With Mary J Bliege’s dry opening, Nicki Minaj throwing shade towards her colleagues and Cee-Lo Green’s drag tribute to Patti Labelle, this year’s BET Awards was fife with comical incidentals.

Before we get into the actual show, let’s talk about the host. Comedian, Kevin Hart decided that he would direct “No one is off limits” jokes on some of the attending celebrities. Allow me to just say this, in my opinion, Hart fell flat. He claimed that, “No one is off limits,” but he didn’t throw anyone over the cliff either. With the exception of one or two daring insider jokes that took the average viewer a second to catch, Kevin Hart was pretty safe. I could have come up with better jokes for every person he singled out. #justsaying

Queen of Hip Hop Soul, Mary J Bliege, opened up the show with a medley of her classic hits from her almost 20 years in the business. But it was when she debuted a brand new song, on LIVE television, that most people felt she totally lost it. And I mean completely DEBUTED!! No one has ever heard of the song, and there is no (to my knowledge) great buzz for it. The audience stood their DUMBFOUNDED!!  MJB, wearing a white body-fitting jogging suit and some platform sneakers held it together as only a true Legend and brought out Anita Baker for the save. But unfortunately, it was all a big letdown.
What should have been a great surprise to a great opening number only sealed the fate on MJB’s already sinking ship.

Moving on – When Nicki Minaj accepted her award for best hip hop female artist, she threw shade at her fellow nominees saying, “Oh I didn’t think I’d win,” which was complete with a snarky chuckle. The audience caught it and began to laugh, but Minaj quickly began to back pedal, but even the back peddling seemed phony.

In what had to be the most blatant display of the “powers that be” flexing their muscle, the Smith Children, Jaden and Willow created BET Award’s history coming in a tie for Best Young Artist (or whatever the award was). Stevie Wonder could see the hands of favoritism at play.

Steve Harvey and Patti LaBelle were this year’s honorees receiving the Humanitarian and Lifetime Achievement awards respectively. Harvey received a gospel tribute from several gospel artists, but it was Cee Lo Green’s drag tribute to Patti LaBelle that stole the show. He appeared in a glimmering gown and a wig in an iconic Patti style, sang…. um… Shoot! I can’t actually remember what he sang. I was too busy busting a vein from laughing so hard at his appearance to even hear him. Now Cee Lo Green scares me enough, with the beady hands and whatnot, but to compound it with a dress and wig was just too much for me.

One of the BIGGEST low lights from the night was fan presenter, Tiffany Green’s MAJOR award show faux paux – announcing the WRONG winner…. not ONCE but TWICE!!!!

While reading from the teleprompter, Green gave the Viewer’s Choice Award to Chris Brown then to Rihanna. Terrence, who was presenting with her, QUICKLY trumped Tiffany and gave the award to Drake, who came on stage to accept, but that wasn’t the end!! At the end of the show, host Kevin Hart ultimately gave it back to Brown as he was the correct winner. #smh

It seems the BET Awards have just been going in a weird direction to me. And I guess it all started the year MJ died. At the time, I somehow felt that his dying put a sort of cloud or a damper on the awards and it’s been there ever since. Although this is only two years after Michael Jackson died, this has been the third BET Awards since his death. Stephen Hill and is team seem to not be able to just completely knock it out of the park.

That all being said, I’m going to stop right here, just in case there is someone in America or overseas that did not see the awards and is anticipating the numerous and immediate reruns that BET (and MTV…. #nooneisofflimits) are known for. I’m sure if you shut off your computer after leaving a comment you’ll be able to find the 2011 BET Awards on right now.

But before you go channel surfing, take a moment and actually do leave a comment!