JoBros in the house, and the screams start early. Need You Now and Lady Antebellum take the stage. They’re not really country no matter how much music companies want to slot them there. Brilliant harmonies.
CBS shills The Big Bang Theory during Best Comedy Album. Six nominees and Colbert wins for a cute skit that turned into a record. And for this we’ve given up a Kings of Leon or a jazz or a blues performance? Or maybe even that, whaddya call it? Classical.
Off of commercial, Norah Jones and Ringo Starr. Remember, Norah’s dad and Ringo go way back. Bobby Darin gets a Lifetime Achievement Award as Mack The Knife plays. Ringo pumps up the audience for Norah.
Beyonce’s Halo, I Gotta Feeling by the Peas, Use Somebody by Kings of Leon, Gaga’s Poker Face and Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me are the nominees. Kings of Leon pull off another huge upset. Peas and Swift were safe here. Good for the Academy voters.
Robert Downey, Jr. is introduced as the most self-important actor of his generation which is a joke gone bad or a horrible intro. He is Sue’s at Movie Rewind’s main dude. Gotta give it to Jamie Foxx who can make an intro. Autotune at The Grammys is a big no-no in my book especially when we all know Jamie can sing. Some weirdness when Jamie’s mic seemed to cut in and a different timbre was heard. I’m just saying… T-Pain who is never losing AutoTune regardless of venue prances a bit. The whole thing is a bit muddy for stars this talented.
It’s the big jam as Slash enters with hat and blazing guitar.
Katy Perry, kind of looking like his daughter, shows up with Alice Cooper. They give Florence Greenberg a posthumous Trustee Award and start naming Best Rock Album nominees.
Best Rock (Kid Rock? Rock of Ages?) whatever that means anymore, goes to Green Day. That’s a strange choice with Dave Matthews and the album I thought had won, AC/DC’s Black Ice. Insiders Butch Vig and Chris Lord-Alge get name checked by Billie Joe Armstrong who doesn’t let anyone else talk. He writes great hooks, but I’m getting bored with Billie Joe again. This happened after Dookie too.
Chris O’Donnell shills one of the NCIS shows. He throws a lifetime award to Harold Bradley. He then gives way for Zac Brown Band and Leon Russell. I would say Leon looks great, but between the shades, big white hat and beard, I couldn’t say.
He sounded great though as did the protracted acapella version of America that opened the segment. Brilliant, brilliant band. Harmony. Lyrics. America. Shredding acoustic guitar solo. These guys will be around on a decade.
Money Mike usually live blogs the BET Awards, but with the passing of Michael Jackson, he’s not in the mood to try and be fun. Thus, I’m taking the reigns for him this year. Being on the West Coast, I can’t blog it live, but I’ll give you my own play by play.
The show opens with footage from a previous BET Awards where Michael Jackson and James Brown were on stage together.
– New Edition opens the show with their Jackson 5 tribute. They even busted out the Stop The Love You Save! dance. I’ll give them an A for effort. My friend asked me which one was Bobby Brown, and I immediately said, “The fat one.” Bobby’s definitely eating good these days.
– Jamie Foxx is hosting and he came out in the red leather jacket and the 3 inches too short slacks. He tried to do some MJ dancing, but he must not have had time to practice. He did much better with his broham Braxton on “The Jamie Foxx Show”.
– Tyra Banks walked down the stage in some heels that made her look like she could post up Shaq. After giving out the “Best Male Hip-Hop Artist” award to Lil’ Wayne, she had to get on her knees just to give him a hug.
– You know, people are ready to give Usher the torch as the next closest thing to MJ, but I think you may have to look at my boy Ne-Yo. His vocals are far more similar to MJ’s. If only he didn’t look more like a young Samuel L. Jackson.
– Sorry y’all, brother has a head that was made for hats. I heard that Barry Bonds looked at Ne-Yo and said, “Damn, he has a big ass head.”
– (He tore up Lady In My Life.)
– They showed Joseph Jackson in the crowd and all I could think of was, “Joe stop beatin’ the kids.” Damn that Jackson’s American Family movie.
– I’m going to guess that Kanye West’s girl was a big headed baby. She also has a head that was made for hats. If she and Ne-Yo had a baby, they’d test that kid for HGH out of the womb.
– Jamie Foxx is singing Blame It and all of a sudden and for no reason whatsoever, Snoop Dogg joined him. I don’t think anyone Snoop hangs out with blames it on the alcohol. They blame it on something else. Also, I wonder if T-Pain knows that you can’t kick in judo. I guess he couldn’t find anything to rhyme with karate.
– Does anyone really care about what Tiny and Toya are doing these days? I mean, it sucks that y’all got kicked out of Destiny’s Child, but you probably deserved it. Be happy that Beyonce’s daddy just kicked you out of the group. If Joe Jackson was your manager, he would’ve told you to get a switch off the tree and take it like a man.
