Last night, Bet awarded rapper Remy Ma with the best female hip-hop award. She won it and it has the social media talking. Some are ecstatic, some are upset, and some are even confused. Nicki’s Barbz are coming out and relieving her of any shame of embarrassment. Others celebrate in either Remy’s success or Nicki’s ‘failure'.
(Quite honestly, Nicki just broke Missy’s Elliots’s record and became the most awarded female rapper in history, so we can’t refer to a loss of a BET award as a failure).
Remy has amazing things as one of the modern female rappers and her career is just as valuable as any other rapper in the industry, but the industry may be using her feud for their very own gain.
BET can be seen as complicit in fueling the fire for this feud that exhibits a lack of unity of female rappers in the industry.
What's the BET Awards criteria?
In this case, Remy’s musical talents are not being put into question but according to BETs award criteria, Remy Ma is not the rightful winner of the award. In the past, the award has gone to the artist who has, for example, sold the most, charted highest, streamed most, and etc. However, this criterion was momentarily (or permanently) done away with for the 2017 BET Awards.
While the self-proclaimed ‘Degeneres’ Queen was unable to attend the award show she actually had the highest numbers out of the nominees which consisted of Cardi B, Remy Ma, and Young MA.
While BET may have abandoned their selection criteria for the winner, this decision brings into question what their intentions and objectives were for such an abrupt change in the academy’s criteria.
Feminism or Publicity
Supporting and uplifting women is important. However, the news that Remy Ma and husband Papoose are getting a television show on BET makes things even that more suspicious and shady.
It seems as if Remy and Nicki aren’t the only shady ones involved in this battle. Nonetheless, it is important to uplift women's hip hop as they are not properly represented and are consistently forced to be competitors in a way that men in the industry do not encounter. That leaves room for a veneer of feminism in BET's decisions
On the other side, this decision- or can we call it a publicity stunt?- was done in the midst of Remy and Nicki’s seemingly never ending beef.
This beef has been at the center of controversy since it first was revealed. Was BET in need of higher ratings and audiences? Did they snub Minaj’s success in exchange for views and possibly for Remy’s participation on the TV show? If not, it sure would seem so.
