The title "2013 BET Hip Hop Awards" is pretty telling here for sure because it includes the year when this came out, the music genre and the specific ceremony we have. Although calling it "2013 BET Hip Hop Concert" would have been more accurate, but I shall get to that later. First, the basics. This stays comfortable under the 1.5-hour mark at slightly over 85 minutes and this makes it a relatively short ceremony. Admittedly this number does not include commercials, so those who saw it live probably watched for almost two hours I suppose. The director is the eternal Glenn Weiss, probably the biggest award show director in television history and probably also the most prolific. But quantity does not always equal quality as I had to find out when watching the BET Awards 2020 earlier today. Terrible show sadly. This one here is better, no doubt about it. Not great either. I think my rating here is a bit biased because hip hop has never been my favorite genre I must say, so those who like it more than I do or even love it will probably give out more stars then the four I did. The host was Snoop Dogg and he is one I always find fairly funny and entertaining. I mean he even gets away with the idea of legalizing maijuana for me and I find it entertaining and that is an idea I totally do not support one bit. Snoop here and there got help from actor Kevin Hart and with this man's outfit you could certainly say that all eyes were on him. Watch if you wanna know what I mean by that. Back to Snoop, his little Obama parody sketch (also the name and Butler reference there especially) was alright and actually this show was from not too long before Trump took over. The Snoopify segment was okay as well. Overall, they could not really have found a better host. He was also not too often on the screen, which is one of the things that I mean by the word "essential" in the title of my review. Others would include the show's duration and that it really felt very focused on the music and nothing else. This little Obama spoof was really the only political inclusion and even that was very much tongue-in-cheek and how it should be and not the way it was in recent shows when Michelle Obama gets to hold speeches on music/entertainment awards show. Can only shake my head at that.
Nonetheless, there is one crucial issue with this show we got here. It is the same like for so many other (music) awards shows. It barely feels like an awards show anymore sadly. It is all about performance, we get one band/act after the other on stage and this is how the show is packed with. But there were like five awards max handed out. I am not sure if more were awarded without screen time, but it does not matter anyway. If so, then they should be shown during the broadcast and given the chance to make an acceotance speech. If not, then they should come up with more awards. Simple as that. If I want to see all these songs, I buy a concert DVD. This is also a reason why I have to take another two stars off, but it needs to be done. If you call it "Awards", you have to actually show awards being given out. One thing I liked more here (compared to the 2020 BET Awards edition) is that they did not really care about skin color. We have White artists nominated here (Action Bronson e.g.), we have White artists perform too. It seems about talent and that is exactly the right approach. On the earlier show, I saw not a single non-Black person for two hours I think. But back to this one here. Like several other times, there's also really many writers and that surprises me a bit, especially given the not too high running time. But yeah, it's not the first time this happened and probably also not the last time. One thing that came to my mind is that I felt by seeing Snoop, Busta (in the audience), Diddy and even Will Smith (in a little video) that they don't make hip hop stars anymore the way they did back then. Only one missing would have been 50 Cent. But that may just be my grumpy old self talking here this time. There's probably talented fellas from recent years out there too and I just don't recognize them because the genre is not doing too much for me. Actually, some of the on-stage performances weren't bad at all and actually not a single one was really horrible the way there were several during the 2020 BET Awards. Besides, 2013 is "only" seven years ago and the ones I just mentioned had already been in the industry for a decade, probably much longer, so they were really no spring chicken at that point anymore. But nice they got the attention anymore and, lik I said, Snoop Dogg is a riot every time anyway. Probably will still be in his mid-70s. Oh and Austrian Boris Kodjoe showing up in here was really surprising. Surprises are never bad. Final mention: It's also nice to see a somewhat deserving winner of the lifetime achievement award or whatever it is called here. Mc Lyte is one who went under the radar for many and maybe current hip hop fans barely have heard the name, but she is one that is a fairly good choice I would say. Still overall, mostly because it simply does not feel like an award show, I have to give the outcome here a thumbs-down. Not recommended unless you really, really dig rap music and hip hop culture. Otherwise, it won't turn you into a fan though. But at least it won't make you hate it either. That's all. My suggestion: Watch something else instead.
Nonetheless, there is one crucial issue with this show we got here. It is the same like for so many other (music) awards shows. It barely feels like an awards show anymore sadly. It is all about performance, we get one band/act after the other on stage and this is how the show is packed with. But there were like five awards max handed out. I am not sure if more were awarded without screen time, but it does not matter anyway. If so, then they should be shown during the broadcast and given the chance to make an acceotance speech. If not, then they should come up with more awards. Simple as that. If I want to see all these songs, I buy a concert DVD. This is also a reason why I have to take another two stars off, but it needs to be done. If you call it "Awards", you have to actually show awards being given out. One thing I liked more here (compared to the 2020 BET Awards edition) is that they did not really care about skin color. We have White artists nominated here (Action Bronson e.g.), we have White artists perform too. It seems about talent and that is exactly the right approach. On the earlier show, I saw not a single non-Black person for two hours I think. But back to this one here. Like several other times, there's also really many writers and that surprises me a bit, especially given the not too high running time. But yeah, it's not the first time this happened and probably also not the last time. One thing that came to my mind is that I felt by seeing Snoop, Busta (in the audience), Diddy and even Will Smith (in a little video) that they don't make hip hop stars anymore the way they did back then. Only one missing would have been 50 Cent. But that may just be my grumpy old self talking here this time. There's probably talented fellas from recent years out there too and I just don't recognize them because the genre is not doing too much for me. Actually, some of the on-stage performances weren't bad at all and actually not a single one was really horrible the way there were several during the 2020 BET Awards. Besides, 2013 is "only" seven years ago and the ones I just mentioned had already been in the industry for a decade, probably much longer, so they were really no spring chicken at that point anymore. But nice they got the attention anymore and, lik I said, Snoop Dogg is a riot every time anyway. Probably will still be in his mid-70s. Oh and Austrian Boris Kodjoe showing up in here was really surprising. Surprises are never bad. Final mention: It's also nice to see a somewhat deserving winner of the lifetime achievement award or whatever it is called here. Mc Lyte is one who went under the radar for many and maybe current hip hop fans barely have heard the name, but she is one that is a fairly good choice I would say. Still overall, mostly because it simply does not feel like an award show, I have to give the outcome here a thumbs-down. Not recommended unless you really, really dig rap music and hip hop culture. Otherwise, it won't turn you into a fan though. But at least it won't make you hate it either. That's all. My suggestion: Watch something else instead.
