Reviewing The Good, Flawed, and Awful on the 2011 BET Awards...

Sweet Mint knows that trying to write a review on the BET Awards can be an exercise in carpet-bombing. There are just so many targets and so few civilians to care about. It's really a darn shame. Yet here goes my take on what has to go down as the worst-executed show in franchise history...

The Good: I'll just go ahead and begin with the obvious. Jill Scott performed and embodied the power of them rolling hills! Her whole set was theatrical, thought-out, and appropriate. Her vocals were stellar as always and her mere presence just lent class to an otherwise classless affair...I enjoyed the stroll down memory lane with old school performances from After 7 (as The Five Heartbeats) as well as "Saturday Love" singers Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neil (toothless and all). They weren't flawless vocally (at some moments verging on offensive), but then neither were 98% of the other performers on the show, and none of the others had the luxury of singing a classic...Marsha, Marsha, Marsha Ambrosius did herself a great service by singing the hell out of Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew". She sailed, soared, and completely owned that song if only for a few minutes...Patti saved her own tribute segment by performing herself at the end (after rambling on during her acceptance speech). All the signature LaBelle moves were on display (save the shoe kicking) and I was loving it...Criminally underrated powerhouse Ledisi stormed onto that stage, commanded our attention, and delivered the best performance of the night with her rendition of Teena Marie's "Out On A Limb". Wow. That performance was murder. Someone call the SVU...

The Flawed: On paper, a Mary J. Blige opener is a no-brainer. She's an icon in black music. She's a multiple BET "award" winner and has a new album dropping in the fall. When she began her performance singing "All Night Long" with her 'My Life' album cover in the background, I got excited. This fall she's releasing what's been coined as a sequel of sorts to that album, 'My Life 2', so I figured what they were going to do is give a medley of the original slate of songs. I was wrong. What began as a promising stroll down memory lane (complete with Mary dusting off that old 1994 choreography) descended into a directionless mess. She went from 'Long' to 'Real Love' to an Anita Baker song to some mess that I can't even name. Where was the cohesion? In the end it was a lackluster effort because it felt (and looked) rushed and lacked the dynamite vocals that Blige is capable on delivering (had she had the lung-support)...I'm not really a fan of Kevin Hart. I think he can be mildly funny, but I guess he's just not my type of comedian. Personally, I prefer Earthquake (name is a link). But for what they gave him, at least he didn't embarrass himself. He played the hype-man rather than the show-man, but that's okay, he made a valiant effort to keep the energy alive throughout the show. Big props for the opening step-show performance. That tradition isn't necessarily something I get or really appreciate, but I do respect its cultural relevance, and he did a fine job with it. He wasn't particularly gut-busting funny or clever as the live host, but the "Real House Husbands of Hollywood" skits throughout the show were funny and didn't play as gimmicky as you'd think. I wouldn't invite him for the gig again simply because I prefer my hosts to be funny, show-men, but a repeat-showing from him next year wouldn't cause me to balk...I liked that BET was trying to spotlight lesser-known artists with their "Music Matters" segments, but I don't understand why they'd put them up there and then fade to commercial so the television audience couldn't enjoy them...Kelly Rowland had loads of swag during her performance and the dancing was nice, but we all know that chile pre-recorded those vocals so she loses points for that. And that song, "Motivation"? I'm just not moved by it. It's the #1 urban song in the country right now and ain't that just typical. Kelly had to sing about sex to get a hit record, while superior efforts like last year's "Commander" and before that, "When Love Takes Over" were relegated to the dance charts. Shameful. But I've got my own theory about that. Read it HERE...Beyonce was Beyonce. Had her material been better on this album, maybe it would have lit my fire. Alas it didn't. And how desperate was she and BET that they felt the need to broadcast her from Europe so she could perform on the show?!

The Awful: My utter contempt for how this network conducts its business was no more evident than when they "awarded" Chris Brown as the Best Male Artist. Thanks for that apt message to batterer's, BET...Why can't Alicia Keys perform live anymore? She has been consistently awful (ever since she released that "No One" single a few years ago). Her performance was another one that could have been salvaged just a little had she kept the songs confined to the album she was saluting, 'Songs in A Minor'. Oh and tried singing the right notes...I don't understand why they even allow artists to perform curse-laden songs if it's just going to be bleeped throughout. Seriously, either tell them to clean it up or they can't perform. No one wants to hear 7-minutes of muted words. It isn't pleasant. And whoever was pushing the bleep-button was woefully inept anyways, because curse words were being broadcast all night long...Why they even bother with the gospel segment at these show is beyond me. They leave one, 5-10 minute segment in a 3 1/2 hour show and spotlight the same gospel artists every single friggin' year. How many times have Mary Mary and Donnie McClurkin done this show? No one else from that genre is available? The whole thing strikes me as disingenuous and insulting anways, and every year this one segment sticks out like a sore thumb. 3 hours of "Motivation" and "Love Faces" and Lil Wayne next to "Thank You Lord"? Uh uh...Any of those rap performances were throwaway nunsense. I admit my bias, I just don't get the appeal. But I also don't need to see ole boy's flabby stomach and chest or the other brotha's drawers on national television either...My man Cee-Lo Green is usually on-point, but his "tribute" to Patti was borderline disrespectful and a mockery. He didn't sound good or look good and the whole tenor of the performance came off like buffoonery. I was disappointed in both Cee-Lo and the producers who thought of all artists he'd be the best to give tribute to LaBelle. Come on. 

It boggles the mind that at 10-years old, this franchise has yet to get it consistently right, which is inexcusable when "professionals" are responsible for putting it together. Every year we're witness to a lack of vision (not to mention prestige) when it comes to these shows, and I can't figure out why no one at BET is concerned about it. Oh, that's right, they're a corporate entity now. They could care less about the content of their character as long as the revenue continues to stream in. And even with the quality of their flagship franchise (BET Awards) on a downward trajectory, ratings continue to spike, so they ain't gonna to change the formula.