*Saturday night (09-17-16) in Atlanta at the taping of the BET Hip Hop Awards it was all about politics and Snoop Dogg who was honored with the “I Am Hip Hop Award.” Snoop got the award from Kendrick Lamar in front of a packed crowd at the Cobb Energy Performing Centre.
“He mastered the game through tests and challenges that earned him the respect of a college professor, except his game came from the streets,” Lamar said. “He put (me) on game, so I would avoid the same pitfalls. … Snoop Dogg was the God, and continues to be so.”
When Snoop took the mic to accept his award, encouraged up-and-coming rappers to continue to “push the envelope” in being creative and original.
“To all the young rappers in the game, a lot of people don’t understand you. Y’all are misunderstood,” he said. “I was misunderstood at the beginning. So you got to keep pushing, be original and diverse. Hip-hop was created many years ago and it’s taken people so many places. You have to be who you are.”
As we said up top, the show also focused on police brutality of African-Americans.
To that end T.I. performed his politically-charged song “We Will Not” as a stage full of people sporting dark attire held up “Black Lives Matter” signs. The Atlanta based rapper said he was motivated to write the song after hearing about a series of deaths of black people including Sandra Bland, who died while in police lockup after a traffic stop, and Philando Castile who was fatally shot by police during a traffic stop. Castile was licensed to carry and had a firearm in his car.
Rapper Big K.R.I.T. and Lecrae, a Christian rapper, expressed their thoughts on the matter through their own poems and radio host Sway Calloway stood alongside Khaled and said “we’re at war.” Actor Shameik Moore encouraged people to cast their vote.
At the end of his performance, T.I. said that blacks should unite adding that “they can’t kill us all.”
Mark your calendar to check out the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards on Tuesday, October 4 at 8p/7c on BET.
For red, er, green carpet snaps from the BET Hip Hop Awards, click HERE.
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