Even though I did not receive any reply from BET concerning my open letter to them dated—15th May, 2013, they seem to have read it and have done exactly what I asked for. I made sure it reached someone out there…
Over the years, Africa’s only award (Best International Act) has been handed to us back stage—very unpleasant and disrespectful.
I therefore took sometime out before this year’s BET Awards to write an open letter to them titled-Open Letter To BET…Can Africa Receive This Year’s Award On Your Main Stage Too?
In the letter, I made Africa’s displeasure known to them and kindly requested that they give us the deserving shine by giving our ONLY award to us on stage this year.
I followed my request with this;
“If you do not give our talents the respect and recognition they deserve on your main stage this year, count us out of your subsequent events.
We will just speak to our ‘Chinese brothers’ who are exploiting us down here to help us start our own version of BET Awards, and we will call it rBET Awards…The ‘r’ means REAL!
And you know how good these guys are!”
I am happy to let you guys know that, they probably read my letter and decided to act accordingly. Even if they did not do so based on my letter, I am still happen it has happened—-Africa’s award was given on stage too.
Check out my letter below (originally published on 15th May, 2013 at HERE)
Open Letter To BET…Can Africa Receive This Year’s Award On Your Main Stage Too?
Hello BET,
Africa is once again excited about the fact that you have decided to maintain our only slot in your numerous award categories—Best International Act (Africa).
Though we wish we had more than one category as we have far number of black people on our continent than America or Europe, we still think half a loaf is better than none.
I am not sure if the meaning of BET-Black Entertainment Television has changed yet. If it has not, won’t it be prudent to make sure you embrace the continent with the highest number of black people?
Oh no! I just remembered…You are business and you are more interested in profit than anything else…
Since African-Americans ‘pose’ to have greater purchasing power than those of us down here in Africa, I guess you will continue to fill them up in all the categories—and just sprinkle us over things so to create that sort of disproportionate sense of balance…Right?
Anyway, what will happen if you give the only category you have assigned to us a stage presentation during this year’s award ceremony?
Look, we may not have electricity all the time to watch television down here in Africa but last year, most of us rushed to the homes of the few people who could afford generators in order to be able to watch our Africa brothers walk up your stage to collect their plaques. But you failed to even mention their names on stage, let alone walk up there.
Even though we couldn’t understand the ‘fast English’ your people kept speaking, we endured the pain, hoping the sight of our brothers who travelled all the way to your far-away country would be worth the hustle.
Can you imagine how disappointed some of us were when we could not see our brothers on TV after walking nearly 2 miles just to have access to a television?
Come on, you couldn’t give the whole ‘continent of Africa’ just 2 minutes of your air time?
As I intentionally mentioned above, Africa is a continent and we will appreciate if you treat Africa as such. The last time I ‘confused’ a Ghanaian for Nigerian, I nearly got a slap…
We are not enemies but we are all unique in our own ways. Why do you continue to give two of our brothers the same award? Even if you wanted to do this with us, why didn’t you use Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj for the pilot project?
Despite the fact that 10 of our beautiful women can peacefully share one ‘ugly’ man, we like elitism and we would be grateful if you appreciate our talents independently.
We love to brag and you are not making this happen. How can Ghanaians ‘show off’ and make Nigerians ‘feel small’ when you gave Sarkodie and Wizkid the same award?
Did you think they were twins? One likes Eba and the other loves Kenkey…
If you do not give our talents the respect and recognition they deserve on your main stage this year, count us out of your subsequent events.
We will just speak to our ‘Chinese brothers’ who are exploiting us down here to help us start our own version of BET Awards, and we will call it rBET Awards…The ‘r’ means REAL!
And you know how good these guys are!
I hope I will not have to write to you again next year…All the best and remember Africa is one big continent, not a country.
Thank You.
Check out Ice Prince Receiving His BET Awards On Stage
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDp6xXpJ2lU
Now that’s what i call love Ice Prince giving shout out To R2bees and the rest
THATS GOOD TO KNOW…. CONGRATS TO ICE PRINCE AND THE OTHER NOMINATED ARTISTES.
IF YOU ASK ME, I WILL SAY THERE IS NOT EVEN A THING PORTRAYING AFRICA ON ALL THOSE AFRICAN ARTISTES APART FROM THE KENTE I SEE
YOU FAKE YOUR ACCENTS, YOU COPY THIER LIFESTYLES, SO WHAT IS THERE TO SHOW THE WORLD ABOUT AFRICA!?!?!
Lol, don’t know if they did this b/cos of ur letter or not but all the same thanks for saying something at all.
they did ?? live ?? whern ?? cos i watched the show too and as far as im concerned twitter was fuming cos the award wasnt presented during the live show so pls which BET awards are you talking about ? this one NA LIE
they did ?? live ?? whern ?? cos i watched the show too and as far as im concerned twitter was fuming cos the award wasnt presented during the live show so pls which BET awards are you talking about ? this one NA LIE R2Bees didnt even make it ontime and were not allowed to the show so please what koraa are you talking about?
they did ?? live ?? when ?? cos i watched the show too and as far as i’m concerned twitter was fuming cos the award wasn’t presented during the live show so pls which BET awards are you talking about ? this one NA LIE R2Bees didn’t even make it on time and were not allowed to the show so please what koraa are you talking about?
@na lie, they didn’t make it on time, neither where they allowed but yet they where on stage. See Your Life You just engaged in buffoonery. Reevaluate your perspective and reflect upon your stupidity.
@Miyagi Oheneba Atopahene where do you live ?? try watching previous clips and see how they present the awards come on man i watched the live show and it wasnt presented live. you insulting me is what i dont understand cos i didnt insult anybody. the winner of the awards was all over blogs 5mins into the show. if it was gonna be presented why didnt they leave deir fans to guess ? who koraa presented the award?? pls lemme know cos unless my tv skipped that part im sure it wasnt done live wai
@na lie, in your previous comment you wrote “R2Bees didn’t even make it on time and were not allowed to the show so please ” my question to you is where you there? But yet it shows that they where on stage so how do you explain that? By the way I’m in the UK
@Miyagi Oheneba Atopahene, Do not mind that fool.he thinks they show all the awards from opening prayer to closing prayer on live tv? Seriously? The TV networks have production teams that show what they want to show.
The article is about them being presented with the award on stage. So if the TV station you watched did not show it, what is it got to do with anything?
Chris I think asked for our awards to be given to us on stage and this they did, if you want send your Nigeria TV or GTV out there to capture the awards too. Whatever TV station you watched has the right to show what they want and what they do not want. Can’t you even see the video?
@James, thank you James thumps up
Ice prince recieved the award with grace.. I love the way he brought up the other nominees.. Such grace.. Thats a true artist, not afraid of sharing the Spotlight!! Big improvemenr from last year!
They really did give the Award live, but it must have been during a commercial break for us viewers at home or something cs I personally didn’t see them presenting it either & yes R2bees was kinda late to the event cs they never did red carpet according to what I watched, but they still made it in the auditorium regardless.
They really did give the Award live, but it must have been during a commercial break for us viewers at home or something because I personally didn’t see them presenting it either & yes R2bees was somehow late to the event because they never did red carpet according to what I watched, but they still made it in the auditorium regardless.
lol..africans…we dey be keke
glad that happened but Chris I don’t think it was your letter that made them do it, they finally realized what disrespect that was. How come I didn’t see it on live TV