Source: Popcrush.com

If you didn’t catch the BET Awards show last night, you truly missed out. That’s normally not the sentiment one feels after spending four hours watching the network, but yesterday BET showed that all of the viewers’ graveling over the past few years was well worth it because the folks behind the annual production definitely stepped their game up.

There were a few moments everybody anticipated before last night’s show like D’Angelo hitting the stage and an expected Whitney Houston tribute, but both were better than anyone imagined (although the bar was already set pretty low). Mr. Brown Sugar took us back to his “Untitled” Days, performing “How Does it Feel” and Mariah Carey hit the stage to introduce the Whitney Houston tribute and talk about their friendship, followed by performances from Monica, who took us straight to church, Brandy, Chaka Khan, and Cissy Houston, who amazingly belted out “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” in memory of her daughter.

BET got the Maze and Frankie Beverly tribute right too, with Joe, Tyrese, and Faith Evans singing  a few tunes before the band hit the stage themselves. Kanye also opened up the show with his G.O.O.D Music, “Lamborghini Mercy” crew, Yolanda Adams and Amber Bullock tore up the Gospel Sundays segment, and Chris Brown only lip synched through half of his performance. All in all, this year’s festivities were a major improvement over previous years.

Check out all of the performances from the night right here. Which was your fav?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Source: idolator.com

Despite the fact that Ri-Ri pissed off folks at “Saturday Night Live” by missing her final dress rehearsal for the show over the weekend, homegirl still brought the sex and the swag to the stage as the musical performer (Eli Manning was the host) on the popular weekly show. The singer called in sick, but some cast members called bull saying that during the show she looked perfectly fine. In the end, she didn’t sweat when the heat was thrown on her. Instead, she danced in little pants and slapped her crotch while performing a mash up of “Cake” and “Talk That Talk” during her first set of the night. And while she looked great, I’m sorry, but homegirl sounded very shaky. Maybe she was sick after all, and if she wasn’t she might want to stick to that excuse…

But in the second performance of “Where Have You Been,” she showed off some slick choreography and sounded much better. That one we were actually grooving to. But you check out both performances below and let us know what you think. Awesome or awful?

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Source: stupiddope.com

In 2006, Cassie performed her hit song at the time, “Me & U” for the young crowd. During that performance, she was off-key, seemed stiff, and was basically a hot a** mess that proved to all those watching that singing was not really something she was very good at…

Fast forward to 2012, and the model/singer/Diddy’s alleged paramour returned to “106 & Park” to perform her newest hit, “King of Hearts.” This time around, she sounded pretty good (though some called foul for auto-tune…), and the dance moves were 10 times better. I was pretty entertained at the performance, which also included her singing to the remix of the track done by Kanye West (which I believe is better than the original). But you check out the performance, as well as the horrid one from 2006, and let us know what you think.
   

And here’s the 2006 performance…(*severe side eye*) It’s clear that she’s improved greatly.

And Ashanti also hit up “Live! With Kelly” to perform her song, “The Woman You Love.” Surprisingly, folks (Mario Lopez actually) still call her the “Princess of Hip Hop and R&B.” But anywho, she wore leather shorts and a leather jacket to sing the track for the crowd, and it seems she’s still doing a lot of yelling. But this time, I might have to blame her band for that (they were loud as hell and were off, which was throwing her vocals off). It wasn’t a bad performance though, just okay at this point…but what do you think? Check her out and let us know: 

 What do you think?

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Music time!

Folks are all over the place performing and filming music videos. Rihanna and Drake, who would still make an adorable couple in my opinion, just released a preview of their video for the song, “Take Care.” The actual premiere of the video in its entirety isn’t until tonight, around 7:56 p.m. EST on MTV. The video seems a lot darker and more stripped than their last video together, “What’s My Name,” so I guess we’re going to see a softer side of the two. On top of that, Nicki did “Starships” for the “TODAY” show, Jennifer Lopez dropped a new video for her track with Pitbull called “Dance Again,” and new Roc Nation starlet Rita Ora finally released a video. The song is featuring UK rapper Tinie Tempah and is called “R.I.P.” Anywho, you tell us if you’re feeling them. Enjoy!

Nicki:

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J.Lo

Rihanna and Drake (excuse Sway who is all up and through the beginning of the short clip…):

Rita Ora:

Are these songs a pass or play for you?

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If you were too busy trying to find a television to watch the Academy Awards on last night like we were, and could only flip to the NBA All-Star Game on TNT occasionally, you may or may have not missed Nicki Minaj open the game. Going through about four songs (“Spaceships,” “Super Bass,” “Moment 4 Life” and “Turn Me On”), she presented both the team’s rosters and in the midst of all that, was able to change wigs (from a colorful neon yellow/green to a purple short wig) and throw on a “Queen” ring with her skintight white and sparkly gray ensemble. The second set of performances for the West team were a lot better than the first for the East in my opinion. The “Spaceships” song just doesn’t float my boat, but “Moment 4 Life” always gets everyone pretty hype. But somebody needs to buy her auto-tune because her singing voice live is like cats screaming at the sight of a bathtub…

And our girl Mary J. Blige (see the last video) helped get the game started by singing the Star Spangled Banner. LOVE, love, love her, but a lot of people thought she overdid it with her rendition and I can agree a little bit. There were a few notes that she over-reached on that made you bring your shoulders up in surprise (like cold water being thrown on you). However, the rest of the performance was pretty good. And may I add that she looked oh-so fabulous!?

But per the usual, you be the judge of the performances and let us know who killed it and who needed to just stop:

PS, the West won…

And now for the West performance…

And as for Mary…

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