Bigger, Balderdash-er, Bullshit-ier ||| BET Awards 2021 Nominations: My Thoughts

As we're a week away from the biggest night Black entertainment (now known ridiculously as "the culture"), The 2021 BET Awards Nominations are in, and no surprise, the producers and the committee are not even trying.

The same artists of which BET continues to take regular shelter in their asses still dominate the portion of the three-and-a-half-hour ceremony they still somehow have no room for, and newer artists with actual talent and crossover appeal have to settle for a couple bare glimpses of kudos. And here they are.

-Beyonce did nothing of particular note this past year but the geniuses of the show decided to keep her seat at the table warm for no other reason than "It's Beyoncé, the Queen B".
-Everyone's favorite woman beater and shit-disturber Chris Brown's music quality and chart presence are dropping quicker than the time you thought he'd say "Imma make you my bitch" in his vict-- I mean famous ex's stupid remix of "Birthday Cake", but BET still sees him as the second coming of Usher (fuck, he beat Urshur and the other guys for Best Male R&B/Pop Artist under out noses last year! Y'all think you're so slick not putting it on TV).

- Cardi B and Megan the Stallion are pretty much the new Nicki Minaj. If Remy Ma continued making hits after her comeback, she'd be right up there with them, but they discarded her like a drug slinger's Obama phone. 
-Drake is... well, he's Drake. He could make a song about getting a vasectomy, eye pupil transplant and hot sauce enema simultaneously with no anesthesia and it'll still be a worldwide #1 smash, so I don't blame them for his noms.

It's always been known for a long-ass time that the BET Awards Nominations are known more for being predictable as fuck than unpredictable (or at least predictable but can still keep you guessing for a bit). But this year took it up to a level that screams "we know we have obvious biases in our nominations every year, but we don't give two shots anyway! You'll watch our show anyway because we know you don't care about it! So you finna suck our coochie!" And... they're right. But still...

The point I'm making is no matter whom is a hot hit maker this year (even if I don't personally care for them or their music), even if they're black, the BET Awards will pass them by for the same old safe spaces they've clung tightly to over for the past decade. They rarely if ever recognize a hot talented artist the vast majority can agree on deserving the Rising Star (a nickname I come up with on par with the Moonmam or the Buckle or the Orange Blimps on ViacomCBS' cable awards show circuit) unless they see them as so. And every time a new artist they think are hot one year gets major recognition by them, they're gone the next year as BET jumps on the newest bandwagon (Chance the Rapper won Best New Artist in 2017, only a few years after he hit the big time, and hasn't been seen much in the nominations list the following year), and there is not much of a large variety to circle through. 

Let's get to some of these nominations so I can ramble on some more. It's my brand.

Male R&B Pop

The ones who deserve it The Weeknd and Giveon.

Anderson .Paak, 6lack Pack, Tank's placements feel like they were thrown in just to fill the quota.

 Chris Brown because he's Chris Brown (that's not a good thing).

They might as well have given a nom to Bruno Mars; at least both members of Silk Sonic would've gotten equal congratulations. 

Tank's appearance was random as shit. I was thinking: did he even put out anything last year? The last song I heard by him was "Please Don't Go" (aka the It Ain't Worth song), which came out in 200-fucking-6. Apparently he did, as an EP was released that year. He has much better success in 2019 with two top-five singles, so it feels like BET are giving Tank compensation for realizing he still exists. Too bad he ain't finna win still.

Honestly, Abel, forget the Grammys. You need to boycott the BET Awards after the shit they did to you last year. All them noms, not a single win. And you lost to fucking Chris Brown??? Fuck that, I would've been like Nicki Minaj and disowned the network in a tweet.

Semi-related, so: What's the point of the Pop amendment to these categories when a true Black pop artist never won (until Lizzo last year)? The Weeknd deserved winning every year he was nominated - and should've won, but lost. Either expand your mindset or drop Pop from the category title. 

Female R&B Pop

On the other hand, all the women in this category deserve to be here (except Beyoncé). All of them have released exceptional music last year and it's hard to choose who will sashay away with the tro-phay. On the other side of this coin, Beyoncé is just here because they had to put her there - when they didn't have to.

