Controversy over 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards
By Mike Cotton
The fifteenth annual BET Hip Hop Awards took place last night, and many fans have been expressing their disapproval for the winner of the ‘Artist of the Year’ award. Throughout the course of the night awards were given to Hit-Boy (producer of the year), Pop Smoke (best new hip hop artist), Rapsody (lyricist of the year), Roddy Ricch (album of the year), and Master P (‘I Am Hip Hop Award’). Before diving into the “Artist of the Year’ award, an award that some fans were upset over was the ‘Album of the Year’ award. Roddy Ricch’s “Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial” debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 101,000 album-equivalent units within the first week of its release. In regard to Lil Baby’s “My Turn”, the remaining 55,000 units of the album’s overall 1.467 million sum was from 31,000 albums sales and 25,000 in TEA units, and we can’t fail to mention that this album went double platinum. This award should’ve easily been Lil Baby’s.
The ‘Artist of the Year’ award was given to fan-favorite Megan thee Stallion, and with rapper Lil Baby falling short of that win many people feel as if he was snubbed for the award. Within this year alone Megan thee Stallion released her popular EP ‘Suga’ in March which includes favored tracks such as Captain Hook, Savage and B.I.T.C.H. Megan also has four tracks under her belt that peaked on either Billboard’s top ten or top five including Girls in the Hood (peaked at #5 in July), Savage (remix featuring Beyoncé) (peaked at #7 in August), WAP (peaked at #3 in September), and Don’t Stop (featuring Young Thug) (peaked at #1 this month). While this year Lil Baby has been on somewhat of a tear, his album ‘My Turn’ went double platinum and he’s also had four singles make it onto the Billboard top 100, one of them being The Bigger Picture (peaked at #3) which has to be one of the most played songs of the year thus far. With Lil Baby’s album going double platinum and still losing, fans are speculating that the award was given to Megan due to the shooting incident involving herself and Tory Lanez that took place back in early July.
Megan thee Stallion was listed in the category for a reason, but I personally think that Lil Baby should’ve taken that award home. Megan works hard and is amazing at what she does, but an award such as ‘Artist of the Year’ has to be given to an artist with major numbers behind them. Her singles reached both the top five and top ten on Billboard 100, but she doesn’t have a full body of work yet that’s done the numbers that Lil Baby’s “My Turn” has done. I’d love to see Megan release an album that pushes major numbers and maybe even earns her a Grammy, but as of right now she doesn’t have that.
