Jamie Foxx-who will be hosting-Â and a slew of other artists were on hand last night to announce the nominees for the 2009 BET Awards, and Beyonce and T.I. turned out to lead the pack with 5 nominations each. Beyonce scored 2 nods in the Best Video category and also was nominated twice in the Best Female Actress category. T.I. picked up nominations for Best Male Rapper and Best Video (for “Live Your Life”) among others.
Lil’ Wayne, T-Pain and Keri Hilson are right behind with four nominations apiece.
As usual, I’m left scratching my head at some of the nominations. Why have categories like Best Group and Best Female Rapper if the pools are so thin? The nominees for Best Group are Day26, The GS Boyz (of “Stanky Legg” fame), N.E.R.D., The Roots and Three Six Mafia, while the Best Female Rapper nominees are Trina, Lil’ Mama and M.I.A., who is also curiously nominated for Best New Artist, although she’s already on her second album. Looks like the BET Award nominating committee is sipping on the same sauce as the folks who do the noms for the Grammy Awards.
Ne-Yo and Maxwell are among the artists scheduled to perform on the show, which will air on June 24th. SonicClash will, as usual, be live-blogging the event.
