Month: June 2020

Every year at the BET awards, an artist gets graced with the Humanitarian Award for their philanthropic work, and this year, Beyonce will be honored for her work with her BEYGood foundation with the award. Queen Bey has raised money for a number of causes that support young women in college, including BeyGood4Burundi, a multi-year partnership with UNICEF created to provide safe sanitation and clean water to the East African country of Burundi.

In addition to BeyGood4Burundi, when the coronavirus struck all parts of the world, the BEYGood foundation sprung into action by donating $6 million to coronavirus relief funds. Beyonce, along with her mother, also joined the #IDIDMYPART initiative, which gave out 1,000 test kits, face masks, gloves, essential vitamins, and household supplies to residents while urging Houston residents to get routinely tested for the award.

Presenting the award to Beyonce, Michelle Obama commended Beyonce for her work in the community, her ability to select Black artists to place a spotlight, and her consistent efforts in calling out sexism and racism in music and in the world. The former first lady also labeled Beyonce as an inspiration to herself. Accepting the award, Beyonce dedicated the award to brothers and sisters who have protesting in the streets and fighting for equal rights. She also took the moment to urge viewers to vote in order to create the change desired in the world.

The award comes after Beyonce revealed that her upcoming visual album, Black Is King, would premiere July 31 on Disney Plus. A follow-up to the 2019 film Lion King, Disney Plus and Beyonce’s Parkwood Entertainment said Black Is King would aim to help “today’s young kinds and queens in search of their own crowns.”

Rising R&B star Summer Walker, who previously admitted to suffering from anxiety on tour, may be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent shift to live performances mostly taking place via streaming from home. However, before Summer stops making music — as she promised to do by the end of 2020 — she dropped into the 2020 BET Awards to deliver a smooth, sensual performance of her song “Come Thru” with Usher via a cozy stage set up with a couch, some accent plants and a guitar player and keyboard player, who backed her up throughout the soulful rendition.

For Usher’s verse, he appeared on his own stage — situated at a quarantine-friendly social distance from Summer’s — to sing from his own couch. However, once their vocals began to blend, Usher really “came thru” to Summer’s stage, perching on the opposite end of her couch — again, just far enough away to stick to safety guidelines — to finish the song with some pretty ad-libs.

Summer recently promised a new EP is coming soon, but that hasn’t stopped her from speaking out on current events, which she says has irked her label into calling her posts too sensitive.

Watch Summer Walker’s 2020 BET Awards performance above.

It feels like it was 20 years ago now, but it was just this year that NBA icon Kobe Bryant passed away in a tragic helicopter accident, which also killed his daughter Gianna and seven others, including the pilot. Kobe received a touching tribute at the 2020 BET Awards, courtesy of Lil Wayne, who was Kobe’s friend and previously dedicated a song to him on one of his many, many mixtapes, Tear Drop Tune 2. Lil Wayne performed the song with a whole new verse shouting out Bryant’s surviving wife, Vanessa Bryant.

A short montage of highlight clips from Kobe’s career opens the performance, which finds Wayne performing in front of lights that resemble the lights of a shot clock arranged to display 24, the number that Kobe last wore for the Los Angeles Lakers and which was retired along with his previous number eight in Staples Center, where he played his entire career as a member of the Lakers. The lights also flash Kobe’s name and “Mamba,” the nickname he gave himself to represent his cold-blooded nature at the end of games.

Wayne also honored Kobe with a moment of silence on his recently-released, No. 1 album, Funeral.

Watch Lil Wayne’s “Kobe Bryant” performance above.

It’s been almost two years since the passing of legendary soul and gospel singer Aretha Franklin, but she’s been far from gone from our lives. Mere months after her passing, filmmakers were able to finally piece together Amazing Grace, the concert movie version of her best-selling gospel record. And Hollywood made sure to fast-track a splashy biopic, with Jennifer Hudson trying to match Franklin’s iconic pipes. And from the sound of the first teaser, it sounds like she’s gotten awfully close.

