The True Blood season premiere and its assorted cast of supernatural creatures drew plenty of TV viewers last night. But hip-hop, R&B, and pop fans with less of a taste for blood and magical fairies were, instead, glued to the BET Awards 2011. Unsurprisingly, South Florida's biggest industry stars loomed large throughout the broadcast, whose theme seemed, unofficially, to be the Redemption of Chris Brown.
Not only did Brown perform onstage twice but he returned to the stage several more times to collect several awards, among them Best Male R&B Artist, Best Collaboration (for "Look at Me Now" with Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes), and the Viewers Choice Award.
Of course, Brown's performance of "Look at Me Now" contained a little bit of (adopted) South Florida flavor thanks to Weezy, but the magical Miami trio of Wayne, Rick Ross, and DJ Khaled were fixtures during the broadcast as well. They all performed live twice as well, including one turn with Drake for "I'm on One" and another with Broward native Ace Hood.
As for other noteworthy wins in the awards in general: Rihanna took Best Female R&B Artist, Nicki Minaj took Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, Wiz Khalifa took Best New Artist, and Diddy Dirty Money took Best Group. (Another fun South Florida fact is, of course, that Dirty Money's big hit, "Hello, Good Morning," was penned by Miami-based Rico Love.)
Lil Wayne, however, was ousted in the Best Male Hip-Hop Artist category by Kanye West -- fair enough -- and neither Ross, Khaled, or Hood picked up any actual wins. No matter, though, because they stole the show. Check out video of their performances below.
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