– In Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em’s song, he sings, “I gotta question, why they hatin’ on me?” Well, I gotta answer for you bruh. You’re terrible.
– Here’s a quote from T-Pain: “He pretty much said everybody I was gonna say.” That dude can mangle some English.
– Ne-Yo won for “Best Male R&B Artist”. If you haven’t heard Year Of The Gentleman, go get that record. It was my favorite record of 2008.
– Beyonce’s on the stage singing Ave Maria. I’m trying to decide if she’s supplanted Trish Stratus as the number one girl on my list. I think the only thing that stops her from being number one is that I know in 10 years, that junk in her trunk might become junk in a caboose.
– Ok, I made a mistake. Tiny and Toya aren’t former Destiny’s Child members. I must’ve had something in my eye when I mistook them the first time. They’re former hook-ups of TI and Lil’ Wayne. Yep, these days that’s all it takes to get your own reality show. If Florida Evans was still alive, she’d say, “Damn, damn, damn!”
– Jamie introduced a skit for a fake movie with he and Martin Lawrence starring as Shenehneh and Wanda as bank robbers. What does it say about me that I would see that on the first day it came out?
– When artists say that they didn’t prepare a speech because they didn’t expect to win, I just want to go oops upside their head. How long can it take to put together five names that you want to remember? Or is it just cool to act humble, yet unprepared?
– Ok, I’m not gonna lie. It still hasn’t hit me that MJ is gone. This just seems like every other kind of BET Awards show where people give MJ props.
– For some reason, Keith Sweat is on the stage. Keith looks really exceptionally good for being 100 years old.
– It must be New Jack Swing night as Guy just stepped on the stage. My man Aaron Hall can still bring it.
– Now it’s BBD’s turn. They’re performing Poison. That used to be my go to song when I was 14 until my dad told me that it probably wasn’t a good idea to sing the lyric, “Me and the crew used to do her,” out loud.
– I do follow their advice until this day though. Never trust a big butt and a smile.
– Was that Ciara singing Heal The World? The dude did a pretty good job.
– Beyonce is up for “Best Female R&B Artist” against the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Keyshia Coles, Jazmine Sullivan, and Keri Hilson. When she wins, she better not say that she didn’t have anything prepared. She should’ve started writing her speech the second the nominations were announced.
– I wonder if when Jay-Z starts with, “This is death of Autotune, a moment of silence,” T-Pain and everyone he’s currently working with just start shedding tears.
– Day26 introduced Don Cornelius and Q got through the intro without saying, “This is real talk,” or popping all the veins in his neck.
– Don just said that Joe Jackson was one of his heroes. There are about 5,000 jokes to be written on that line alone and I’m not touching it.
– Holy (choose your favorite curse word here)! Tevin Campbell is on stage for the O’Jays tribute. That dude needs a comeback record like yesterday.
– Tyrese is also out singing in the tribute and he didn’t randomly insert the words, “LA Lakers” into the lyrics. Nice job Tyrese.
– Tiny is accepting an award for TI. This is the only reason I’m thankful that this show isn’t in HD. She’s not a handsome woman.
– Janet Jackson is a brave woman for being on this show tonight.
– Now it’s time for the MJ tribute. I’m all for Jamie singing I’ll Be There, but couldn’t they have brought out Mariah for this one?
I hope I was able to play it off well enough. As tough as it was to watch all these tribute performances, it was still fun to see everyone big up Mike.
I’m not sure there’d be a BET if not for Michael Jackson. Peace!
Former Gap Band lead singer Charlie Wilson scored big with his 2005 comeback album Charlie, Last Name Wilson, and after four years (and a bout with prostate cancer), he returns with a more club-oriented, contemporary sound on Uncle Charlie. Fans of the last album may be a little disappointed with the club beats and contemporary flourishes from a classic R&B artist, but Wilson’s signature voice is good enough to overcome the occasional sonic misstep.
Among the uptempo jams, the almost Euro-dance Let it Out sticks out, with its’ galloping bassline lifted from Charlie’s 1982 Gap Band hit “Burn Rubberâ€, but the album really picks up steam with songs like the swaying ballad “There Goes My Babyâ€, the summery midtempo track “What You Do to Me†and the dramatic “Homelessâ€. The guest artists (Snoop, as well as an Auto-Tuned Jamie Foxx and T-Pain) are unobtrusive but also unnecessary.
Uncle Charlie is proof positive that mediocre production and songwriting can be saved by superior vocals. While I would have liked content that was a little more mature, organic and age-appropriate, this album stands out as solid enough (in a ridiculously craptastic year for R&B so far) that I’m willing to give Wilson a pass.
