BET Awards Recap : Prince Tribute And More

Today in Tha Wire the BET Awards aired over the weekend and let me just say, it was THE best show they ever did. There were several WOW! moments throughout the star studded night and the opening acts set the tempo for the rest of the night. My ONLY gripe is Chris Brown won nothing. Breezy was nominated in the “Best Male R&B/Pop Artist” category and the fan-voted “Coca-Cola Viewers’ Choice Award” for “Back to Sleep.” The phenomenal singer/rapper/performer/actor, got air.

Known for his showstopping performances on BET, word has it Breezy didn't perform because he was in Naples, Italy the same night. The singer was actually performing the final show on the European leg of his "One Hell Of A Nite Tour."

But Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar held it down and delivered one hell of a show stoppa. The two stars surprised attendees at the 2016 awards show when they hit the stage for an unbelievable performance!

The BET Awards opened with a massive BANG! For those who didn't get it or understand where she was coming from, with her Super Bowl performance of "Formation," Beyonce tried to reach the masses again. This time with an electrifying performance surrounded by fire, standing in water and featuring Kendrick Lamar to do “Freedom,” from her hit album Lemonade.

As far as the Prince tribute...it was introduced by the one and only Dave Chappelle. He would score a long-time friendship with the iconic singer, after he famously spoofed the Purple one on The Chappelle Show.

BET would squeeze several songs from Prince's catalog into a 6-minute artist throw-down starring the legendary Sheila E and Mayte Garcia (his former protege'/ lover and ex-wife.) An I got one word for it, Wow! Their performance was epic! The whole thing was well done. From Jennifer Hudson's "Purple Rain" masterpiece, to Erykah Badu singing, “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” and Janelle Monae's tribute was fire.

BET put it down!

The tribute line-up also included The Roots, Stevie Wonder and more. However I gotta say Bilal, killed the game with his rendition of the classic “Beautiful Ones!” In case you missed peep his performance below.

won Best Female Hip-Hop Artist for the seventh year in a row.

Drake scored his fourth

BET Award for

Best Male Hip-Hop Artist. For a complete list of winners click here.

Grey's Anatomy star, actor

Jesse Williams, an gave a soul stirring speech on justice, civil rights and equality. He was honored with the

BET Humanitarian Award for his tireless work and efforts with the

Black Lives Matter movement and activism in the civil rights. Below is more details, as well as his actual speech.

AMAZING! No doubt

Jesse Williams speech was gripping and inspiring and well said. Unfortunately, there was a little drama sparked online afterwards when 8 time

BET Award nominee,

Justin Timberlake, took to Twitter to recognize Williams for his speech. The singer tweeted,

Now how anyone could misconstrue what he meant I don't know, but that's what happened. The singer was hit with some serious backlash for his tweet.

Huffington Post writer

Ernest Owens basically led the negative reactions to the singers response tweeting,

Really Owens? In my personal opinion,

Justin Timberlake's response of Jesse's poetic deliverance, was completely misunderstood. I truly think the singer was simply showing his appreciation and understanding to what was said. Furthermore I think JT handled the ignorant Owens and others ignorant attacks well by tweeting,

But it is, what it is. All in all I think the show was cool. What about you? leave a comment and let me know. Also let me know how you feel about what Justin Timberlake said and the reaction from others afterwards. In the meantime, That's Tha Wire. Tune in tomorrow at 12:50 p.m. and again at 3:35 p.m. for more, only on The Peoples Station 107 Jamz!

Filed Under: 2016 BET Awards, Jesse Williams, Prince Tribute

Categories: Audio/Videos/Photos, Entertainment, Music, News, Television

BET Awards Recap: Prince Tribute And More – Tha Wire