Last week, when the nominees for the 2011 BET Awards were announced, fans )and artists) were in an uproar when Trina and Keyshia Cole were seemingly snubbed by the network. The Miami rap star even publicly lashed out at BET, tweeting, “… f— BET.” Now, BET’s President, Stephen Hill, is opening up about the snubs, explaining that Trina and Cole simply didn’t meet the criteria this year.
In an interview with billboard.com’s The Juice, Hill explained that Trina didn’t receive a nomination for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist because she didn’t submit a video to the channel during their award eligibility period.
“Much to my dismay, we had a total of four artists who submitted videos during the eligibility period (April 1, 2010–March 31, 2011). We had four women submit videos where they were the leads, not as a feature but as a lead: Nicki Minaj, Diamond, Cymphonique and Lola Monroe. Since we usually have five people who are eligible in the category and we only had four people … it’s kind of easy math.
“I have reached out to Trina. I’ve tried to make a connection just so we can have a conversation. I want her to have the correct information. We all work together. We will be working together again. If Trina was eligible, I think we’d all agree that she would have been nominated.”
Hill also addressed Nicki Minaj, who tweeted “Looks @ nominations. Didn’t know it was April Fools… *waits for Trina’s name to appear before I take this seriously*,” after the nominees were released.
“I think she was giving a shout out to Trina, who I know she has a lot of respect for. I applaud that camaraderie. Trina also congratulated Diamond. You don’t ever want anyone saying ‘F’ BET,’ but if from that comes more camaraderie … then it’s all good.”
Besides Trina, Hill also discussed Cole’s snub, chalking it up to the fact that she was outvoted for a nomination in the category.
“This one’s a tough one. We simply had to go, as we always do, with the artists who got the most votes in that [best female R&B artist] category. The nominations consist of the artists that got the top votes in that category when put it to our voting academy. If there are six nominations in a category that means there was a tie.”
What do you think of Hill’s comments about the awards snubs? –nicholas robinson
