.

And as I stray away from the point of why I'm writing this, I'd like to get to the point. At the 1:45 mark, Kendrick goes on to say (right in the middle of recording this track) "hey, hey kick her out the studio Ali" (Ali of course being Kendrick's engineer recording the song, in case you didn't know). Now I have 2 notes I must point out about this funny little recording Easter egg, 1. It seems rappers DO indeed keep "bitches" in the studio with them to record (word to Schoolboy Q for staying loyal, hopefully). I found this funny. But, #2 is a question; why would you not re-record the verse with the line taken out of the song?  This could possibly be because Kendrick and friends were paying for studio time and they did not want to take any more time than they needed, or this could have even been just because they didn't feel like taking the error out and wanted to leave it in for memories. Either way, this little comment leaves questions, and that's probably exactly what Kendrick and his crew want you to feel listening to it; curious.

Ali actually explained the incident to XXL when asked about it, here's what he had to say; "It was really happening. It was actually somebody from another session. Somebody came in and was drinking a little too much and started getting loud and we had to get 'em up outta there. One of them random things that happens in the studio." A short, yet to the point explanation from Ali for sure. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed with Ali's answer, I surely thought there would be a big long story (tour stories from rappers are always great) accompanying the line, but that's the way the cookie crumbles I suppose. You have to love the little Easter eggs and stories that rappers and entertainment figures give that you just don't see every day.