The BET Awards Performances Recap; 'Our Culture Can't Be Cancelled'
29 June 2020
by Kabura Ng'ang'a
The 2020 BET experience was cancelled because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but the Award show happened and we are here to recap the night that was. The BET theme this year was ‘Our Culture Can’t Be Cancelled’ and the show was exactly that; every artist took their home stages to really show out.
Many artists took their performances to remind the world that ‘Black Lives Matter’. This was clear with the kind of stage set up they settled on and/or the clothes they chose to accompany their performances.
To begin with, Public Enemy took to stage featuring a couple of artists such as Nas, YG, Rapsody and Black Thought for a remake of ‘Fight The Power’. Every rapper on this single was really in to make sure that the message against police brutality against the black community was well passed.
Da Baby and Roddy Rich put out a powerful message with their performance of the single ‘Rockstar’. It was set in a ‘street, recreating scenes from the killings of George Floyd and many other black men. Roddy Rich went on to extend this performance with his own performance of ‘The Box’ backed by black men on what seemed like a zoom call. Roddy’s performance ended with projected fists and his statement ‘Black Lives Matter’ shirt in full display.
D. Smoke was also the other performer of the night who took the chance to remind the black people of their black excellence. His set was his home street in Inglewood, as he is always representing. On stage he brought his brother, SiR and their mother Jackie Gouche (who is heavily featured in his ‘Black Habits’ album).
Alicia Keys also took to stage to give us a powerful and emotive performance of her single ‘Perfect Way To Die’. She projected names of many black people killed by the police on the streets, where she was also performing.
Other performances were by Chloe x Halle who created a whole music video while performing ‘Forgive Me’ and ‘Do It’. Jennifer Hudson tapped into her inner Aretha Franklin with a powerful ‘Young, Gifted & Black’ Performance.
Many more artists took to stage and you can catch it all on BET.com and also watch a recap of the BET Awards after show hosted by Rotimi, Karreuche Tran and Curtis Roach.
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