I’m not sure how many people BET expected to tune into this year’s award show, but they were certainly lookin to make bloggers’ heads turn with their three-part “Cyphers” interludes. Considering that BET’s been almost unwatchable since Big Tyga left “Rap City’s Tha Basement” earlier this decade (there’s not a lot of room for credibility when you’re the poor man’s MTV), it’s great to see them extend an olive branch to some people who really deserve it. Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Ne-Yo, and M.I.A. were the “big winners” of the night, but DJ Premier, Mos Def, Black Thought, Eminem, Buckshot, Nipsey Hussle, and Joe Budden actually made the ceremony remarkable.
Granted, I didn’t actually watch the award show (the NBA started tonight; whoever planned that one over at BET should be shot), but this will go down in the memory banks as the one that featured Mos Def, Black Thought, and Eminem going verse for verse. When the Hip Hop nerds have heated arguments in their dorm rooms tomorrow over who came the hardest (pause), I would put my money on the exit polls favoring Slim. Thought, with all his talk of being underrated and unappreciated (he is in Hip Hop and of the three), stole Cypher #3, but if we’re going to be real, Joe Budden ran away with it, overall. Peep the other two Cyphers after the break and tell us who you think spit it best.