Honestly, this is still the reason people don't take the BET Awards seriously. I don't remember a year when Beyoncé wasn't nominated anymore (probably when Destiny's Child were together). Even if she puts out a straight fire banger in a certain year, I dread her appearance because BET will never stop putting her on a pedestal so high, she can earn an actual star. Sometimes, she never even shows up to collect her glorified participation trophy, and yet they still act like "Please, your highness, I like to like your taint some more". In years when she put out nothing, she'd still get nominated. It's disrespectful to women who work hard to make hits that get the network to even notice them. All she can do is pop out babies, fart or show up at MTVs Video Music Awards (something she actually gives a shit enough to even get out of the house for, ironically) and she gets nominated. And you'd be the luckiest women in the world if either one of you won or Beyoncé lost. If they gave a damn, and be as bold as they said in the ads, they didn't nominate Beyoncé (or Chris Brown or Drake or Nicki Minaj if she let them) and gave noms to artists who actually deserve them (or at least put out consistent hits the public likes and made hits and not the network.

Hip-Hop

I usually pay less attention to these categories because Hip-Hop is straight up cat piss to me. I rarely listen to hip-hop unless a particular song moves me musically. Since the nominees either aren't on my radar or barely blips, I have nothing much to say. All I can say is "good luck". And even I think I'm being disingenuous here.

Male

For the men's side, I can expect Drake to take this one again and not show up to thank his usual list of people for helping him fart around on lazy beats that his millions of fans eat up for the past year. If someone else wins, I will actually applaud and congratulate them. 

Female

  

On the female side, I can't care less, because I have no interest in the new artists and the artists I have heard of before have Garbage music I could get a lobotomy for. Saweetie is saweet turash, Doja Cat is a rapist (allegedly), Cardi B is a druggist and thief, and Megan Thee Stallion is nothing special.

Best Group

This category either needs to be disbanded or be renamed something like "Best Collective of Artists that Aren't an Actual Group", because for the past several years, the committee regularly gets away with murder by putting two or more artists in the category despite not being members of an established musical group. This year is better than most because actual groups are nominated halfway, so I can enjoy both feet in my mouth this time. But still, the actual groups are mostly nothing to write home about (because the people in my home would listen to them). Migos are still ripe rotting meat, City Girls are Chloe X Halle if only they think they have talent, and Silk Sonic (a collaborative effort starring Bruno Mars and Anderson dotPaak) are great - but they're nominated even though they released only one song ("Leave the Door Open" [yeah, it's a #1 hit, but still]), and it seemed like throwing all eggs in the basket too quickly. I want SS or Chloe X Halle to win because they're the most talented of the bunch. If anything it just seems like a continuing excuse to just give it to Migos again.

New Artist

I will laugh my ass off if Jack Harlow wins the award. That win would make him the second white artist to win this very award in the past decade+ (the last and first win was Sam Smith in 2011.) Sure, I'd be little pissed too, because I think Giveon has more of an edge here and I just started listening to him days after the nominations were announced. Guy is that good! 

Guaranteed, if not Giveon, I guess another Male Rapper will take the trophy. Lil Baby winning last year still makes my teeth hurt, so much so I can't ever say his name out loud. Hopefully he'll reach obscurity before I confuse him with DaBaby... again. 

Video of the Year

Yawn.

This list excites me only halfway. 

I hate "WAP", "Up" annoys the hell out of me, and I refuse to go crazy for "Go Crazy" (I haven't listened to a new Chris Brown song since "Heat" last year - and I intend to keep it that way) .

And back to the Tibble Twins of the category: Why is Cardi B nominated twice? It isn't fair to the other nominees and shows BET learned nothing found a replacement clone for Nicki Minaj-- scratch that, they found two with Megan Theeee Staalliioon too (three if you count City Girls). The biases to these artists is so obvious, it's painful. It's less like "we want to spread our flowers to many artists we thought were dope this year" and stalking their ex and "notice me, Senpai!" And they try to help it out of pity. I'll watch this year, because the show and the network have a new logo and both look amazing.

As for the ones Im pleased by:
I really like "Laugh Now Cry Later",
I adore "Do It" with a passion, and 
I will groove to "Leave the Door Open" (even though, if I have a tryst that night, they better text me once they reach my door, because I live in America).

To me, the BET Awards is like a drug addiction - you enjoy the high it gives you but you know it's a bad habit, and every time you try to quit it's always in your head waiting for you to crawl right back. I try every year after the last one finally stops limping to avoid the anger aggravation and annoyance I put myself through after the following years nominations pop up literally weeks before the show starts. The optimistic thoughts of a better product makes me excited but the cynical realism keeps me balanced. Then I fall in extreme pessimism. That's what the BET Awards are to me now, and that's sad. And the even more sad thing? They will barely get better (if they even try, which I think they won't) and the cycle continues. 

As for positives already? Taraji's hosting and former host Queen Latifah will (rightfully) receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. At least there's that.