There were some inspired performances from Missy Elliott and Pharrell at the BET Awards Sunday night, a well as an unfortunate typo during Lionel Richie’s lifetime achievement award speech. But when Nicki Minaj won for best female hip-hop artist for the fifth year in a row, and her acceptance speech was striking not only for her shade-throwing, but her commentary on fame and equality:
“I thank god that I’ve been placed in a position to do something and represent women in a culture that is so male-driven, and I want you to know this... What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is, that when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it.”
That was likely a jab at Iggy Azalea, but Minaj went further with her commentary on fame, claiming that she was recently ill, and the thought of calling an ambulance and being caught by TMZ seemed like a fate worse than death:
“Like I was saying my prayers to die. And I didn’t even wanna call the ambulance because I thought, well, if I call the ambulance, it’s gonna be on TMZ. And I would rather sit there and die… and it made me realize, I don’t care anymore what anybody gotta say. I’m a do me.”
That’s a pretty real statement on tabloid culture. Could this be a call for dignity in the face of literal ambulance chasers?
Photo via Eva Rinaldi/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)