The film is called, of course, Respect, after one of her signature songs that doubles as a feminist anthem. We her Hudson’s dynamic version of it, the singer-turned-actress hitting the notes with about the same force as Franklin did in 1967. It was off her breakthrough album, and the teaser shows the younger singer, struggling to get noticed by the mainstream. We get glimpses of her first husband, Ted White, played by no less than Marlon Wayans. And we see her political side, with her at a meeting telling an African-American crowd, “You have to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace.”

Those words speak to our current moment, just as Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods did mere weeks after the killing of George Floyd and the protests that have erupted both home and abroad and continue today. Alas, you’ll have to wait a long while to see Respect; it doesn’t come out till December 25. In the meantime, at least you can hear Hudson’s freakishly spot-on attempt to match someone who’s no doubt one of her idols.

You can watch the teaser in the video above.

Just over a week ago, Anderson .Paak joined the growing list of artists releasing powerful and timely protest songs with “Lockdown,” his ode to the resilience of the Black American spirit. Tonight, he joined the group of artists who delivered these powerful statements during their performances on the 2020 BET Awards — a list that now includes Public Enemy (along with Black Thought, Nas, and Rapsody), D Smoke, and DaBaby.

.Paak’s performance found him in his customary position behind the backline, drumming with bloody-and-bruised makeup on his face to speak to the injuries being inflicted seemingly daily by police overstepping their authority — both in everyday life and against protestors who took to the streets to speak out against police brutality. During the performance, .Paak was joined by a new collaborator: TDE’s Jay Rock, who contributed a new verse to the already powerful protest song. Their performance also included a liquor store backdrop, silhouetted dancers and a final shot that suggest that the world is on fire and seemed to wonder, “What are you going to do about it?”

Jay Rock previously appeared this year as an animated character in SiR’s “John Redcorn” video. Anderson .Paak was part of the PlayOn Fest lineup in April..

Watch Anderson .Paak’s fiery, blood-stained performance of “Lockdwn” with Jay Rock above.

Since his breakthrough just over a year ago, there have been few quiet moments for DaBaby. Whether it be through the three albums he released in 18 months or his steady appearances alongside a slew of musical talents or his entertaining music videos, the Charlotte-native has proven a knack for staying in the limelight. Supplying fans with another spotlight moment, DaBaby took to the 2020 BET virtual stage to perform “Rockstar” with Roddy Ricch.

DaBaby began his performance with quite the visual. Performing on the ground with a cop’s knee on his neck, DaBaby rapped the first verse of the song in that position before transition to a stage as he entered the song’s chorus. Dressed in all black with a pair of police cruisers and a group of protestors behind him DaBaby would later be joined by Roddy Ricch who performed his part of the song. Beginning on top of the police cruiser, Roddy’s verse presents him going back and forth between rapping and hitting the cruiser with a baseball bat. Bringing their performance to a close, a message appeared on the screen that read: “In loving memory to all the lives lost to racism and police brutality.”

Aside from the performance, DaBaby is up for five awards tonight which include Album Of The Year and Best Male Hip-Hop Artist. It was just a few days ago that DaBaby premiered the music video for his Billboard song chart-topper, “Rockstar.” With Roddy Ricch by his side the two rappers fight through a zombie apocalypse — because enough bad things haven’t happened in 2020 — with heavy artillery, great accuracy, and just a few headshots. He also recently joined Jack Harlow to remix “What’s Poppin” alongside Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne.

Watch his performance in the video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Inglewood brothers D Smoke and SiR showed off their family’s insane range of talents on the 2020 BET Awards. As D Smoke begins to the leverage the notice from winning Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow last year into legit superstardom, he got one of the strongest looks of his nascent career by landing the performance on BET, but he refused to keep all the spotlight to himself, adding both his brother and their mother Jackie Gouché to his passionate performance of his songs “Let’s Go” and “Black Habits.”

