Hip-hop powerhouses Fat Joe and Jadakiss have stepped into the discourse surrounding BET’s decision to suspend its popular Hip Hop Awards. In a recent episode of their show, “Joe and Jada,” the rappers reflected on how the award show has changed over the years.
“[This] is just a loss for the culture,” Jadakiss shared.
This is a form of gentrification, what’s going on,” Joe said. “BET came up as a community station for Black people and urban culture. Our man Bob Johnson took the check…he sold it to Viacom Paramount. MTV and them. VH1 and them. Little by little over the years, quietly, they’ve been firing a lot of people behind the scenes at BET, and everybody who has something to say, they been firing them. And I know ’cause I’ve been working on the BET Hip-Hop Awards for three years. S–t was like the budget, not for me, but the budget just kept getting chopped and chopped and chopped.”
Comparing his years of experience working with BET to his experience at the Video Music Awards (VMAs), Joe noted how much the industry underfunded the Hip Hop Awards.
“I think in the entertainment world, this is a form of gentrification. They kept underfunding them, underfunding them, underfunding them. And you ain’t got no money to be creative. That’s why you was watching the ‘ratchet awards’ and all that. They ain’t had no bread…you might as well have called it the independent awards.”
As previously reported by theGrio, BET CEO Scott Mills revealed the network’s plans for its Hip Hop Awards and Soul Train Awards.
“We have suspended the Soul Train and Hip-Hop award shows,” Mills said. “But we have a team that’s actively thinking about where those award shows might best live as the media climate continues to evolve. I would say that it’s less about them being no longer and more about our team having to reimagine them for this changing media landscape that we find ourselves in.”
Though Mills described the suspension as temporary, Fat Joe and Jadakiss said “the writing is on the wall,” when reflecting on how this may impact the BET Awards.
“No Soul Train, No BET [Hip Hop] Awards, but guess what we got the VMAs,” Joe continued.
“That ain’t for us,” Jadkiss said, chiming in. “Save Hip Hop. Save the Awards.”
