The 2008 BET Awards aired live from Los Angeles last night. Attendees included everyone from Nelly and Ashanti, Rick Ross, Chris Brown, Ciara, Diddy, UGK, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Big Boi and almost everyone else in the industry.
Usher kicked off the evening with an arguably lack luster performance as he sluggishly twirled around on a moving platform singing "Love In This Club." More performances followed including a sexy, pelvic thrusting number by Chris Brown and Ciara and a ladies only performance by Alicia Keys during which she bought out En Vouge, SWV, and TLC.
The night's stars were Kanye West and UGK as both walked away with two awards each. UGK was presented with the award for best group as well as for video of the year for "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)" featuring Outkast. This marked the evening most somber moment as Bun B was left with the task of accepting the award on behalf of his late partner in crime, Pimp C.
"It's hard to do this with my brother not being here," Bun said. "We want to thank y'all for supporting UGK all these years. It's still UGK for life... Long live Pimp C."
Meanwhile Kanye took home the honors for best male hip-hop artist and best collaboration for "Good Life" featuring T-Pain. Kanye was full of compliments during the night's festivities, calling T-Pain "a genius" and giving kudos to Lil Wayne for selling a million albums. "You scared me man," Ye said to Wayne after bringing him on stage with him to accept his award. "Congratulations on selling over a million records. And they say hip hop is dead."
Al Green was also honored with the lifetime achievement award. He then performed two of his classics "Love And Happiness" and "Let's Stay Together" as the audience sang and danced along.
Queen Latifah then presented Quincy Jones with the humanitarian award saying, "He showed us black entertainment is more than just a hustle. It's more than just selling albums. It's about inspiration."
Other award winners included Marvin Sapp for gospel artist, The Dream for best new artist, and Missy for best female hip-hop artist.
The recurring theme of the evening was a political one as honoree after honoree took the stage encouraging people to vote.
"If we all register and vote, we will have the first black president in the history of America," said Diddy.
When presented with the award for best R&B artist Alicia Keys suggested that the word "can't" be removed from the audience's vocabularies. "Together we can do anything," said the R&B songstress. "Obama, ya'll."
As the last artist to perform, Lil Wayne shut the show down with a performance of the soon to be chart topping single, "A Milli."
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