BET Hip Hop Awards try to put a positive spin on the genre

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Did anyone catch the BET Hip Hop Awards last night?

I was struck by how defensive the tone was throughout the whole evening. Seems to me, the unofficial theme of the event was “hey hip hop is not all violent and misogynistic okaaaay?”

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they trotted out both Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson as presenters, gave KRS One some type of lifetime achievement award, and gave Common not one, but two awards. (The first time he’s ever received one on TV, he said. That kind of blows my mind.)

I may be overly cynical, but those seemed like purely political plays to me: to squelch the rising criticism of hip hop. By putting forth hip hop-embracing intellectuals and by honoring an artist like Common, who is often heralded as “conscious” and “positive,” it seems to me that BET was trying to underscore the fact that dudes like 50 Cent do not represent all of hip hop (and rightly so, of course).

The whole event seemed symbolic of how conflicted people are over hip hop. Common — an artist often held up as an exception to the rule — made it a point in his acceptance speech to say that he sees himself as no different from artists like T.I. He was clearly rejecting his “good guy” status.

And as hard as the show tried to demonstrate that there was more to hip hop than guns, bitches, drugs and murder, they chose to end on a um, not so “conscious” note. Namely, with Soulja Boy’s ode to ejaculation, “Crank That.”

(Check out UrbanDictionary.com’s official definition of “superman that ho” if you want to be grossed out.)

If you saw it last night, what did you think?