With a stage set up to resemble their stomping grounds off Manchester Blvd, the performance opens with officers in riot gear watching a solo dancer gyrate at center stage while D Smoke looks on. When the music starts up, Smoke steps down from atop a burned-out car to utilize the spotlight to deliver his emotive message. SiR joins him to sing the chorus, then the song switches up and a whole team of dancers joins D Smoke on stage. At the conclusion of his second song, he cedes his time to his mom, who beams proudly as she sings the bridge.

D Smoke’s debut album Black Habits was selected as one of Uproxx’s Best Albums of 2020 So Far. With the additional look from BET, it looks like his star is shining brighter all the time.

Watch D Smoke and SiR’s 2020 BET Awards performance above.

Adding another highlight to an extremely successful 2020, Megan Thee Stallion took the stage at the 2020 BET Awards to perform her chart-topping hit, “Savage” as well as her newly-released single, “Girls In The Hood,” a track that sampled Eazy-E’s classic song, “Boyz In The Hood.”

Heading outdoors unlike the other performances of the night, Megan and her girls roll through the hot desert on ATVs to start their performance. Leading the way with “Girls In The Hood,” Megan the girls park their vehicles to perform the new track. Jumping back on the ATVs, the ladies make their way to a makeshift stage in the middle of the desert to perform “Savage.” Megan and company turn up the heat as they perform the song backed by a choreographed dance routine. While Megan performed the “Savage” remix with Beyonce, Queen Bey herself did not appear for the song.

Megan’s BET performance stands as another well-deserved accomplishment in a year that began with a lot of frustration. The Houston native became entwined in a contract dispute with her label 1501 Certified Entertainment, one that also barred her from releasing music at a point. Receiving permission from a judge that disallowed the label from blocking future releases, she would release her Suga mixtape soon after. While the project housed the Billboard No. 1 hit, the track did not reach the top of the charts until it was remixed by Beyonce, a fellow Houston native.

Watch her performance in the video above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It may have seemed as though the members of Public Enemy had hit a wall in their relationship earlier this year, but it was all love between Chuck and Flavor Flav as they teamed up with an all-star roster of performers to remix their signature hit “Fight The Power” to open the 2020 BET Awards. The two hip-hop pioneers were joined by Black Thought and Questlove of The Roots, Nas, and Rapsody to rock the house and take over the streets with a raucous remix.

Although the four acts weren’t able to team up in person to perform, each contributed powerful imagery of protest and their hyped-up performances in front of a Pan-African-themed American flag. The song was a pointed commentary on recent current events, which saw Black Americans take to the streets throughout the summer in protest of police violence after a rash of police killings of Black citizens, including Louisville EMT Breonna Taylor and former rapper George Floyd, who police choked out with a knee to his neck as he cried, “I can’t breathe.”

Public Enemy met with controversy earlier this year when a public spat between its principal members turned out to be a promotional tactic for their new project.

The New England Patriots decided Sunday night was a great time to make some major news, as reports emerged from Foxborough that they had reached an agreement on a one-year deal with Cam Newton worth up to $7.5 million.

The Newton signing brought plenty of fanfare and excitement from social media, as it was the signing many NFL fans had speculated on since Newton was let go by the Panthers earlier in the offseason, but there was also maybe another reason for the timing of this news getting out. Sunday night also happened to be the night that the NFL’s punishment of the Patriots for their latest Spygate-like controversy came down.

The league fined the Pats $1.1 million and took away their 2021 third-round pick for the illegal filming of a Browns-Bengals game in December — as well as banning Pats video crews from going to any games during the 2020 season.

This news broke mere minutes after the Newton news in a legendary news dump by the Pats, as bringing in Cam as their Brady replacement will lead ever A-block on sports talk television this week, while the punishment will now be treated as tertiary news. As far as impact, the third-round pick is clearly the biggest loss — no one is crying for Bob Kraft losing another $1.1 million in fines — given that the Pats always value their mid-round picks heavily and lean on those on draft day.