On instagram and as part of the conversation, BET International responded to the deepening backlash that this year’s International Act (Africa & UK) Awards were once again given to the winners backstage (see below)—by saying, the awards were not given backstage.
Interestingly, BET is just being technical and I wrote in my previous article that, “By back stage, it includes the shady pre-event recording which features African Acts each year.“
Giving out the International Act (Africa & UK) Awards in a near empty auditorium, many hours before the main event— is ‘BACKSTAGE in this discussion’. All we are saying is, these awards should also be part of the main event—therefore even if you decide to give it out on the plane, it wouldn’t be part of the main event and that would be disrespectful (classified as back stage, perhaps, they want us to say off stage).
What is the point in making these artistes fly for about 8-14 hours to LA, just to give them their awards separately, as though they have some contagious disease.
If genuinely BET is unable to give all the awards including that of the International Act (Africa & UK) on the main stage because of time constraints, then why don’t they run a rota on which awards get to be on the main stage and which does not?
