(All Hip Hop News) – With The BET Awards set to air live tonight from the LA Convention Center in Los Angeles, the whole LA Live complex has been alive with Black entertainment glitterati, Hip-Hop fans, too many folks selling bootleg paraphernalia and a noticeably increased LAPD presence this entire weekend.
Indeed, save the beefed up but respectful police presence, it has been a packed in, but festive down home party atmosphere.
For those who were lucky or connected enough to score entry, there have been BET themed pre-parties galore – hosted by the likes of Snoop Dogg and The Game to name a few.
However, all of these goodies notwithstanding, the unspoken murmur on the ground among veterans of the BET awards is a concern about enough set pieces of a certain caliber and interest to balance the highly anticipated Prince tribute.
When it comes to tonight’s tribute, BET has a lot of pressure to get things right.
What comes to mind is the 2016 Billboard Music Awards Prince tribute, which many rightly found to be a bit too Madonna centric versus being a true Prince memorial.
However, if Billboard messed the bed in doing their tribute, Prince was not one of their own. If BET fails in attempting the same task – well that’s a really bad sign of the times, to be sure.
As such, it’s a considerable balancing act this year to get the tribute right and also make sure that the other set pieces not involving Prince are up to par.
In addition to these concerns expressed on the DL by artists and their various entourages – likely in connection to the financial expenditure funneled into the Prince tribute – some VIPs felt a bit slighted when they received one ticket versus the usual two for all of the necessary industry events around town.
So the pressure is on for BET.
With this undercurrent, it should be interesting to see tonight, once all of the purple business is said and done, if the whole show turns out to be a glamorous hit or a disappointing miss.